A Boy named Christian

It was a small town that seemed big to a boy.  My father was a preacher and small business owner.  We attended church twice on Sundays and once on Wednesday nights without fail.  Our particular Protestant denomination was on the strict side of things with a litany of prohibitions to help us avoid being tainted by “the world.”  The women wore dresses and out-of-date hairdos.  The men never wore shorts or went shirtless outside.  It was all about modesty and self-control, not to mention submission (especially if you were of the female gender).  My friends from school did not share our particular kind of faith which made for a rich missionary field of lost souls who needed to find their way to our sure salvation.

There was a great deal of guilt tied up in all of this.  Always a question of whether or not we were “witnessing” to those around us.  We were to share the “good news” of the Gospel which entailed imploring people to say “the sinner’s prayer” and then follow all of the rules of dress and conduct as well as attend those three “services” a week.  

The most anxiety provoking part of these services were times set aside for people to “testify”  (I keep putting words in quotes because there was a lot of lingo in that particular culture that is probably unfamiliar to most people).  My grandmother was particularly good at testifying.  She had suffered a lot in her life (much of it self-inflicted) and I am sure it was an opportunity for those rush of feelings and disappointments to find an outlet.  How could it be anything but cathartic as her voice swelled and quivered, ending in a dramatic wave of her hand exclaiming like Job before her, “I know my Redeemer liveth!” after which she would gingerly lower her arthritic self back into the pew leaving us all a little weepy and shook up.

I was a shy kid and the thought of standing up and “sharing what the Lord had done for me” was a terrifying prospect, but I was supposed to set an example for the other young people in our church.  It was a tremendous battle in my head as I would sit there with sweaty palms and pounding heart.  If I could just reach out to the back of the pew in front of me and rock forward I would be able to find my feet.  Being the only person standing at that point would force me, against all my natural inhibitions, to speak.  “I just want to say… I’m thankful for…” it was choppy and awkward.  I felt like I was going to throw up, but after I finished and sat back down it was a feeling of tremendous relief and accomplishment.  As a father now, I can only imagine my Dad also felt a sense of relief and accomplishment at my brave act.  His son was walking in the “narrow way” after all.

But this story is not about me.  It is about a teenager named Brian Christian.  I had first become aware of Brian’s existence through a neighbor friend’s older brother who played bass guitar.  Brian was a drummer and had a catchphrase that he would use regularly, “Neil Peart, no problem.”  For those who are not in the know of nerdy teenage musician-wannabes, Neil Peart is the drummer for a band called “Rush” and is considered one of the greatest rock drummers of his generation.  Brian was spreading the Gospel of Rush by greeting people with those words.  He and some older teens, both boys and girls, were hanging out in my neighbor’s basement when I stumbled upon them.  They made no exception to my presence as a much younger kid, but also did not refrain from telling crude jokes  and engaging in explicit banter that left me feeling uncomfortable.

So this is what little I knew of Brian Christian: drummer, Neil Peart devotee, and rough around the edges.  But then somehow he came into the orbit of my family.  It may have been that he was working for my Dad.  My Dad owned a carpet business and hired older teens to work on his carpet-laying crew, mostly during the summers.  Shoot, I worked with him some summers beginning in middle school when I was strong enough to handle carrying at least one end of a roll of pad or carpet.  It started with simply bringing him the tools he needed and progressed with time and maturity to actually doing the work itself, wielding a hammer and then a carpet knife loaded with razor blades.

My Dad must have invited Brian to our church, but not only that.  He invited him to bring his drums to help with our little impromptu band that was set up in front of the church opposite the piano.  My Dad was playing trumpet, my sister was on saxophone, I played the baritone, and another teenager honked on her clarinet.  It was a motley crew of amateur musicians playing along with hymns and maybe even being featured for an instrumental or two on Sunday morning, songs that had been practiced after church on a Wednesday night.

