The Talent Show

“Daddy?”

“Yes Pumpkin?”

“Did you know Robert Marlon?”

I sat up. “Who?”

She gave me the Popeye look she’d given Sr. Mary Tamika recently. “Robert Marlon. The guy who sang ‘I Shot the Sheriff?’”

It took a moment to register. “Oh! You mean Bob Marley, Baby. Yes. I have a lot of his music. Why do you call him Robert?”

“I hate nicknames. His mother named him Robert, Robert sounds more grown up than ‘Bob’.”

“Hmmm…coming from someone who responds daily to ‘Scoompi’…”

She waved her hands at the air. “If you have a stupid name like ‘Alexandra’, you take whatever comes your way. But if you are named ‘Robert’, ‘Bob’ sounds stupid.”

“Mmm hmmm…we’re just getting all into world music today, aren’t we Hon?”

She ignored me. “Anyway, Robert Marlon…”

“Marley, Baby…”

“Robert Whosis sang about people that were kicked around by the people in charge…”

“And made himself very rich in the process, thus becoming one of the people in charge…So much easier to do the kicking when you can afford expensive boots…”

“No, he was a sufferah…”

“Hard to suffer with a big house a BMW and a lot of women.”

“What do women have anything to do with it? Anyway, I learned that people can use music to make people act fair.”

That was a warning sign, but I completely ignored it. When your child arrives at logical point “B” from logical point “A”, as a parent, you are too overwhelmed with pride to catch a conspiracy in the making. Well, fathers are too overwhelmed. Mothers tend to see through the smoke and ask, “What’s burning?”

“The school talent show is coming up,” she said slowly.

“OK.” I was ready to get back to my research. Providing for a family meant a man had to constantly explore new sources of revenue. This casino thing was looking better than selling newspapers out of the back of my car. Academia had its benefits, but a seven figure income was not one of them. As someone saving for my own kids’ education, I was sure the money universities charged for tuition versus what it paid professors was the result of some kind of fuzzy math.

“I think I want to be in it…”

“Um hmmm…”

“So I have your permission?”

“What’s that Baby? Oh, yeah. Hey, bring Daddy a glass of Ice tea. No sugar.”

When she returned, there was a paper in her hand.

“Here is the talent show permission slip. Sign here.”

I mumbled, “Thanks,” took the tea, and scribbled my autograph.

“Hey, Baby?” She was headed back up the stairs.

“Yuh huh?”

“What did I just sign?”

“Something for school, Daddy.”

I grew alert. “Was it your report card?”

“No, Daddy.”

“Oh, OK. Carry on Love.”

Office hours were wrapping up the next day when the department secretary buzzed me. “Your wife on line one, Doc.”

“Hey!” I liked talking to my wife. Except when I was in trouble. I’d been pretty good lately.

“Hey, Honey, um, did you sign the baby up for the school talent show?”

Did I?

“Um, yeah, I think so.”

“So, you read the form?”

Trick question? Like the time I bought a car and was asked later, “Honey, did you ASK what the payment was?” I really liked that car.

When confronted, play dead. I saw that in a movie once.

“Honey?”

Tar baby sit an’ don’t say nuthin’…

Cough a bit so they know the line is still open.

“You are aware you gave permission for your eight year old daughter to sing a song encouraging the students to revolt against, let me see, “their religious oppressors”, which is, surprisingly, spelled correctly…I digress. You agreed to let your child sign a song advocating the overthrow of the school administration?”

“Damn,” I said in a clear, strong voice. “That school sure is teaching those kids how to speak up for themselves.”

“Your girlfriend, Sr. Mary Tamika, called me, and sweetly suggested, after assuring me our darling child had a nice, extended time out and was writing ‘I will not dupe my brilliant father’ a number of times, this young lady read a poetry selection at the show. I agree.”

“Yeah, grilled chicken for supper sounds lovely.”

“You will be working on this with her in the evenings, I take it?”

“I’m not sure it is fair to make her participate in an optional activity, Hon, if we are going to tell her what she has to say and do. That isn’t stoking her creative spirit at all.”

“I’ll let you read the lyrics to the song she wrote when you get in. Love you.”

I was at home, my child standing in front of me, as I recited words from a piece of paper I held in my right hand.

“…our principal, he’s no prince and he’s no pal, if he’s unhappy, oh well…we don’t have to deal with them being snooty, just fire the nun with the real big booty…and if Fr. Mike don’t take our side, well, he can join Sr. Mary Tamika on a long ride…now you see the light…kids, stand up for your rights…Get up, Stand Up…Stand up for your rights…get up stand up…kids get up and fight…”

“Well?” My wife’s foot was tapping.

“Well, there are definitely some plagiarism issues…”

“Artistic license,” Scoompi piped up. “I’m redoing a famous song.”

“Um…”

“Young lady, that is downright disrespectful,” the missus started. I tuned out. I’d heard this litany before. I waited until I saw Scoompi grab her behind like it was on fire and run upstairs.

So when it was said and done, Scoompi wound up practicing some poem about phenomenal women by some famous poet I think I heard of. Both Sr. Mary Tamika and my wife thought it was proper and fitting, a first in itself. The fact those two agreed on something, that is. I had to listen to her recite it every night. It made me sleepy.

As the competition neared, I noticed my baby girl was spending more time in her room, playing with the karaoke machine she received for her past birthday. Never in my life did I tire of hearing Bob Marley more than that last week. The weekend before the show, Scooter had K.O and some of his crew in for a sleepover. Usually Scoompi avoided them after destroying them at video games. I was dozing on the couch when I heard her demand an audience with her brother and his friends.

