The band members would twist in their seats, trying to read what she had written down but Vicki, feeling their watchful eyes, would hold the notebook tight against her chest. They would know damned good and well tomorrow but tonight it’s just between Vicki and her brother. And that is what I had al-ways planned to be, her brother. Not in order to grow rich I never really thought of that. It would be her idea to make me her manager — not mine. Of course I would often be surrounded by enthusiastic crowds of people asking, “What’s she really like?” That would be fun, sure, but only for a little while. I would never have used her as a ploy to get my name in the papers or to put out a record of my own. Far from it. That’s some-thing our father would try. He talks like he can smell money from a distance of five miles. He’ll see someone wearing a tweed cap and driving a sportscar and say, “Now there’s a guy with something in his wallet.” That, to me, is like seeing someone on crutches and guessing they have a problem with their leg. Any idiot can do that.

Our father would be the first in line, hoping to cash in on Vicki’s success. He would want his own album or a guest appearance on a television special and Vicki and I would have to spend many long hours explaining that, despite what he may have read in the magazines, it really doesn’t work that way. After the way he has treated us it would be both entertaining and embarrassing to hear him say, “But a lot of people just sort of . . . talk through a song. All right, OK, maybe I can’t 'sing' but I sure as hell can talk, can’t I? C’mon kids, you know I can pull it off. Get me a record, just one. One record for your old dad. I can make it a hit, you know I can. One hit record for Daddy.”

Vicki and I would watch him beg. Then we might call in a few record executives and watch him beg some more.

“I could do 'The Man in My Little Girl’s Life,'” he would say. “There’s all kinds of songs you can do without ever actually having to sing.”

“Oh?” the record executive would say. “Name a few others.”

Our father would massage his forehead. “Well,” he’d say. “There’s a lot of them, a whole hell of a lot.”