He didn’t get up and sing right away. He sat, appreciating the piano and the music, applauding the people who took the stage and sang “Mr. Cellophane’’ and “Sixteen Going on Seventeen,’’ and whatever else Brian Patton, who was filling in for Michael Kreutz, played that night.
Maybe he joined in when everyone was belting out “Give ‘em the old razzle dazzle, razzle dazzle ‘em.’’ On Wednesday nights, Show Tunes Night, the place is always full of song and camp and fun.
But I wasn’t looking at him by then. He had done what I thought he wanted to do. He had blended in.
When he finally did get up and take the mike, it was late, almost closing time. But the crowd, maybe 20 of us, turned to this Paul Bunyan guy with the beautiful Samson curls and gave him our attention.
It was as he was holding the mike and deliberating between singing “Old Man River’’ and this other song I had never heard, that I thought, oh no. This may not be good. Because in the seconds before he began to sing, I saw only what I could see: a big man about to tackle a big song. A man who had sung in the shower his whole life but for whom a stage, even this small one, was new.
But it wasn’t new. I was new. He had done this before, many times. Only I didn’t know because this was the first time for me.
It takes your breath away sometimes, the talent people have, what you hear and see and learn when you get past the packaging. Out of this ordinary man came a sound so deep and rich and flawless that a chorus of angels would have wished he were one of them.
I didn’t expect this. I didn’t expect that on a wintry Wednesday night in a small club on Columbus Avenue a guy would walk in off the street and bring down the rafters.
But why not? Why did I pigeonhole him? Why did I think shyness or vulnerability or anonymity or just plain sweetness would negate talent? And why did I even ascribe these qualities to a man I don’t know?
You’d think I’d learn. I am old enough to know not to assume. I am old enough to realize that there is more to every person than what you see. I am old enough to recognize that we are far, far more than the sum of our parts. And yet, assuming, judging, pigeonholing are mistakes I continue to make.
I was blown away by a stranger’s raw talent. It’s not the first time. But I’m working on making it the last.
