The night and the music help David fight his fears

The Boston Herald

BEVERLY BECKHAM

Depending on how old you are, you'd call him a nerd, a dweeb, a geek. He's the square peg in a world full of round holes. He doesn't walk so much as stumble. He bumps into things. His dialogue, his everyday hellos and goodbyes, are as clumsy as his gait.

His dark curly hair covers his forehead, making him look, at times, like a standard poodle whose groomer has been on vacation too long. His soulful eyes are obscured by horn-rimmed glasses. He's out of shape, a weeble in a room full of Ken dolls.

And he is painfully self-conscious. When you talk to him, he shuffles from one foot to the other, scratches his head, bites his nails and adjusts his glasses. And yet he has a lot to say. He just finished college and he's going to medical school. He knows about archaelogy and anthropology. He's well-read and well-traveled. He's a good listener. And he's funny, too.

And yet, when you first meet him, what dominates is his terrible unease. In the beginning it's all you see. You chat with him at a cocktail party and you ask, "Are you enjoying your vacation?" and he says yes and goes on to tell why, but you have trouble listening because he's rocking back and forth and gnawing on his nails and pushing his glasses up higher on his nose.

A day later you see him at lunch and you wave and he waves back, then scratches his head and adjusts his glasses.

He never goes to the pool. Even on the hottest days he wears shorts that are more like pedal pushers and a big, heavy T-shirt and socks that he pulls up almost to his knees. It's clear he's uncomfortable with himself. He tries to hide all of him that he can.

One evening he appears in a dark suit and tie, a starched white shirt, his shoes shined, and he looks almost handsome. He stands a little straighter, too, and fidgets a little less. Covered from neck to toe, he seems freer somehow. Are the clothes a costume, which allow him to be someone else? Or do they simply hide a body which encumbers him?

Whatever, they work magic. He doesn't glide through the night like Fred Astaire. But he doesn't stumble, either. He smiles and you think for the first time what a nice smile he has.

You never expect, however, that later, after dinner, he will be the one to get up from the piano bar and stand next to the piano player and take the mic and sing his heart out. But this is exactly what he does.

At first, he's visibly frightened. He paces in a corner of the room while everyone else is crooning "It Had To Be You." He clutches the piano player's book, reads the words to a song and practices a song in his head, walking back and forth, back and forth, all the time scratching and biting and pushing on those glasses.

And then it's his turn, and there he is, still scared, you can tell, but singing without ever glancing at the book, without ever touching his hair, his face, his lips. He sings every verse of "Cat's in the Cradle." And the people stop talking and start listening, and when he's finished there's a roar of approval and a demand for more.

And so he begins "American Pie" and he doesn't miss a word, and the crowd explodes and starts chanting "DA-VID! DA-VID!" and David stands in the spotlight and beams.

The next night, the crowd begs for a repeat performance, and David doesn't pace this time. He smiles. He takes the mic and says, "I want you to sing along with me, now." And he's even better than he was the night before. And so it goes. Every night David becomes "DA-VID!" Every night he gets a little more confident and his voice grows a little bit stronger. He's buoyed, he's transformed, not by alcohol - he doesn't drink - but by acceptance, by the smiles of the cheering crowd.

On the last night of the trip, he and a young woman perform a duet from "Phantom of the Opera." And everyone goes wild. And then David sings alone, the Phantom's song: "Nighttime sharpens, heightens each sensation. Darkness stirs and wakes imagination. Silently the senses abandon their defenses "

His defenses abandoned, David's voice soars, and it is beautiful and so is he. "You were wonderful," people tell him. And he was. He is. Only it took night and song and time to notice.