When Pavarotti Cried

My most embarrassing moment has to do with the one time that music did not help me. When I was in 6th grade, schools were being integrated. I was bused from my community school into another neighborhood to attend a predominantly white school. It was the beginning of years of being bullied. Every day I had to get through the “back of the bus girls. “The back of the bus girls were girls" were older than me with long nails whose sole purpose was to terrorize the younger kids. There were two girls, called the “Bully Bruno Twins”. Their names were Bertha and Bonita Bruno. They were big girls who should have been in sixth grade but were in third grade because they got left back three times. The embarrassment of sitting in a classroom with third graders made them mean and for some reason they loved to bully me.

One Monday morning on the bus the Bully Bruno Twins sat in the seat in front of me. I had decided that if they started bothering me again, I was going to start to act crazy by singing a song to throw them off. Bertha Bruno was about to slap me when I broke out in the song, Everybody Plays a Fool by the Main Ingredient. I just knew they were going to pick up on the fact that I was calling them both fools in song so I braced myself to get hit but to my surprise the other twin hearing my song said “Wow you've really got a nice voice” and with that they both turned around in their seats and left me alone. This was the first time that I realized that I could sing and that singing would see me through many difficult times.

Throughout the years I would have more experiences where singing helped me through my shyness or other awkward predicaments. One time when I was on vacation with a friend in the Bahamas and almost out of money. my friend signed me up for a talent contest which had a grand prize of $250. I sang Summertime from the show Porgy and Bess. The announcer said, “I don’t know what she was singing but she sure sounded good and handed me over the prize money to my friend’s sheer delight who was hoping to get dinner out of the deal. I began to sing everywhere including, church, musical theaters, glee clubs, and at open mike nights at clubs like Smalls Paradise in Harlem and at the Ye Old Tiple Inn where I celebrated my 18th birthday by singing God Bless the Child. Many times, I would enjoy standing ovations and accolades and it was the one thing that made me feel special. Singing was something I could always count on until that fateful day.

So here goes, my most embarrassing and humiliating moment of all time which taught me not to take for granted my gift of singing or to ever get overly confident or cocky. When I started college, I became friends with a girl named Angelita Anderson whose father was a well-known and beloved High School Music teacher. On several occasions I went to her house to meet her parents and her older brother Paul and Angelita had be sing for her parents. We were all getting very friendly. Paul had even taken me out on a date with a promise of more to come. One day Angelita’s father and mother excitedly told me that they were renewing their vows and they would love if I would sing Ave Maria at the ceremony. Angelita’s dad went on to tell me how much he LOVED hearing the Italian opera singer Luciano Pavarotti sing the song as it always brought them both to tears. I of course was so flattered to be asked that I immediately agreed to sing the song for their renewal ceremony. I was familiar with the song, but I had never sung it before. But I thought to myself, Afterall I am a pro, how hard could it be to learn? Besides, I was the Queen of winging it.

I reached out to our Minister of Music from my church who was classically trained and asked him to record the song on a cassette tape. It was my intention to rehearse with him, but you know how things go and before I knew it the day of the wedding. Since it was a two-hour drive to the church, I thought I would have a solid two hours to listen to the tape and practice. As I pulled onto the Southern State Parkway headed for Central Islip, Long Island I grabbed the cassette tape from my bag and put it into the car stereo. I was all ready to begin rehearsing when the music began playing. The cassette got as far as the Ave Ma and stopped not completing the ria to the Maria. All of a sudden, I started to hear,

I said-a hip, hop, the hippie, the hippie

To the hip hip hop-a you don't stop the rock

It to the bang-bang boogie, say up jump the boogie

To the rhythm of the boogie, the beat

I don’t know when I started screaming or what the drivers in the other lanes were seeing as I desperately tried to play the tape over and over again at different spots to find Luciano’s Ave Maria, but somehow Maria had gotten replaced by Rappers Delight by the Sugar Hill Gang. More than likely my little brother, Chris, an aspiring DJ whose Rap name was Lucy C was the culprit. He was always looking for tapes to play his DJ music or record his raps.

As I drew closer to the church the beads of sweat started forming on my brow. I went into the church and sat down in the first pew on the far left near the piano. Paul came over to hug me. Like his Dad he was also a musician and he was going to accompany me on the organ. Before I could even ask him if he had a copy of the sheet music, he quickly ran upstairs to the balcony where the organ was housed. I tried to think of all kinds of scenarios that could help me avoid this inevitable humiliation. Perhaps I could faint or run out the church claiming an emergency but both options would really ruin the wedding. What made it worst was that they were Catholic, and the Italian priest more than likely knew the words to Ave Maria.

It was time for the ceremony to begin. The priest came out. Angelita smiled at me as did her parents. Paul sat prepared on the organ stool with his hands ready to play. It was my turn to sing. I slowly got up like a prisoner going to the guillotine. I kept my eye on the exit door of the church to keep that option open and looked around on the floor to see where I could faint without cracking my head open. Paul started playing, as my heart was pounding like a jack hammer on steroids, and nothing came out of my mouth. He looked at me and then started to begin the song again. I slowly opened my mouth to sing the only part of Ave Maria that I knew by heart which WAS Ave Maria. I held the note for as long as I could. I started praying in my head, “Oh God help me. Please take me now. Just open those pearly gates up and let me in. I’ll go up or down just get me out of this situation.” I did the only thing I knew to do when I finished the two words of the song I knew, I made up some unintelligible words that sounded like a cross between Pig Latin and the ancient Coptic.language I might had gotten away with it if I had sung that part very softly but now in my panic, I had absolutely forgotten the tune other than the Ave Maria part. I cannot tell you exactly what came out of my mouth but it sounded something like, “Etu, baba, eque poo.” I saw Paul up in the balcony looking totally confused while he furiously kept flipping the sheet music to see if he was missing something. After a few rounds of “Etu, baba, eque, poo, I knew that Mary had gone looking for Jesus shaking her head and the Arc Angel Gabriel threw down his horn while the other angels put their wings over their faces. I stood prepared for the gates of hell to open up and suck me down into a fiery pit. Finally, Paul mercifully got to the refrain, Ave Maria. I tried to make those five syllables sound as beautiful as I could while at the same time trying to stop the heat and redness from rising onto my face. I sang the last note, and slowly slid back into my seat with my head down as if I was so overcome by emotion that I had to pray. When the ceremony was over, I quickly gathered my things and made a beeline for the church exit. The priest was at the door saying goodbye to guests and I tried to sneak by him, but he stopped me and said, “My Dear, that was the most interesting rendition of Ave Maria I have ever heard.” I, responded, “Yes, Father. It was the remix” and with that I kept walking and got into my car. I did not go to the reception, greet the family, or look for a piece of wedding cake. I put the car in gear and got out of there. I never saw the Angelita and her family again and surprisingly Paul never called me back for a second date.

Meanwhile at the same exact time somewhere in Italy, Luciano Pavarotti was about to go on the stage to sing when he began to weep uncontrollably. He had no idea why he was crying but all he knew is that he sensed it had something to do with the defiling of the song Ave Maria.