Nosy parenting is good parenting. I made myself an iced tea and listened at the ventilator grill.

“You bums OWE me!”

“Scoompi, we’ll get expelled…”

“They can’t expel who they don’t see…I’ll take the heat…I just need you pantywaists to do the background…”

“Talent shows are dumb anyway…just forget it…”

“It’s me or her, K.O. What about taking a stand? Look,” I heard menace in my voice, “I got enough dirt on everyone in this room…”

“I won’t be able to sit for a week if I get in trouble at school…”

Oh, they must be discussing recess or something. I went back to the sofa and started my nap again.

“Daddy?”

“Yes Hon?”

“Robert Marley. Did he ever really stand up?”

“Once that I know of. Some goons tried to kill him. He survived and performed a concert afterwards, to show they didn’t affect him. He did his song and acted out, in dance, everything that happened, including him triumphing in the end.”

“Hmmm…”

School talent shows are funny things. It amazes me how many parents force their no talent kids to embarrass themselves in front of a room full of people. The parents think the kids have ability, and as a result of its display, they will look like enlightened, hardworking guardians. In reality, they paint themselves as modern day Genghis Khans, ready to sacrifice all for their own aggrandizement. Nero was a better protector fiddling while Rome burned than most elementary school parents who abuse their children by letting, or forcing, them to participate in school talent shows. Reunions talent shows are worse. I have left such events wanting to punch in the mouth parents (mothers, too) who harped over their kids’ ability, or lack thereof, like they had something golden on their hands.

The fun part of talent shows are the kids who know they have no talent, and try to make a go of it before getting yanked by staff. I was cracking up after a sixth grader opened his mouth and bellowed, “Way DOWN in the JUNGLE deep…” and proceeded to deliver half of Dolomite’s famous rhyme before a nun hustled him offstage to raucous laughter.

Scoompi stepped onstage, wearing the fatigue pants, black turtleneck and black beret I agreed to as a consolation for having to recite poetry. She as introduced and took a deep breath. One of the bourgeois moms next to us gasped at her appearance. I balled up my fist.

“Hey, Squirt, you too little to be onstage,” a kid heckled.

Scoompi leaned into the microphone and said, “Shut up. Didn’t you flunk sixth grade twice already? Don’t you have kids at home?”

Parents started tittering. Students laughed.

“You shut up Pipsqueak…”

“When was the last time I pulled your mom off the corner to keep her from getting into all those strange men’s cars? Keep quiet. Let me do my job.”

A murmur went over the crowd. I saw a nun heading towards the stage when Scoompi yelled, “Get HIM! He started it!” Parents began murmuring again, in assent. The students roared in approval. The nun started for the large sixth grader.

Scoompi read the first three lines of her poem before balling the paper up, throwing it down, and stepping on the wadded up mess.

“I didn’t come here to read off a paper,” she started. Some parents clapped. I felt my heart drop to my stomach. “I didn’t come to argue with three time sixth graders whose parents keep buying their way back into the school…” That got some laughter, and not just from kids.

“And I didn’t come hear to read no doggone poem. My name is Scoompi,” she sucked her bottom lip under her teeth, and pointed both thumbs at herself. “And I came to sing.”

Boys all over the gym began hooting. I heard the instrumental to “Get Up, Stand Up” start, and felt a jab in my arm. “You let her watch El Cantante?” my wife hissed.

“That’s the least of our problems here,” I muttered in response.

By the time the nuns made it to the stage, she was already on her second chorus, and had taken to pretending she was standing in time out, writing lines on a blackboard, and then walked around with her little rear poked out, wagging her finger like she was lecturing students. I recognized the walk. Everyone did. As she was pulled off the stage, she threw her beret into the crowd and screamed, “Get up! Stand up! Don’t give up the fight! The big booty’s coming to get me, ya’ll! Keep up the fight!” She poked her rear out again and strutted around the stage, wagging her finger. I noticed Sr. Mary Tamika leading her off the stage,walking the walk my daughter had just mimicked almost perfectly. My wife looked like she wanted to drag Scoompi home by her forehead.

The kids went wild. They were standing on their feet, stomping and whistling. A couple of mothers fainted. The fathers were rolling in the aisles.

I thanked God for the millionth time I had paid a year’s tuition in advance. It is so much harder for your child to get expelled when you do that.

Offstage, I heard my little girl screaming, apparently a nun, “You never were loyal, Puchi!”

I thought there was an unwritten rule the principal’s office was closed on the weekends. Yet there we sat, me, the missus, Scooter and K.O., on that Saturday night, waiting to pick up my baby girl.

The principal, a tall, lanky man who wore wire framed glasses, walked in, holding Scoompi by the hand. She was wearing shades and the principal was singing, “He’s no prince and he’s no pal…” softly. My wife punched me. Scooter and K.O. looked like they wanted to burst.

“Well, I’m sure it’s just been a misunderstanding, Doc,” he said affably. “Why, little Alexandra’s song caused so much excitement that we sold out of concessions! Of course, some corrective consequences are in order, but there’s no reason you can’t take our little revolutionary home tonight and we will talk with her teacher on Monday.”

Scoompi stood stoically. “Ise just a sufferah,” she said simply. Scooter groaned.

“Did you learn anything from this, Alexandra?” The principal must have been high that night. There was no way we saw the same show.

“Yes, sir.”

“And?”

“Before doing anything that might be popular, even for the revolution, get it copyrighted so you can get royalties.The revolution must be marketed, but for now, I jus’ suffah de consequences.”

Scooter and K.O. excused themselves.