Long ago, when he was a child, he had played the wizardin his school production of The Wizard of Oz—the perfect part for him, as it turned out, because he wasthe only one who didn’t have to sing. If only he’d had some kind of musical ability. He would havebecome a rock star, a guy with tight pants and long hair and a guitar, with women hiding under the bed inhis hotel room, flinging their underwear onstage, wanting a piece of him. But short guys from Long Island, with the exception of Billy Joel, didn’t become rock stars. Inparticular, short, half-Jewish guys weren’t guitar virtuosos, had no intonation, and ran the music industryfrom the other side of the recording studio. At least that’s what Danny’s father had told him when he askedhis father to buy him an instrument—any instrument—for his eleventh birthday. More specifically, anyinstrument that could get him girls. But when he stood on that elementary school stage, wearing a grown-up’s sports jacket and a shinyblack top hat, Danny had looked out at the crowd and seen a mosaic of faces of parents and aunts anduncles and teachers looking back at him, all smiling, their eyes reflecting pride and satisfaction andaccomplishment.
