Other bands: Smile Empty Soul
Just across the Indiana border and into Michigan, the White House 2 was a sports bar on the side of a wooded state highway. A nondescript building with brand new white siding, it looked like it could have just as easily been a roadside church that housed the holy, the un-made-up, the denim skirted and the sterile smell of a brand new public address system.
The stage was on risers in the corner and patrons sat down at tables while we played. They were rowdy and loud, but seemed somehow welcoming, or at least open to our vibe.
When the headliner came on, a few dozen fans came up to watch and rock out to the hit or two they knew. Considering the Prevost tour bus parked outside and the gold-record pedigree of those playing onstage, it was the midwestern live music experience for bars at its most illustrative.
One of our cousins who lived in South Bend came out to see us. Last I knew, he was still enmeshed in the Apostolic Oneness faith like his family before him, so I was more than a little surprised to see him order a round of drinks for our table.
When we were kids, we would get into arguments about random Bible things and the true meaning of Thanksgiving and over who was the most avid and dedicated holy bookworm. It was the neverending game of esteem-snuffing religio-one-up that kids in my immediate sphere seemed consumed with at the time.
Now we could talk freely about our familial quirks and the blatant cognitive dissonance of our Jesusly upbringing, all with malted beer breath and colorful language that would have brought pointed ultra-pious stares from dour elder faces years ago. It was freeing and refreshing to hear my cousin go on about his dad's ridiculous moral issue with my parents' entertaining the idea of purchasing a vineyard in their retirement. Be ye not drunk with wine, and all that.
Still, it would have been impossible to have a conversation of this nature at any one of our family gatherings. But here in this den of iniquity, in this shelter away from the stifling rays of Heaven, we could finally be real.
0 comments:
Post a Comment