Inspiration Through the Arts

The lights went out.

“Welcome to Dearly Beloved’s Kumbaya Night,” a Charlton Heston like voice boomed from overhead. “A spectacular for the soul. Tonight we will inspire you through the arts.”

The audience clapped. Donnie’s hands prayer like before him smacking together, jumping up and down inside, caught up in anticipated rush. A term coined during one of our late night inebriated conversations. Rodney said a synonym was foreplay.

A flute tweeted. Sang like a single bird.

Donnie pressed his forefinger against his chin. Stared into the ceiling sparkling like a starry sky. Sounds like a piccolo or maybe a fife, I always get the two mixed-up. But again, it could be a tin whistle, more commonly referred to as a pennywhistle, which would make sense.

A single drum started beating.

Cocked his head. Definitely a conga or a tom-tom. Thought about asking Rodney, but decided not. The child doesn’t even like Madonna. I believe he’s tone-deaf.    

Then, like a sudden hailstorm, dozens of different instruments joined the flute and drum vibrating the room. Donnie could hardly distinguish the symphony of sounds. Strings, woodwinds, percussions emerging together making joyous clatter. Harmony in chaos. Closed his eyes, the rhythms transporting him far away. Lost in a jungle. Emerged in a Tarzan movie. Is that the drum beating or my heart?

His eyes opened when the music quit. The fire in the pit flared up. The voice again boomed overhead. “Welcome the Circle of Pan to Kumbaya Night!”

War whoops exploded from around the room. Which Donnie would describe as, “Causing me to cling to the ceiling after jumping out of my skin.”

About twenty men shaking rattles, smeared in body paint, clad in grass skirts stormed the stage and began dancing frantically around the campfire. Clapping, cheering, stomping and wolf whistling momentarily drowned out choir of drumbeats. “Goddamn!” and “Lord have mercy!” Rodney and Donnie uttered respectively aloud.

Each body jerked, wiggled, quivered, gyrated, twirled and whirled in freestyle. Glorious chaos, Donnie would later describe.

Closed his eyes briefly, his body sinking fast, swaying to the beats like waves pounding the shore. Totally swept away as though drifting off to sleep. The music pierced his primal core, aching to burst free. Rowdy. Raucous. Rambunctious. Could barely catch his breath. Yet strangely soothing, calming, oddly pastoral. When was the last time I felt this happy, caught up in the moment, totally carefree? Swaying in a hammock maybe, as light as the proverbial leaf drifting on a breeze. Or as a child swinging, unbound by gravity, soaring ever higher.

Donnie clapped his hands in unison with others in the room. Suddenly bound in brotherhood beyond sexual orientation.

Each dancer looked like a centerfold. They danced alone, together as couples or groups. Mr. Pick Any Month, though under the glittery splotches appeared to be an autumn, twisted in solo convulsions. A golden-haired Adonis entwined in a rainbow wildly romped with an African warrior. Three flamboyant otters frolicked.

Time disappeared. Nothing mattered except now. Donnie later explained to Calista, “I felt as exuberant as any of the dancers, and probably twice as winded.”

More war whoops and the dancers were gone. Donnie arose clapping in unison with his Dearly Beloved brothers. “Bravo! Magnífico! Encore!”

Again the stage went black. Donnie could see a figure in black setting a stool before the fire pit while a voice boomed up above. “A campfire is not complete without a solitary voice singing to the stars.” A million pinpoints of light filled the ceiling.

“Lovely,” Donnie gasped in awe. Remembered the nights in the mountains with Rodney staring up from the hot tub. The stars as numerous as the grains of sand on a beach, each glittering more brilliantly than a diamond, causing me to feel enormously humble.

The unseen voice continued. “Dearly Beloved is proud to welcome Levi King to Kumbaya Night!”

A single spotlight shone on the stool. A figure approached carrying a guitar. “Hot damn!” was shouted from the back of the room.

Donnie swooned. Felt his nether parts tingling. Hot damn indeed. That stud puts the Marlboro man to shame.

“Good evening,” Levi said after the applause quit. “Thank you for letting me part of Kumbaya Night.” His right hand strummed the strings, while his left hand searched cords.