I’ll never forget that first time we went to pick him up and load his drum set into the back of our van.  I was fascinated by the sparkling red toms and shiny cymbals.  I was also perplexed.  Didn’t he have gigs to do or friends to rock out with?  Why on earth would a rock drummer in the prime of his teen years be playing at a church with a group of off-key horn honkers?  And to further add to the surreality of the situation, he could only use his brushes because the leaders of the church thought his drum sticks would be too rock-n-roll like, ie, “worldly.”  This may sound strange to someone who is used to seeing drums in Protestant churches these days, but at that time it was unheard of, especially in our particular denomination.

I was in awe of this guy.  He had such a kind and humble spirit which completely blew my stereotype of him out of the water.  No one was forcing him to be there and if his friends had seen him quietly brushing those toms and tingling those cymbals in our church I am sure they would have had great fun at his expense.  

I am not sure how long that arrangement lasted and I do not know what became of Brian Christian after we eventually left that church and moved to a different town.  I can still picture his unruly hair, five o’clock shadow, and shy smirky-smile.  It is thirty years later and I have just recently become a Rush fan (the ring tone on my phone is their song “Tom Sawyer”).  Brian is long lost to my life story but I trust he is doing OK and that his life is truly “no problem,” Neil Peart or no Neil Peart.

***

The Missionary

It was a paperback book on my father’s shelf of religious books that heralded the first stirrings of what would later develop into the sexual awakening of puberty for me.  I was a curious five year old snooping through his office when I stumbled upon it.  The cover featured a painted illustration of a beautiful white woman’s face peering out at me with dark brown eyes, rich black hair, and full red lips.  Behind and surrounding her on a smaller scale were menacing bare-chested African warriors with shields and spears.  

I don’t remember the title, but I knew it was a story about the dangers missionaries face in deepest darkest Africa.  I don’t know if it was some kind of early example of Christian fiction that is so prevalent in Christian bookstores these days or an actual account, but to my young eye it was exotic and quite alluring.  In retrospect, it smacked of sexism, racism, and other typical isms of 1970’s America.  All I knew at the time was that if it took going to the “Dark Continent” to get a wife that looked like that, it was the missionary life for me.

*** 

She Floats

She floats in the darkness of my heart  

glowing with a tender fire that dispels

the cold and black places that seek to 

overtake me in my state of fallenness.

***

The Ants

His wife had awakened him 

in the middle of the night 

with a grand gesture

towards their bedroom door.

“They’re coming!” She exclaimed,

and through the fog of sleep

and a darkened room he peered 

in the direction she pointed.

“What is coming?” He asked.

“The ants are coming in the door!”

He placed his hand on her extended

arm and pushed it down to the bed.

“You’re dreaming.  Go to sleep.”

His own dreams were troubled 

and the sensation that his back

had fallen asleep annoyed him, 

all prickles and movement of 

a thousand determined bodies.

They carried him down the stairs,

his dreaming body nearly weightless

in the unwitnessed darkness.

Birdsong awoke him lying 

on the grass, hair dew-speckled,

the steel cable of reality now just

a thin thread wafting in his head.

***

An Infinite Sea

He’d grown up in a backwater of Mars 

amongst crumbling infrastructure on the 

“outer rim of the dreaming dead city”.  

And from there his family’s fortunes had only slid

planet by planet, away from Mother Earth

farther and farther into the growing void.  

He had no secret lineage or 

latent super powers to save him

like in the stories he consumed.  

His father had spaced himself 

shuttling back from the asteroid mines 

leaving them to fend for themselves.  

He was a boy born to a time and place 

that seemingly did not want or need him,

but really only could not fathom him.  

He was a dreamer in a time when dreams were drying up 

as the solar system shrank, dark and depleted, 

hollowed balls used up and bobbing on an infinite sea.

***

restless creature

What does a restless creature do?

It flits and floats, up and down, 

forward and back and side to side, 

an untraceable line to an unknown 

destination, like an orphaned bird 

knocked from its nest and looking 

for a home that is no longer there.

