A tale of Pentecaustic Woe

Make sure to swallow and set your drink down before clicking on this link and reading the entire story. Just an excerpt:

My father's only love is the piano. My mother once complained that he spent more time at the piano than with her, and she was going to leave him if he didn't get off that infernal thing and watch Lucy with her on the tee-vee. Without a word, he went into the bedroom, packed her bags, left them in the hallway and went back to practicing. She never complained about it again.

By day he sold pianos at the French Market in Kansas City, at least, he made a valiant effort. By night he played in mob-owned strip clubs. His desire to be Sarah Vaughan's accompanist was never realized -- his brush with fleeting fame at that time was posing in a photograph with Lawrence Welk.

He wasn't a very good salesman. He'd start his spiel by offering the customer advice, then select a piano that would go with the rest of their furniture. At the point he had to close the deal, he would demonstrate the piano's virtues, and forgetting the customer, he would begin to play. And play. The customer, realizing he would never be able to play that well, left. But there were occasions when he made the sale. And that was usually to a church.

Dad played the organ in our church. He was the only member who could. Our church was a small, nondenominational collective of anal, henpecked men whose wives were gossiping scolds. Our family was their main source of nourishment.

The problem the church busybodies had with my father was how he played the organ.

Musically, he was a black man in a church full of tone deaf Klansmen. His playing was a thing of exquisite blasphemy. He cast aside the Methodist three-chord blandishments and restraints and pumped in chords and forbidden rhythms from the Devil's own Fake Book, inspiring lustful arousal -- augmented minors, dominant sevenths and tenths vamped with a downbeat and walking bass lines. He made the Wurlitzer wail and moan with orgasmic pleasure.

Alas, in our church, there was no amen choir for such playing. There was no choir at all. Just congregational singing at its worst. I spent my time in those moments by making up new words for whatever hymn we were singing.

And then he sold a baby grand to a Pentecostal church.

The preacher, an organist himself, invited us to visit his church. My father, wary of all things Roman Catholic or Charismatic, would have declined, but for the money. Come Sunday, the six of us showed up, dressed in our faded, Goodwill best.

Just go and read. I'll stay here. Hat tip to Bayou Renaissance Man for the link.

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About this Entry

This page contains a single entry by DaveH published on November 16, 2010 10:48 PM.

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