Awakening me too early was knocking at the front door, accompanied by squeaky voices calling, “Hello, hello?”
Pulling my somnambulant self together I discovered a brace of boys on my stoop. The children were dressed like accountants.
“Yes?” I inquired through the latched screen door. Pinned to breast pockets were nameplates printed with Elder Ebenezer and Elder Jeremiah. At most they were twelve years old.
All glossy-eyed Elder Jeremiah piped up with, “We want to pray to Jesus with you!”
“Go to hell!” I said, which I thought was pretty funny. Unfortunately the boys did not and, perplexed, they backed away whispering anxiously. When I boiled water for tea I chuckled, I should have netted them and slipped them into a cauldron.
Regret slowly crystalized as I envisaged inflamed relatives of one or both of these runts paying me a visit, upbraiding me. I should have been nice to the little blighters, I rued. Reservation for one in Hell, please.
Meanwhile a pal asked me to check out a band, friends of hers. “They’re a trio from Boston and they’re awesome!” my pal said. “I’ll tell them to expect you.”
Strolling to the venue I was overtaken by some exceptional drumming and I stopped to absorb the syncopations pulsing from an open-fronted bar. In the back a smoky room, on a platform stage was a band of a dozen men on percussion instruments. The sound was bracing and I wanted to dive into its lusciousness, except I had an obligation. And onward I went to the tourist-centric plastic venue with twenty foot blow-up mugs of beer dangling from the rafters. I settled at the bar, and prepared to love the lissome trio performing. My ebullience dissipated as I determined the trio were not awesome. And I couldn’t walk out of the club because there was just me and one double-wide denim clad family, with bulging sunburned skin. To be polite I stayed to the end, to say hello, as per my pal’s instructions. Eventually the caterwauling stopped and I went and gushed how genius they were, because truly I was so grateful they were done. I strained to make conversation but my efforts fell flat and we remained awkward. I offered my hilarious encounter with the Godly children at my doorstep. Blank stares, not so much as a titter. Later, when I Googled the trio I learned they call themselves a Christian band. Good Lord, I’m going to hell.
I bid adieu and spirited back whence I had heard the exceptional drumming. Miraculously they were still going strong, the vibrations of their song palpable and irresistible, I merged into the dancing crowd. A girl bumped my hip with hers. She wore an emerald green fringe-edged dress and bare feet. Leaning in close so that I had to inhale her musk, she said, “If I lead, can you follow?”
“I can try!” I said, and I accepted her hand.