Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 6, No. 12, December 1961

Daddy’s Girl by Michael Zuroy

Saints and sinners alike, have heard voices which were inaudible to the average ear. A shattering experience, you will agree, unless your ears are especially attuned to melodies unheard.

Tony Dompino loved his wife. If you would have told Tony that someday he would kill her, he’d have said, “Go away, you crazy fathead before I swat you one. You got a nerve, passing a remark like that. I’d kill myself sooner than I would Aggie.”

But look what happened.

Clancy’s Machine and Tool Works said no overtime one evening, so Tony got home earlier than usual. When he opened the door of his Brooklyn apartment, he heard a sound he couldn’t believe.

It was a sound like an angel had busted loose all over the place.

He closed the door quietly behind him and listened.

It was a sound that was like pure crystal. It was a sound that when you heard it you didn’t need nothing, just that sound. It had it all. It made you understand. It gave you joy, it gave you sadness. It put you into a dream. It peeled away the world. It was a sound that once heard you had to keep hearing. It was a sound that was singing.

Tony walked through the apartment and in the bedroom was his wife, Agnes, and she was making the sound.

When Tony came in she shut up quick.

“Aggie, I didn’t know you could sing like that,” Tony said.

“Oh, that was nothin’,” Aggie said.

“Nothin’? Whaddaya mean nothin’?”

“Nothin’.”

“Don’t give me that,” Tony said, “I listen to opera. We got hi-fi. Radio. Television. I go to the movies. I never heard nothin’ that good. Let’s hear some more.”

“No.”

“Whaddaya mean, no?”

“I don’t sing for nobody.”

“Well, I’m your husband, ain’t I? You’ll sing for me.”

“No”

Tony looked at Aggie. He’d known her ten years. He realized that in all that time he’d never heard her sing. Not once. How come she’d been holding out on him? Here was a thing he never knew about Aggie. Maybe there were other things he didn’t know about Aggie. He’d thought they were, like they said, one. Maybe Aggie didn’t figure it that way. A pain twisted inside Tony.

“O.K.,” Tony yelled. “Don’t sing. Who needs your stupid singing? Who needs it?”

Tony went into the bathroom and took off his shirt and undershirt and began to wash. His hands were shaking, he was that bothered. He wanted to hear that singing again. And Aggie wouldn’t do that little thing for him.

Tony went out to get a fresh undershirt and there was Aggie, her eyes soft and sorry. She put her arms around Tony. Tony was hairy. He had hair all over his arms and chest and belly and shoulders. He was big and barrel chested. Aggie liked all this. She said he was a real man. Aggie put her arms around him and ran her fingers through the hair on his back and said, “Tony, don’t be mad.”

“Who’s mad?” Tony yelled.

“Please don’t be mad. I can’t ever sing for you or nobody else. Don’t ask me. But don’t be mad at me.”

“Why can’t you?”

“I can’t.”

“You mean you just sing to yourself?”

“Don’t ask me.”

“O.K.,” grumbled Tony. We’ll see, he thought.

A new thing had moved into his head. That sound. Even at work he kept hearing his wife’s singing. Low and haunting. A thing that ought to be heard again. A pure thing that should be his like Aggie should be his. That meant peace and delight. Why should Aggie hold out on him?

He asked her again, several times, figuring he might get her in the right mood. She wouldn’t sing.

One night, Tony took her out, dinner, a show, three different night spots. When they got home they were plastered, but Tony didn’t forget what he was after. He opened a bottle and gave Aggie another drink. He put her next to him on the sofa and began singing Home on the Range. He sang the whole thing himself. Aggie didn’t sing a note. He sang three more cowboy songs, coaxing Aggie to join in, but she wouldn’t. Tony gave her another drink and sang La Donna E Mobile, and that didn’t do any good. Tony sang O Sole Mio. He sang Smoke Gets In Your Eyes. Aggie went teary and sentimental and he said, come on, come on, but she wouldn’t sing. Then Tony started on Annie Laurie and somebody yelled out the window, “Cut out that racket you lousy drunks and let a guy get some sleep around here damn it,” so Tony said, “the hell with it” and fell on the rug and began to snore and Aggie fell on top of him.

