Chapter 4

“Look! It’s a Frankie Valli trib­ute group!”

Sure enough. Strid­ing into a cramped per­for­mance area nor­mally inhab­ited by goa­teed men and hyphen­ated women — was a Frankie Valli & the Four Sea­sons trib­ute group.

“Frankie” wore a jet-black suit and flashed a thousand-watt smile, his teeth resem­bling thirty-two perfectly-spaced pieces of Den­tyne Ice Arc­tic Chill gum. Jerry — no slouch when it comes to details — imme­di­ately rec­og­nized that only two of the Four Sea­sons were actu­ally rep­re­sented in Faux Frankie Valli’s back­ground vocal group — and that they were indis­putably female. If Jerry had to asso­ciate a spe­cific sea­son with each of the back­ground singers, it would be Sum­mer and More Sum­mer; they were that hot.

Ersatz Frankie & the Two Sum­mers began to sing:

Jerry, Jerry baby.
Jerry, Jerry baby.
Je-e-e-e-e-e-rry baby
Je-e-rry don’t you go out tonight.
Je-e-e-e-e-e-rry baby
Je-e-rry, don’t dare go out tonight.

Jerry was dumb­founded. He scanned the enrap­tured crowd and won­dered if they were hear­ing the same lyrics. The Barista (and let’s face it, at this point this ter­tiary char­ac­ter is receiv­ing an unwar­ranted amount of atten­tion) was sway­ing to the music. Every­one else’s atten­tion was focused on the per­for­mance; every­one except scruff dude, whose feline focal units were trained men­ac­ingly at Jerry.

(No, don’t you go out) to the col­lege M.
(Don’t go out) when the bright moon shines.
(Don’t go out) the world won’t end right away.
But it’ll start a rapid decli-ine.

Je-e-e-e-e-e-rry baby
Je-e-rry don’t you go out tonight.
(Don’t go, go out tonight)
(Don’t go, go out tonight)
You-oo-ooh bet­ter ask ole Ger­ald.
To keep your ass locked out of sight.

What was going on here? It was as con­fus­ing as the notion that John Kennedy’s 1963 assas­si­na­tion took place in the “late 50’s.” Scruff dude’s puss-like peep­ers were still bor­ing into Jerry as Phony Frankie Valli and Sum­mer² continued:

(No, don’t you go out) past Zig’s on Bridger Drive.
(Don’t go out) past the Fish Tech­nol­ogy sign.
(Don’t go out) then make a hard left turn.
What you see will make you lose your mind.

Je-e-e-e-e-e-rry baby
Je-e-rry don’t you go out tonight.
(Don’t go, go out tonight)
(Don’t go, go out tonight)

The cof­fee shop patrons clapped, whis­tled and hooted for more. As Mock Frankie launched into “Big Jerry’s Don’t Cry,” scruff dude leaned for­ward and finally spoke.…