Let's Dance - Songs of my Youth Volume 1

by editor Michele Catalano

[I will occasionally be visiting the 45s of my childhood. This is the first installment.]

Earth angel, Earth angel

Will you be mine

My darling dear, love you all the time

It’s early July 1970. This song drifts out of the kitchen speakers, through the open door, into the front yard where my younger sister and I are playing while we wait for our father to get home from work. It’s almost 7 p.m. He should be home soon. The summer sun beats down on us, which makes it seem much earlier than it is. I never could get used to it being light out so close to bedtime.

When my mother listens to her music, the whole neighborhood unwillingly listens in. She likes her music loud and likes to sing along. Sometimes it’s Pink Floyd, sometimes Jesus Christ, Superstar, but most of the time it is WCBS-FM, a station that plays all oldies, all the time. Lots of doo-wop, lots of ballads, so much Elvis. Tonight, I will my father to hurry up and get home right now because his favorite song, “Earth Angel,” is playing, and he always dances with my mother when it’s on. 

The only thing I loved more than dancing with my father was when I got to watch mom and dad swing around the kitchen to dad’s favorite song. Occasionally, he would swoop me up and I’d put my toes on his feet, and we’d stomp around and laugh at our silly little dance. But when my mother and father danced together, I felt that life was wonderful, and it would always be this way.

My father pulls up in his blue Impala convertible just as “Earth Angel” is about to end. I run up to the driveway to greet him and practically propel him onto the lawn, so he can dance with me and my sister to the end of the song. The poor guy just sat in traffic from Brooklyn to Long Island, and I barely let him stretch his legs because “our” song is on. Mom comes outside with the baby and watches us. He smells like smoke; not cigarette smoke, not burning leaves smoke, but a smell I knew only from him. It is the smell of a burning building, of soot and ashes and devastation and loss.

I realized the gravity of what my father did for a living when I was very young. I knew he went into burning buildings. Sometimes he would come home and tell us about his day fighting fires, but sometimes he would say nothing at all about fires at all. He’d just talk about what they made for lunch in the firehouse, and that’s when I knew not to ask. I understood there was risk involved in his job. More than once I heard my grandma say that she prayed every day that dad would not die at work, and that scared the shit out of me. Every time he pulled up after work, I would exhale as if I’d been holding my breath all day.

I grew to love that smell, even though I knew where it came from, what it stood for. I associate it with my father, with him coming home to safety from a dangerous job, with “Earth Angel” and dancing on the lawn.

This night, as he gets home just in time to dance with us, feels special. A few early bird fireflies flitter around my sister and me as we chase each other around, while the baby sits in the grass squealing in delight at us. I am seven months away from turning eight, and I recognize that what I’m feeling is happiness. I hold onto this feeling. I take it to bed with me. Before I fall asleep, I thank God for my family and for bringing my dad home to me once again. I sing “Earth Angel” to myself until I fall asleep.

***

In the still of the night

I held you

Held you tight

It’s three years later. I’m almost 10, and while I feel like being in double digits makes me cool and almost a teenager, I’m pretty insecure and unsure of myself. I don’t make a lot of friends, but that’s okay. I have my cousins and my sisters, and family is all I need.

We are hosting a party. My parents host a lot of parties. It feels as if there are always people over our house. Whether it’s my dad’s friends from the local volunteer firehouse or his friends from the Bushwick firehouse, the party always revolves around him. Everyone wants to be his friend. They clap him on the back, they shake his hand, they hug him. He is gregarious, funny, and genuine. He opens our home often, and the people flock to him, drink weird concoctions like Brandy Alexanders, and eat finger foods that will years later appear in “can you believe they ate this?” articles.

WCBS-FM is playing. We are mid-party, almost time for my mother to escort us into our bedrooms. Most of the party is up on the deck. The kids are on the grass, chasing fireflies. It’s dark now, way past my bedtime, and, while I’m very ready for bed, I also want to stay just to watch the grown-ups get louder and sillier, as they often do. I want to watch them have fun and be happy, then dream about being older and having parties of my own.

“In the Still of the Night” comes on, and everyone stops talking, as if a magic spell has come over the yard. Couples pair off and start dancing on the deck; that slow, nearly motionless dance where you lean on each other and sway in time to the music. I spot my parents dancing, my mother’s head tilted back a bit. My father whispers something in her ear, and she smiles at him. She has a very beautiful smile. I take a snapshot of this moment in my mind. My heart feels warm and comforted. I feel happy.

I don’t remember what song I danced to with my father at my first wedding. I do remember telling him I was going to be okay because I knew he was worried about me. He was worried about me in the same way I worried about him coming home safely every night. He just wanted me to be safe and loved. I do remember leaning my head on his shoulder and wishing that I could smell that acrid smoke one more time, that I could go back to the days of having to stand on his feet to dance with him. And I do remember that the DJ played “Earth Angel,” and I watched my mom and dad sway on the dance floor, and I cried.

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