Another time, there was a party and the bunch was around the piano, singing, and Tony yelled, “Quiet! You want to hear singing that is singing, listen to the wife. Tell the man what to play, honey.”

“Tony, how could you,” Aggie said and got her coat and started homeland he had to chase after her like an idiot.

But Tony didn’t give up. He needed to hear that angel sound like he needed his right arm.

There was a guy in the shop, had a smart head. Tony told him about the whole thing, and the guy said, The trouble is obviously Mental.

“Mental, huh?” said Tony.

“Obviously,” the guy said. “Obviously, she got a Block.”

“A Block, huh?”

“Obviously. Somepin’ must have happen to her, give her this Block about singing in front of people.”

“So what do I do?”

“Take her to a head shrinker.”

“A head shrinker. Hey, you trying to tell me the wife is crazy?”

“Who said that? All I’m saying is that she’s got this one Block. One stinkin’ Block don’t mean she’s crazy.”

“Well, O.K.,” Tony said.

Tony made an appointment with a head shrinker. The evening of the appointment he put on his hat and coat and said, “Come on, Aggie, we’re going out.”

“O.K.,” Aggie said, jumping up. “Where we going?”

“We’re going to see a head shrinker and don’t give me no trouble about it.”

“What for?” said Aggie, backing away.

“To get rid of this Block you got about singing.”

“Oh, so that’s it. You go if you want to. I’m staying.”

“Now don’t you want to be helped, Aggie?”

“I don’t want no help. I don’t want to be bothered about this no more. Leave me alone, will you?”

So they had a fight, and Tony slapped Aggie down, and then he was sorry, and they finally made it up, but Aggie didn’t get to see the head shrinker.

Tony went over to Bensonhurst to see Aggie’s brother, Phil, who lived there in an apartment with a wife and three kids.

“Sure,” Phil said, “I heard her sing.”

“Why won’t she sing for me?”

“She stopped singing when she was about sixteen.”

“Why?”

“She never told me. But it was after Pop died.”

“You think that had somepin’ to do with it?”

“I think so. Mom thinks so. Why don’t you go see her?”

Tony didn’t like Aggie’s Mom. Aggie’s Mom didn’t like Tony. But he went to see her in her Bronx apartment.

“She was very attached to her Daddy,” Aggie’s Mom said. “When she sang, it was for him. When he died, she wouldn’t sing for nobody else, not even me.”

“That don’t make sense,” Tony said. “What good did that do?”

“I don’t know. She wouldn’t talk about it.”

“Well, I’m her husband. She’ll sing for me.”

“Don’t make me laugh. She wouldn’t sing for her own Ma, why would she sing for a bum like you?”

Tony went home and said to Aggie, “So you stopped singing on account of your Daddy dying.” Aggie looked at Tony and said, “So you found out.”

“You still mourning or somepin’?” Tony asked.

“No, I ain’t still mourning.”

“So why don’t you sing?”

“I only sang for my Daddy.”

“Can’t you sing for your husband?”

“No.”

“Ain’t a husband as good as a Daddy?”

“A husband is different than a Daddy.”

“Well, some ways, ain’t a husband better than a Daddy?”

“Some ways, maybe. But some ways a Daddy is better.”

“What ways?” Tony yelled. “What ways is a Daddy better?”

“Never mind.”

“I had a Daddy too,” Tony yelled. “You think I never had no Daddy? I didn’t develop no Block when my Daddy died.”

“You didn’t have my Daddy.”

“Oh, nuts.”

“You don’t know nothin’ about it,” Aggie said, beginning to look mad. “I was little and Daddy was big. No husband could seem that big to his wife. I was weak and Daddy was strong. No husband could seem that strong. Daddy loved me with a big strong love. A husband loves you, he wants something back. Daddy didn’t want anything back. Daddy fixed all my troubles. Plenty times, a husband just gives trouble. When I was with Daddy I was in the warmest safest place in the world. I wanted to give Daddy something and what did I have that was good but my singing? I gave it all to him and I got none of it left now for nobody else.”

Tony’s mouth opened and closed a few times. He said, “Well, O.K., O.K.” He went into the kitchen and opened a quart bottle of beer.

He didn’t say anymore about it afterwards. He just kept figuring how to break Aggie loose from her Block. Because he couldn’t let go. Because Aggie’s sweet singing was still in his head, faint and vague, and he wanted to hear it clear and real and just for him, and if he couldn’t he’d always feel an emptiness.