***

Creator of Worlds

You are a magician, a creator of worlds.

Your mind perceives what can be,

sending out and bringing forth 

good gifts or rotten fruits, by choice.

You are a full participant, a shaper of reality.

If what exists behind your eyes is guarded

and dark, expecting the worst from others,

that is what returns to your shuttered keep.

To see what is true, right, and lovely changes

not only your heart and mind, but other’s

as well, like a particularly virulent virus that 

burns away wickedness with a terrible fever.

The love of God is an all consuming fire

that purifies through the pain of suffering.

It heals and destroys simultaneously

leaving only that which will always endure.

***

I am the Left Hand

It hadn’t occurred to me before,

while at the gym snatching up 

the dumbbells one at a time to 

return them to the rack, reaching

down and readjusting so that 

my right hand was the one to 

grab hold with a confident grip,

not even thinking about it.

I am the left hand

The less confident appendage

that asserts itself in surprising 

ways (in sports, for example).

It stays out of the way in a near

constant state of unobtrusiveness

until the time is right and it 

swoops in to save the day 

like a crooked-bill bird of prey. 

I am the left hand

Not a leader, but not exactly a 

follower either, someone who likes

to work behind the scenes because

too much attention saps my will

and clouds my brain with foreboding. 

A wise book teaches there is

one body with many parts and 

the world needs us all, every one

and I am the left hand.

***

She's Terminal

She’s terminal, well, we all are really

a few days, weeks, months, or years

the big sleep can catch us napping

so let’s stand vigil together allowing

for both laughter and tears, thankful

for every single moment of a life that

is like the flash of a firefly in the dark.

***

The Horn Honkers

The big horns honk 

from nearly every car

creating a cacophony 

that assaults the ear

and withers the soul.

Those who try to refrain

from honking or at least

minimize its use to only

when absolutely necessary 

are considered odd and 

out of step with reality.

Parents give their kids

little plastic honky horns for 

their bikes and trikes

and encourage their use

by exclaiming "Oh, how cute!"

as little hands squeeze the 

small red bulb repeatedly.

Groups who advocate for 

the beauty of silence are

full of people who are full-on

honkers and cannot remove

themselves from the hive-

mind of the wider culture.

Silence makes them un-

comfortable for what it 

reveals to them of their 

inner world so full of noise

and their seeming impotence 

to do anything about it. 

Better to just keep honking

that horn and fill the world

till it drowns in dissonance.

***

Listening to Gwendolyn Brooks

It was pouring rain when we pulled into the parking lot, the coffee shop and lecture hall a few hundred feet away.  We’d not thought to bring an umbrella and so sat there for a minute or two in indecision.  Looking across the grassy commons we could see the warm glow of Starbucks and could just make out the forms of people inside sitting at tables sipping coffee.  The thought of hot java in our bellies gave us the necessary impetus to make a mad dash through the downpour.

We found seats in the lecture hall and sat quietly sipping coffee as the room filled up around us.  We were quite the contrast to all the chit-chat and hustle-bustle going on around us: quiet, reluctant to talk, fresh off some disagreement or other, an argument that hadn’t been resolved amicably.  It didn’t help that the emcee was once again the flakey professor of English who always introduces the guest poets and always annoys us greatly by doing so.  After several minutes of his prattle it was finally her turn.

She moved slowly to the podium, wading through our substantial applause.  She was a skinny old black lady with oversized glasses, her hair tucked into a knit Jamaican-style head covering, a grandma that could have just stepped off the city bus on 26th street.  Her voice was deep and strong belying her diminutive size and slightly hunched back.  We sat for an hour and a half listening to her read poetry, some funny, some sad, and some somewhere inbetween, but all of it profound.

A few weeks later at the hospital my pager went off during rounds while on the way to see an autistic boy.  I pealed off from the group to answer it.  It was your voice, “Did you hear the news?” a pause… “Gwendolyn Brooks died this morning of cancer.”

