He's the Air I Breathe

1951-1953

      He hasn't seen Ava in two months.

He hasn't spoken to her on the phone for weeks, has never written. She's a yearned-for figure whose simplistic beauty plastered upon film posters teases his lust. Such lust, of course, rivalled only by unflinching rage with prevalent rumours of bullfighters clasping her heart within the smouldering heat of Spain.

Frank only needs to lift his head to become unequivocally overwhelmed by the tormented elements outmaneuvering him. Reality before legacy and life is one colossal slaughterhouse. Mitch Miller seemingly holds Frank's chin in the palm of his hand and strikes his face to smithereens, alabaster teeth sprawled against his chest and clavicle, before hurling the crooner through one of the studio's plate-glassed windows. Frank lays upon the weathered floor, beaten and bewildered as sheet music for "Mama Will Bark" is abhorrently bound to his wrists and ankles. Worthless novelty, hideous use of artistically divine musicians and of time. Dreck! What imbecile indulged this sorry man in producing such inane melodies?

"That sounds great, Frank," Miller states, chasing down conscious doubt with a glass of water.

Frank swallows.

Juvenile snickers, muffled by palms, ripple through the room. Frank's cheeks flush as he stares deep into the music sheet, envisioning the atramentous lines strangulating his neck while blood seeps from his mouth and nose with profound sincerity. He will allow it to drench his suit, to be ceremoniously rung out, and cause more than a mere inconvenience for Miller.

"I wouldn't be surprised if it reaches the top twenty in the charts."

Frank looks up. "Don't tell lies, Mister Miller. Lie to yourself, but don't lie to me."

                                                                    ********

      There has never been a formal assessment of the verisimilitudes of self-worth, though Frank Sinatra certainly has his estimations. Estimates from gossip-drenched diction, internalized self-deprecating conceptualizations, and the revulsion on Ava's face when the perfume upon his collar differs from what permeates her unblemished skin.

For months he remains in the sobriety of his home, engulfed by a mound of despair. Simmering, boiling despair. The aperture of 1952 squints, though, and Frank stands in his foyer with earnest resolve. When he last went out, he endeavored to assimilate with the presence, only to be halted as merciless ominousness filtered the air. All light became excruciatingly bright, whether obscured by thunderstorms or lamp shades. Mothers stepped back. Journalists clenched his coat. Back home, the crooner crawled to the darkest corner of his bedroom and belt pillows around his ears to mitigate the senseless pounding in his head.

Frank counts twenty-seven heartbeats. Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty. He twists the handle, opens the door, steps outside, and walks to his destination: Columbia recording studio.

He stands upon the threshold of Miller's lair with great contempt.

Is he in?
Frank questions, although to be perfectly flippant, he doesn't give a damn if Miller is in the studio writing banal melodies to ridicule him further or at home with his family. He doesn't give a damn if Miller is bending over the window frame and preparing to spit upon him.

Frank Sinatra simply doesn't give a damn anymore.

He watches as litter flows beneath him and to other parts of the wretched city. Reaching into the pile of paper beneath his arm, Frank tears a sheet in half.

Then a song.

Soon there is nothing but treble clefs and lyrics tarnishing his outfit and the surrounding ground. He glances again into the churring black of the pavement, now streaked with the stark whiteness of his emblematic ridicule.