But you got to keep your mind on your work at Clancy’s Machine and Tool. Every machine is a killer if you let it get at you. One day, a machine got Tony.

It didn’t kill him, but for a long time all he knew was pain, and then he knew a little more, and then he woke up and he saw that he was in a private room in a hospital and that Aggie was sitting next to his bed. Tony knew that he couldn’t afford a private room. Once, a buddy of his started to die in a hospital and they put him in a private room even though he couldn’t pay for it and he died there without any extra charge. Tony figured this was the same deal.

“Aggie,” he said, “am I dying?”

“Of course not, you big ape,” Aggie said, her eyes red and teary.

Tony figured it looked bad, but he was so weak that he didn’t much care. He closed his eyes. He heard Aggie say, like from far away, “Tony, my darling, you want I should sing for you?”

Tony didn’t answer but he gave a little smile.

Aggie started to sing.

It was like a wave, lifting him up, soft and sweet and strong so that the pain and everything else slipped away. Tony knew that only one thing was beautiful and it was this, and though the sky might be beautiful with all the millions of stars twinkling from the furry black, it was only this; and that though Heaven might be beautiful, Heaven was this; and that though a cold glass of beer might be beautiful and the shape of a girl beautiful, they were this; and that though the straight true rush of a bowling ball to a strike, and the thudding hoofs of a champion horse might be beautiful, they were still this, because this was all beauty, all of it wrapped up. Tony wanted to die right then, so he could die happy.

But Tony didn’t die. He made it. A few weeks later, he was limping about the house, on the mend. The doctor said that soon he would be as good as new.

He was happy. Aggie had sung for him. She would again, he was sure. The Block was busted, Tony figured.

He needed her singing, now worse than ever because he’d had it for himself and the memory of it was teasing and demanding. He wanted to be hearing her sing forever, as long as they were both alive. Since his accident, it seemed somehow that her voice was firmer in his head, adhesive, like a silken band around his brain. It promised the beauty of reality. It softly veiled off other sound and thought, never completely leaving him.

When Aggie started singing to him, Tony thought, he wouldn’t need this memory anymore.

But Aggie didn’t sing.

At last, Tony asked her if she would.

“No,” she said.

“Whaddaya mean, no?”

“Like I said, no. I don’t sing for nobody.”

“But you sung for me.”

“That was different.”

“Because you thought I was dying?” Tony yelled. “Do I got to be dying to get a song out of you?”

“That wasn’t the reason I sung to you.”

“What was the reason?”

“Never mind.”

“Cut it out,” Tony yelled. “You sing, all right. You sung to me once. You sing when you’re alone. What’s it all about?”

“When I’m alone I sing to my Daddy.”

“That’s what I figured. Do you talk to him too?”

“Sure I talk to him.”

“Does he answer you back?”

“Sure he answers me back.”

“What does he say?”

“Never mind.”

“Never mind, never mind,” Tony said. “O.K., so how come you sang to me?”

“My Daddy told me to.”

“I see.”

“Yes. He told me, ‘I think the poor slob is going to kick the bucket, Aggie. Give the poor slob a song, Aggie.’ So I did.”

“I see.” Tony looked at her. “Why are you smiling?”

“I ain’t smiling.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“Would I kid you, dear?”

“Are you kidding me so I won’t bother you no more about singing? Or do you really believe your Daddy talks to you?”

“Forget it,” Aggie said.

“So you won’t sing for me?”

“Not unless my Daddy tells me to.”

“Who needs your stupid singing?” Tony yelled and walked away. He sat down in a chair and stared out the window. And her voice was in his head.

It was there, a sweet strong wave, holding all beauty, holding the sky and the stars and a cold glass of beer and the shape of a girl and the rush of a bowling ball and the thudding hoofs of a great-hearted horse and everything else that was beautiful. And it was not for him and never had been.

It was only for that stinking ghost of a Daddy.

And all he had was a teasing voice in his head.

A few days later, Tony killed his wife.

“It wasn’t just on account of she wouldn’t sing to me,” Tony told the police. “It was that she needed to be with her Daddy.”

The police couldn’t make much sense out of what Tony was telling them.