Same River Twice, part six

continued from Friday, June 16, 2006

Ten days later Marshall slapped Old Spice on his freshly shaven face, laced up his red silk tie and otherwise prepared for his first gospel concert. Parker had decided to debut him at a small church. Place called the Upper Room Hallelujah Apostolic Heavenly Fire Holiness Last Days Tabernacle. A wooden mission on Fifth Street. Seated about seventy-five. The Ohio River Boys were to be the first group from outside the “Pentecostal Experience,” whatever that was, to perform at their monthly hymn sing. “Should be a lively crowd,” Parker had said.

~

Lively indeed. Incredible buzz, even with the building only two-thirds full. “Only the faithful,” said Prophet Bart, founder, pastor, music minister, and groundskeeper of the Tabernacle. His skinny five-and-a-half-foot frame radiated more something, maybe call it power, than Marshall had hitherto known. Enough that it scared him, so he hid in a bathroom behind the baptistery until Bart began the service, quickly whipping his flock into a frenzy that rivaled those Marshall had witnessed in his heavy metal, mosh pit days, without the Lord of Darkness makeup, body-piercings and drugs. These people -- these plain-dressing, no frills, middle-aged to elderly people, didn’t need drugs to go bonkers. Parker had to nudge Marshall onto the pulpit when the time came to open their set with “I’ll Fly Away,” sans the head-rubbing lyrics.

A passel of elderly women with beehive hairdos danced circles around each other ten feet from where Marshall, white knuckles gripping his microphone, sang. Behind the women, row after row of “glory” shouting, hallelujah, get-on-down-the-road, pew-jumping, sin-denouncing, activity provided Marshall with his first glimpse of the Pentecostal experience. His fellow Baptist singers kept cool, opening their mouths wide, smiling as they sang, just like in practice. They moved from song to song, occasionally exhorting the revelers, who needed no encouragement, to “give Jesus a great big hand-clap of praise” in between songs.

Marshall saw his latest chance evaporating, the latest river changing under his feet. No gentle hymn sings, no Family Fun Nights or Afternoon-Singing-and-Dinner-On-The-Ground where regular old God-fearing Americans would gather at his feet and applaud him as he sang simple songs of faith. Instead, this, this … carnage.

Two men in the back began running laps around the sanctuary as they screamed praises. R-u-n-n-i-n-g. Two more men and a lady with hair to her knees joined in. They wove in and out of clusters of hand-waving, dancing worshipers, yet none collided. Half of these wackos had their eyes closed. How were they not colliding?

And all the babbling! Fifteen, twenty people shouting in some unidentifiable language. Marshall had heard of speaking in tongues, much like he’d heard of people walking on hot coals or resting on beds of nails, yet here they were in front of him, including a couple of the pew-jumping lap-runners, twisting, leaping, pivoting miraculously to avoid trampling stationery worshipers and a few others who had collapsed, “slain in the Spirit,” in heaps on the hardwood floor.

“Get on key,” Parker hissed in between the chorus and the second verse of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” Marshall tried, but what did it matter? The Ohio River Boys had become irrelevant, standing like bean poles while the earth all around shook with Holy Ghost thunder. Irrelevant as always, Marshall thought. Marginalized in his first concert. Might as well be singing “How Much Is That Doggie In The Window.”

He looked at Parker, Darren and Brandon, singing as if this crowd were no different than any other. Even Phil at the piano. Well, Marshall wouldn’t settle for obscurity. Not this time.

~

“He’s got the fire! He’s got the fire!” Prophet Bart shouted, waving his black leather King James Bible in the air as Marshall sprinted down the aisle,

to be continued