With Great Affection

on this Christmas 2000,

                       Aaron 

***

Descend

BBQ in the South

My wife had done her research to find a bona fide homegrown place in Savannah that would give us an unfiltered experience of BBQ in the South.  She scoured the internet, but her break came from an employee at Trader Joe's whom she interacted with regularly.  This person described a "hole in the wall" type place that was sure not to disappoint.  We drove down from Hilton Head and started the day with a horse and carriage ride through the historic downtown before looking for the restaurant J had found with her grocery store ties.  I locked its location into my map app to follow, but as we neared the spot indicated I could not identify any parking or even a building that might be a restaurant. I decided to park in a nearby parking lot for some other stores and approach the area on foot with family in tow.

We passed an alley and then turned onto the street identified in the address.  It was just a row  of little rundown houses and we stopped in front of the one that had the correct number of 515, but there was nothing to suggest it was a place of business, just an overgrown porch.  Next to the door was a little black number 5 made of tin nailed to the wall and scrawled next to it in black marker was "15" to complete the house number.  

It seemed we'd hit a dead end, but I kept going and circled around and passed the alley entrance on the opposite side of the block we'd passed earlier.  The alley was gravel and spotted with mud puddles and trashcans in back of their respective houses.  Somewhere about half way down the length of the alley I spied a red bench which struck me as being out of place.  "What the heck" I thought, "why not check it out?"  Jennifer stayed in place while I ventured down and the kids strung themselves out between us.  As I approached the bench, avoiding the puddles of water, it started to take shape as a possible place of business.  A largish window had bars crisscrossing it and stickers of the Visa and Mastercard logos.  A homemade wooden sign came into view under a shallow porch overhang, "Wall's BBQ".  I'd found it!

I waved for Jennifer and the kids to join me.  The door had some neon-colored signs taped to it giving the days and hours of business.   We had arrived just at 12pm which the sign said was their opening time.  Trapped in the screen door was a piece of paper that fell when I opened it to knock.  I picked it up and saw that it was a standard form letter notice from the City of Savannah with some information hand written in places.  It was notifying them that there was a problem with the front of their house being overgrown with weeds and other such aesthetic concerns that needed attention.

I tried the main door but it was locked.  I could hear people moving around and talking inside and so I knocked, but no one came to the door.  I checked my watch again and it was now a few minutes past twelve.  Jennifer and I looked at each other like "now what?"  I sat on the bench and noticed a pair of glasses dangling from a metal decorative piece on the window.  I laughed, "Hey JB, I found my glasses!"  (I'd lost my glasses on the beach a few days prior).  She said she would call them and see if she could get ahold of anyone.  She dialed the number and then we started giggling because we could hear their phone ringing inside.  After a few rings someone answered and Jennifer asked if they were open.  

"Are you standing outside?" they asked.  

"Yes, we are."

"Oh, I thought I unlocked the door."  Then the door opened and an African-American lady ushered us in and sat us at an old diner-style booth.  The eating area was no more than ten feet wide by about twenty to twenty five feet long and included one long table in back and three of the tables that we sat at.  She gave us some photocopied menus and told us what was not available on it to include collard greens.  Jennifer asked about their BBQ offerings while the table was being set with styrofoam plates and plastic forks wrapped in a napkin.  We ordered pulled pork and ribs to share.  The BBQ sauce was of two varieties in red ketchup squeeze bottles sitting against the wall with the salt and pepper shakers.  

After we got our food, others began to show up to include a food tour group or two with their very own guide who came up to the kitchen door several times to coordinate things for his group who he'd thought had had reservations, but didn't.

We feasted on the ribs and pork as well as healthy portions of mac & cheese, black eyed peas, and coleslaw.  It was a unique and thoroughly enjoyable experience.


***

Playing in the Tide

Playing in the tide 

in sight of the full moon

wrapped in a scarf 

from a Savannah shop

her child-full abandon

dampening her clothes

but not her spirit.

***