Look at Me!
Digital Pencil 13" x 17"
Grace Ainsworth is an Midwestern alum, and this piece of hers first appeared inVoicesin 2023.
Doreen DeLana Will Be Out Here in Just a Few Minutes
Gary Duehr
Up above, as the dusk turned a bruised blue, the UFO light of a drone hovered over the Feast of
Madonna Della Cava in the East End. Hundreds of partiers were squeezed between tripledeckers
strung with Italian-flag pennants, and the salty aroma of fried dough rose up in a yeasty fog.
What the drone couldn't see was Doreen DeLana, the aged star of tonight's concert, slumped
in the back seat of an SUV, her sheath of sparkly silver rayon making her resemble a baked
potato wrapped in tinfoil, like the one she'd just devoured along with a strip sirloin at the hotel. It
had been a long, slow fall from five Top Tens and American Bandstand down to a few hundred
drunk revelers at a street carnival in Palookaville.
"It's hard, honey, sometimes it's so hard," Doreen would tell any fan who asked how she was
doing.
Her driver and son-in-law, Aaron, was kneeling beside the open back door, trying to rouse her
by gently shaking her shoulder. "Come on, Dory, your fans are waiting for you. We gotta go."
Through one thickly mascaraed eye, Doreen squinted down at him. "We gone sleep
summore."
Then she patted him on the head like a supplicant, as if they were reenacting the miraculous
discovery of a painting of the Madonna in a cave. Its location was revealed to a deaf peasant in a
dream, who traveled hundreds of miles from his hometown.
Doreen's band was already on the rickety stage, vamping with horns and bass to the
drummer's mechanical rat-tat-tat. He was fiftyish with dyed red hair, while the others—
keyboard, three backup singers in little black dresses, horn section—shone with the glossy
complexion of youth in their 20s, all pickups from the local music school. The trombonist, in
particular, was jumpy with excess energy, swaying back and forth on his rubbery legs as the
golden slide pushed in and out. It looked like he was trying to blow up an immense balloon.
Meanwhile the crowd was getting antsy; a buzz of discontent rode under the thumping music.
In front of the cheesesteak stand, a high school girl started arguing with her boyfriend, stabbing
her index finger at his chest. A daddy hoisted a whiny toddler onto his shoulders. Someone
tossed an empty Coke can onto the stage, which rattled on the plywood.
The drone threw a spotlight down onto trash blown against the chain-link fences on either
side: crushed cups of slushies, wooden spears of chewed kabobs, a snowy flurry of wadded-up
napkins.
"Hey hey!" barked a voice through the PA, and the band ground to a stop. An old dude in a
bandana had bounded onstage and grabbed the mic. "Hey there, I'm Little Ronny from Classic
106, how are y'all doin?"
A couple of woo-hoos cut the air along with some sharp hand-claps.
"Alright! You may not know this, but I grew up right around the corner. So this is a kind of
homecoming. Me and my pals got into all kinds of trouble, hitting boxcars with our tags, busting
windows in the abandoned Alcoa factory. You wouldn't believe it!" He chuckled at his own
recollection.
"Where's Doreen?" some guy shouted.
"Yeah, is she here yet?" asked another.
"She'll be out here in just a few minutes. Why don't we show her some love? On my count,
let's all shout Dor-REEN ! Dor-REEN! Ready?"
The audience stirred to life, their sneakers scuffling the asphalt. The bored cop leaning against
a gate put down his cellphone. An aerobics chick with a dyed-blond ponytail leapt into motion,
marching in place and pumping her arms up and down.
"Three...two...one. Dor-REEN! Dor-REEN! Dor-REEN!"
Half the spectators joined in the chant, their voices echoing off the aluminum siding and red
stone Church of the Assumption at the end of the block, floodlit like a cliff against the night sky.
But it petered out once they realized it was having no effect, and she had not appeared from the
dark street behind the stage.
Little Ronnie clicked off his mic and ducked back out of sight. With a dramatic flourish of
thrumming bass and splashy cymbals, the band kicked in with Doreen's big hit from the '60s, "It's
Not My Party (Go On Home)." The applause erupted like a storm burst. But instead of Doreen,
the trombonist leapt onto center stage with a split, karaoke-ing the first lines scrolling on the big
screen tilted up at him.
"You brought me here, I'm not the one. Who is that other girl, having fun?"
Everybody started to clap and sing along, but it was a rote response, something they felt they
had to do since they had waited so long. A phalanx of flashlights on cellphones lit up like
fireflies and started swaying to and fro.
The drone spun down into its handler's palms, upraised like a prayer in the parking lot next
door. Its light flicked off.
Aaron left Doreen snoring loudly in the back seat, her head flung back, the tousled curls of
her wig askew; she looked like the victim of a car accident. He tucked a blanket over her and
went off to find a cup of coffee or a shot of Jack, anything that could shock her back into
consciousness.
