The File on Bobby Darin, Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Breakfast at the Copa

It was midmorning at the Copa, one week into the three-week engagement, and Dick Behrke was meeting with just a few of the musicians before the actual rehearsal.  Bobby was usually there before anyone else, a thick sheaf of notes in hand about the previous night’s performance.  He appeared today on the Copa stage on time, dressed in a sweater of apple green, slacks and loafers, looking a bit rumpled and sleepy, carrying a cup of coffee from the kitchen and a newspaper under his arm.  For Darin, this was like showing up late.  Along with Dick was Lips the trumpet player, a free-lance musician upon whom Behrke had prevailed to join them with the Copa house band.  If Lips had any other name, neither Darin nor Behrke had ever heard it.  Paid in cash nightly, Lips kept his counsel, and his legal name, to himself. 

Ronnie Zito was already seated on the bandstand, leaning down to adjust a snare drum.  “Was that our Bobby I saw slipping into the back of a squad car last night after the show?” Ronnie asked no one in particular.

Dick Behrke did not look up from his music score as he remarked, “It’s too true.  I guess they finally broke up that white slave trade you’ve been involved in all these months.”  The slave trade was a joke of longstanding among Darin’s envious friends.  When a girl got into a car with Bobby, it was for no false pretences; they both knew exactly what would transpire.  Bobby could talk most any girl, even the “nice” ones, into doing some amazing things. 

“Squad car?”  Bobby slapped his forehead as though only now remembering.  His brown eyes popped open to the size of fifty-cent pieces.  “Oh, right, listen guys, last night Winchell took me around the city in his personally appointed squad car!  He hears all the police activity going to HQ as the cars call in, and that’s how he gets the scoops.  What a night!”

Dick’s eyebrows raised from above his sheet music.  “Scoops?  I think his last scoop was the Lindbergh kidnapping!”

Bobby shook his head with impatience.  “Lindbergh?  No!  Don’t forget about Lepke, Winchell brought him in single-handed, Lepke wouldn’t surrender to anyone but Winchell when the feds were looking for him.”

“Oh my god, did he hang that moth-eaten tale on you?  Bobby, you can’t keep going out every night after the show to ride in squad cars with Winchell.  You need sleep!”  Behrke was edging into slightly dangerous territory here.  He was the bandleader and felt responsible for putting on a good show, a vital component of which was a well-rested singer.  Behrke led the band, but he did not lead Bobby.  He had no more control over Bobby than he had over the weather, and he felt faintly ridiculous giving out tips on sleep hygiene to his perpetually in motion friend. 

Bobby batted this advice away with a flip of his hand.  “Are you kidding, what he showed me last night, Minnie the Moocher could not compete!  Anyway, Winchell makes these rounds, most every night, and he goes to work the next day.  And he’s about three times my age.”

Dick folded the music score shut to look at Bobby.  “Walter Winchell is three times the age of the earth!  I bet he also has a few sips of human blood to refresh himself before he retires back into his crypt at dawn.”

“Ha-ha.”

“Bobby, you think there aren’t people who are dead, walking around still, but they just don’t know it?  Winchell’s time is past.”

Bobby thought then of his mother Polly, confined often to her bed for the last few years of her life, not dead, but not really alive either.  She had lived through him, through every tiny scrap of news about his budding show business career.  Bobby shook off the thought of her that made his chest tighten.

Ronnie Zito asked, “Bobby, how do you even know all this stuff about Winchell?  He’s been a joke for years.”

Bobby said, looking down at the newspaper he was pretending to read, “Polly and I used to read his column when I was just a kid in short pants.  I remember her telling me that Winchell came out against the Nazis long before we got into the war, when the American Firsters thought we could stay out of it.” 

This was the first time he had uttered his mother’s name before his friends since her death the year before.  The name hung in the air over all of them, bringing back memories of the funeral.  They had never seen Bobby cry before.  He had really become unhinged, and in a public place!  Polly was more than 40 years old when Bobby was born, and she had never been the picture of health.  All of their parents were still relatively young and active, and they had never experienced the death of an adult so close to them.  They had the invincibility of youth, of relentless energy to protect them, and they never knew what to say to Bobby about his dead parent.  So, they said nothing. 

After a long, empty moment had passed, Lips the trumpet player cleared his throat, shook his mighty jaws, and asked, “So, who were these American Firsters, anyway?”  At this point, Bobby was happy to deliver a brief (for him) history lesson about American politics leading up to WWII.  After which, it was back to attacking the sheet music. 

The rest of the orchestra had gathered by this time on the stage to receive their instructions.  There was a clatter of chairs and music stands as the musicians took their positions.  Dick Behrke, reclaiming his role as bandleader, rattled his music score to gain some attention.  “Gentlemen, might I interrupt this twenty-four-hour poker fest for a little rehearsal?    Hey, Lips, can you take your eyes off your racing form for two minutes, please?”

Coffee cups were refilled, new packs of cigarettes were opened, and their preparations for that night’s performance continued.  Bobby’s notes about what he thought did not work in the last show took all of their thoughts away from Polly, Winchell, and American isolationism.  These were graduate-level studies in nightclub tactics.  Lips, who had played on the nightclub circuit for many years, was unsure who was the master and who the pupil in this musical think tank. 

Continued in the next chapter

The File on Bobby Darin, Chapter 5  (E) Darin sends greetings from Big Curly. #1449515 by Gisele