The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto

In the van at Woodstock, the beautiful woman is kissing Frankie’s neck. He’s thinking of Aurora, how he left her “pregnant, sleeping on a blanket. He knew he had to get back, he didn’t want […] to be irresponsible, as he’d been so many nights before” (215). He quickly gets up and leaves the woman’s van.

In 1951, Frankie is a part of Marcus Belgrave’s band. Frankie is hiding in Hampton Belgrave’s trunk. Hampton is Marcus’s brother, and Frankie had heard from Marcus that Hampton was going to drive to Tennessee; so, Frankie and the hairless dog are hiding in his trunk to get a ride. Frankie thinks that Aurora is in Tennessee. At first, the man is angry with Frankie, but once he explains the situation, things calm down.

Music goes back a bit in the story to explain how Frankie ran away from the orphanage in 1952 with the hairless dog, and how he played with jazz musicians in the Black Bottom of Detroit for food and a mattress in the club basement. He became friends with Marcus Belgrave, a trumpeter.

Hampton allows Frankie to live with him. Frankie gets a job singing and playing his guitar in a car dealership parking lot “in the hopes of drawing Aurora to him” (223). When he’s not working, he walks the streets in town asking people if they know Aurora.

One day, a fancy car pulls up and a man gets out and asks Frankie to play a sad song. He plays “Lágrima.” The man is clearly pleased, and he asks Frankie if he can play his guitar. Frankie says yes, and the man plays, “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.” The man is Hank Williams; Frankie has never heard of him, but he’s in awe of his guitar playing.

The owner of the car dealership, a huge fan of Hank Williams, comes out and shows him a baby blue Cadillac. Hank asks Frankie what he thinks of it. Frankie “put his hand on the hood. He felt something cold and scary and his face dropped. He pulled back as if shocked” (234). Because of this inexplicable bad feeling, Frankie tells Hank not to get this car. Hank buys it anyway and tells Frankie, “You wanna keep making music for a livin’, son, you’re gonna have to be a lot of people. Some you’re gonna like more than others” (235). Frankie is fired, but the owner of the dealership gives Frankie the commission check from the sale, per Hank’s request.

Music explains that he was trying to tell Hank through Frankie to “slow down” with booze and medications. 

It’s night at Woodstock, and Frankie is tripping on the dark-haired woman’s pill. 

Back in 1953, Hampton attempts to be Frankie’s manager, but he gets angry about missing an audition opportunity and has a heart attack. Frankie rushes him to the nearest hospital, but he’s informed that Hampton needs to go to the “colored hospital” (242) which is far away. In this moment, Frankie feels like something inside him snapped:

Perhaps because of Baffa, or El Maestro, or never finding his mother, or any of the many precious things that had been taken from him in his life, he felt his life force surging, a noise between his ears, like an angry glissando from one end of the keyboard to the other (243).

Frankie tells the doctor that Hampton is an important man in the music business and that they just came from the Grand Ole Opry. The doctor believes him and admits Hampton, saving his life. Another string of Frankie’s guitar turns blue.

In 1954, Frankie is now 18 years old, and his dog is getting advanced in years. It’s strange that the dog is still alive despite being so old, “[b]ut this was an uncommon animal, and its life span was clearly determined by need, not years” (247). The dog has always been by Frankie’s side, especially when he’s needed him the most. Lately, the dog hasn’t been as lively. Frankie is playing a song on his guitar, and when he finishes, the dog jumps into the river and swims away. Frankie instinctively knows this is goodbye. As the dog swims out of sight, Aurora suddenly appears from behind the tall grass.