Donnie sipped his cocktail, his soul aflutter in a vain attempt of cooling down. The cowboy, no matter the sex or orientation, is an all-American fantasy. Masculinity incarnated. ‘Midnight Cowboy’ is my second most favorite film, my mind filling in all of the unseen parts, which Rodney and I frequently role-play. A most useful technique picked up from my shrinks.

“Why must we,” Levi sang, “wait to see Heaven? Why can’t there be peace on Earth? Why can’t we love each other? Why must we die first?”

The voice matched the persona. As Donnie later described, “A tenor with a tender heart.”

“Why must we wait to see Heaven?” Levi crooned.

Donnie glanced at Rodney. Pressed his forefinger against his chin. A question worthy of deliberation, I’ll make a note of including it in one our late night inebriations.

“Why can’t there be peace of Earth?”

Granted, Donnie thought, Levi’s songwriting talents may fall way short of Cole Porter’s, but those jeans do make up for a multiple of sins. Giggled internally. Playful popped his chin. Silly boy! You’re becoming as ‘obsexed’ as Rodney. (A term used by a shrink in his portfolio describing sexual obsession that he found highly amusing.) Levi’s song is more spiritual than noteworthy, pondering the universal question why. Which, of course, there is no answer.

A dramatic pause as Levi started the second verse. “Heaven is more than a land faraway…”

Donnie picked up his cocktail, but didn’t sip. Or is there one? Humans have been kicking around the meaning of life chestnut forever. It’s the proverbial riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma cliché. The circle one runs around like a dog chasing its tail. Life is…

Stared into the false sky. Shrugged. Sipped his cocktail. I don’t know. Wonder if anybody does?

Levi also stared into the false sky. “It’s where love resides…”

Donnie sighed, glanced at Rodney. A most confusing, conflicting word shooting from spectacularly superb to viciously vile in a single beat.

“Everyone lives in harmony…”

Hardly.

“Nobody ever dies.”

Donnie gasped inside. His soul shivered and shattered. Death, the thing he hated most, was something he couldn’t escape. It was always there. I live in the shadow of.

“May we one day reach Heaven on Earth.” Levi repeated the round.

Donnie had a constantly changing concept of heavenly matters. In other words, he didn’t know and often wondered if anybody did. Of course somebody must. Every question has to have an answer. I just need to widen my search.

As a child, he pictured Heaven as a world beyond Peter Pan’s Neverland and God as Santa Claus’s holy brother. Who seemed to have an uncanny resemblance to George Burns.

Outgrowing that was a stretch of spiritual wasteland though not disbelief. I was overwhelmed with earthly matters. Went through the motions when necessary but not religiously. God’s death, like Mark Twain’s premature demise, seemed greatly exaggerated.

My religious life, like my personal life, is a dab unconventional. Okay, larger than a single dab, a lump of mass quantities. Some might say bordering on heresy. Of course my personal constitution didn’t just spring up overnight. Took years of refining and probably needs professional editing. But my thoughts are mine. They are a work in progress. Of course the results are never ending and everything is subject to change. So for better or worst, not sure of the balance, without much ado, because I do tend to be a bit dramatic, another incidence when one may quiver over the degree, may I present for your consideration, have always wanted to say that it sounds so theatrical, my theology—The Gospel according to Donnie. Hopefully, the views are worthy of the build-up though most aren’t. We’ve become a nation of hype, but again I wander from my subject.

God is love.

That’s it, my complete theology. Condensed into three words, problematic in using one abstraction to explain another. The only word I’m absolutely know the meaning of is ‘is’. I’ll explain.

My religious journey began in SummerSound’s First United Methodist Church. Mother said after marriage she flirted with upgrading to Presbyterian or even Episcopalian, but decided to stay with Sutton tradition. Us Southerners do tend to get sticky about blood. “Besides, Donnie Darling,” she added, flashing her famous smile, “Switching trespasser for debtor is hardly a step-up.”

Anyway, according to my baby book, I was christened at six months. Sprinkled with water the Reverend Crosby brought back from a Holy Land pilgrimage to the River Jordan. The Chapel did his Beautiful Eternal Memorial Portrait last fall after succumbing to a heart attack. At cocktail parties I tell everybody the water actually came from the Dead Sea predestinating my profession.

