This past weekend was Valentine’s Day, and that meant a night out with Sammy, Boyce, and Charlotte. Ever since the last time I saw Rachel, Sammy and Boyce have taken me out to karaoke on Valentine’s Day. That doesn’t mean I ever spent a Valentine’s Day with Rachel. I did once see her through a restaurant window making a toast with some of her girlfriends, but I never got to spend the evening with her. She would, however, send me inappropriate Valentine cards. Once she found a box of old Valentines at a garage sale that had Heckle and Jeckle on them. She was always tickled by those magpies, and she sent me one of them that year. She wrote in it, “How do you tell the difference between Heckle and Jeckle?” The answer, at the bottom of the card, was “Jeckle is more chewy.” It’s not often you find a woman willing to joke about ingesting humanoid cartoon birds, especially when those birds are holding hearts that say “Be Mine.” Oh, Rachel.
We invited Charlotte to come with us to the sushi bar where the karaoke was going on. Charlotte likes karaoke and besides she always gives up her Valentine’s Day with Boyce. Charlotte never sings, though. Instead, on her blank sheet music she quickly writes the notes of the songs people are singing. When she goes karaoking, she brings the folder of all the previous songs she’s transcribed. Then she gets out some new sheets and goes to work. This weekend though Charlotte got frustrated quickly because people were singing the songs she had already done notation for. Boyce was proud of her when she said, a little too loudly, “Oh, no one has ever sung this song before,” when a few mildly drunk, unfunny women got up to sing “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.” After a few more ordinary karaoke song choices, Charlotte gave up. She packed up her sheet music, kissed Boyce, and took his van home. We said we’d get a cab.
As the night went on and we sang a few songs, something odd happened. Generally, everyone likes Sammy and Sammy likes everyone. He generally finds something redeeming in people. Once when we were in high school, I was watching the local news with Sammy and his family. They put up a mug shot of a serial rapist, and Sammy said, “Piercing eyes. Truly.” Even when Sammy hid homemade brochures for the North American Man-Boy Love Association in Dr. Keegman’s office, he did it more out of a lovable anarchy than any dislike for the man.
During the course of karaoke, however, it became clear that Sammy despised the karaoke DJ. I don’t think it was the man’s on-purpose-messy hair or his tiny pony tail, or even the sport coat with the ironic t-shirt underneath. It was really the fact that Sammy kept getting his turn skipped. Boyce and I sang two duets (“Making Love Out of Nothing at All” and “Islands in the Stream”) while Sammy sat and petulantly nursed his drink. We figured the only way Sammy was going to get up there was a trio, so under Boyce’s name we put in a song.
There are two emotions we want to create in a karaoke crowd. The first is joy. We sing songs to make the people stuffing their faces with uncooked fish and barley feel happiness. But toward the end of the evening, as the pitchers run out and the deep-seated bitterness begins to rise in my belly, I long to make the crowd feel naked alienation. For instance, we might sing Billy Joel’s “Uptown Girl” at the beginning of the evening, but by the end I clamor to sing, “Silent Night.” Nothing brings down the house like singing “Silent Night,” though songs about abortion and suicide work, too. Rachel always thought it was poignant that “Silent Night” did the same thing to a karaoke crowd that “Hurt” did. But once she saw me make people at the sushi bar angry and uncomfortable with “Silent Night” she just laughed hysterically and said I was brilliant.
This weekend, once we hit the alienation stage of the night (and Sammy was definitely wanting to alienate the DJ), we went for a trio with the song “Skimbleshanks: The Railway Cat” from the musical Cats. Sammy came said he’d take lead. He sang the entire time staring directly at the DJ. When the song ended Sammy stayed on the stage and started singing, “Once…there was the kid who got into an accident and couldn’t go to school,” because the song he wanted to sing all night was by the Crash Test Dummies. Then he “accidentally” dropped the mike and walked past the DJ. When the DJ turned around and watched him, Sammy made an obscene gesture, and said, “Mmmmmm mmmmmmm mmmmm mmmmmm,” like in the song.
I was sorry Sammy’s night was ruined, but by the time we got a cab he was smiling. Even though he tries to like everyone, I think Sammy’s thrilled he has a nemesis. We don’t know his name though, so Sammy calls him Kip DeJigaboo, for Karaoke Disc Jockey. I was going to call the sushi bar to get the guy’s name, but Kip DeJigaboo is better than whatever it really is.