I joined the Church when I was ten. After hearing that the Holy Catholic Church mentioned in The Apostles’ Creed referred to the universal one and not the brown stone building on Sycamore Street, I raised my hand and asked, “Why are there so many churches then?”

Thus Reverend Crosby began a tedious explanation, which lasted the whole hour, while others in the class shot me ‘Go to hell’ glares.

Stopped. Cocked his head. Pressed his forefinger against his chin. Looking back that is oddly reminiscent of countless lectures from a host of male authoritarian figures beginning with Father that whistled through my ears. Wonder if that has meaning? Will be sure and mention that revelation to my shrink at our next meeting. Of course I’ll have to find a new one first. The last one, thank God I quickly forgot his name, bordered on creepy.

Levi finished his song. The applause brought Donnie back to where he was.

“Thank you. You are most kind. My next number is one I’m sure you will know.”

The spotlight flicked out for a moment. The room became churchlike. Levi began strumming his guitar. A rose colored light grew brighter. Levi lifted up his eyes and began singing. “Imagine there’s no Heaven…”

Donnie felt like he was being hugged. Wrapped his arms around him. Closed his eyes floating, the music taking over, singing along in his soul. It’s easy if you try…

When Donnie first heard the song years ago he hated it. Stopped listening after the first line. No Heaven? That’s absolutely absurd! There’s got to be a Heaven! I’ve heard so all of my life! Heaven is the reward for being good and hell is the punishment! Everybody knows that! Back then he immediately switched radio stations whenever the song came on. Plus the blasphemous interpretation of John Lennon’s remark about the Beatles being more popular than Jesus confused matters more. Oddly enough, it was Father who unintentionally turned my thinking around. Although my relationship with the old man has and will continue to be fertile fallow for many a shrink session, I will forever be indebted for that solitary memory. Which, sadly, is the only positive one I own. Hastily explained once to one of my therapists.

The incident occurred during the early spring of my senior year in high school. I’ve received a cherry red Mustang for Christmas. Totally flamboyant, which contributed to the constant teasing about my massive bulk and working at the Mortuary, but I didn’t care since my Mustang gave me freedom and I was leaving this God forsaken place for the University in August, and…

Oh, I’m sorry. There I go off wandering again. I’m fully aware that this is only an hour session, but I thought my minute details might help explain…

Yes, I understand. Sighed deeply. Suck in and out breath.

I was picking up Father from his work. His Lincoln Continental was in the garage and Mother was attending one of her meeting. Of course I knew that Father’s Continental was having a brake job and Mother was attending her Wednesday afternoon UDC meeting, but that shrink, who became an ex the moment I walked out of the door, will never know.

We were almost home when the song came over the radio. Usually when Father got into my Mustang with me, which was hardly ever, he immediately reached over and snapped off the radio, but for some reason didn’t that day. Oh, yeah, I remember why now. He was waiting when I drove up, jumped in and barked, “It’s been a hell of a day. Get me away from here as fast as you can.” Again, I didn’t tell that ex-shrink any of the details after saying the song came on.

I immediately reached over to switch stations, which had become a knee jerk reflex.

“Dammit Donnie, keep both hands on the wheel! Are you trying to kill me? When I’m riding with you concentrate on the road and leave the goddamn radio alone!”

“Yes, Sir,” I replied my eyes focusing on the road. Again, no descriptive detail to that ex-shrink, who made me feel shit small like my father.

“What are you trying to hide? What sort of goddamn trash don’t you want me to hear?”

“Nothing, Sir, it’s just a song. One I don’t…”

“I’ll judge for myself.” Father turned up the volume and I listened to John Lennon. Except for frequent humphs and grunts from Father, the world rejoiced in that marvelous voice.

After the last note, Father violently clicked off the radio. “No wonder the younger generation is going to hell listening to that kind of shit. Communist crap. Complete bullshit. All of those goddamn long-haired queers will sell out the true American way life for less than a dime.”

That’s when I realized ‘Imagine’ was the modern day equivalent of ambrosia from the gods.

The song ended. Donnie arose with his Dearly Beloved brothers. The applause, accented by wolf-whistles and hollers, roared. Levi stood and bowed. “Thank you. Thank you very much.”

from Dearly Beloved