Hallelujah

Hallelujah
copyright @aladreth


"Daddy sang bass,
Mama sang tenor.
Me and little brother would join right in there.
Singing seems to help a troubled soul.
One of these days and it won't be long.
I'll rejoin them in a song.
I'm gonna join the family circle at the Throne.
No, the circle won't be broken.
By and by, Lord, by and by." - Johnny Cash "Daddy Sang Bass"


We decided we would go to karaoke at the old wild west bar in Cyanide Springs in October.  Karaoke is 2pm every Sunday out at a place called, "Yesterdays." They make the best food too. We would go when it was cooler in the middle of the day.  Yes, we would go to eat and karaoke.

So far, I have only sung one song karaoke style in my whole life and it was "The Rose."

I asked you if  perhaps we could sing "Stuck in a Lodi Again" together and you said we could, and we would.  I asked you to promise me and you promised me.

I remember many years ago, I was wrapped in sunlight shining through ripped drapes in mid-June.  I was laid in the arms of my then svengali.

It was in a cheap, sleazy motel in Las Vegas; I made him promise things too.

He made me a promise I believed, trusted and knew to be true.

At least at that moment, I knew it was true.  I guess I knew it was true for a few years.

Shant I say different now?  Yes, it turned out very different than I thought it would.

We are not together.  And though, I think of him often, we have not been together in a long, long while.

I won't say what I asked him to promise me, but suffice to say, he could not keep the promise if we were not together.

He sent me a text recently asking me what I was "doing tonight." I could not answer the text because I did not know what to say.  I felt so weird.

Now, thinking of the promises you have made me, there is no way we could not be together for you to keep your promises.  We would *have* to be together.

I trust you.  I trust you far more than I did that previous master of my life.

I simply trust you.  You have been my dream.  Then you came true.  We met and we met a thousand times after that in the sky.

So, I know we will sing "Lodi" together, one day, right after eating fried chicken livers and drinking a good Sam Adams harvest ale.

I had you repeat all the promises I have asked you to make.  You rattled off a ton and I did not remember any of them.

Save one.

I did not remember making you promise any of those things except one thing.  I knew I was growing up.  I knew I was not the weak little child I used to be.  I would never know if you kept the promises or not because my mind had already left me.

You reminded me I made you promise these things after I was in a 'state' of orgasmic happiness.  I was peaceful and loving -- and you told me you would always promise me anything I requested.  Oh, how sweet that was to hear.

Well, except... except that time I asked you to promise you would let me tie you to a cactus in the middle of a wash in the desert.  That you would not agree to.

But, you would marry me and you would paint the eaves on my house.

You added to my fantasy of karaoke at the old wild west bar in Cyanide Springs, by saying we would sing "Handel's Messiah" to tease my mother who says I think you are the Messiah.

I told you no one in this podunk town knew "Handel's Messiah."


                                               ***

One of my friends knew I was getting things ready for "The Messiah" to come and she said, "Well, he *is* the Messiah."  She can't wait to meet you.  She needs a Messiah too.  I told her maybe she could borrow you for two weeks.

Then I dreamed of so many things.

I dreamed you left me.

It felt so real.  It was very scary to me.

So scary I laid flat in the grass on my back wondering if I would die.  I was sure I would die and I watched the gold and green leaves fall on my legs from the birch trees above me.

"They will cover me over.  They will be my coffin.  Who gives a fuck about my favourite season of autumn, if I am dead," I said.

"If you have left me, I will be dead," I moaned and I didn't care who heard my cries or witnessed my insanity.

I saw you coming and I got up and ran through the University grounds.  I could not see you again.  I could not speak to you ever again.  You tried to catch me to tell me it was a mistake and I only "thought" you had left me.

How could that be?  I am not a stupid woman.  I know far more than I let on.

I could not understand anything you were saying.  None of it made sense.

I ran from you, straight to my crazy friend, Pat, who operated the snack shack on campus.  She had two broken guitars.  I said I needed them because you could fix them and they were yours anyway.

Between serving half priced soft drinks and packages of kettle cooked chips, she gave me the guitars and I dragged them to the car.

You would need them.  I knew you would.

Even if you *had* actually left me, they would be there.  A blue and white broken electric guitar and a small brown thing missing part of its arm.

Waiting for you.

Waiting for you in the home of a psycho crazy hoarder, because that would be what I would turn into waiting for you.  I would hoard every broken item that I believed was yours.

I thought back to one of the times we had met.

I remembered the feel of you holding on to my thighs when you were on the floor and I was sitting in a wicker chair.  How deeply you dug your hands in to me and how you held on for dear life.  I knew it had to be a nightmare you were leaving me.  It could not be true.  How could you go from needing me so badly you had cried and begged me to stay with you - to this ... to this horrendous dream ... where you left?

The pain was deep in my gut.  My mind would not focus.

I had to go back to the clinic where I had once worked for seven years.  A doctor-lab-type-man was coming to take over my desk and he did not like all the knick knacks and Calvin and Hobbes cartoons I had left all over the place.  He was strictly a computer-logical-spock-type-man and didn't want any of my shite on the desk and walls.

I brought my dear Shauna with me.  She was dressed in a peach outfit and was happy and bright and copying down old family recipes she wanted that I had kept from her.  I didn't tell her how to make Gramma's grape juice dumplings or Aunt Minnie's Poor Boy Pie and she was quite excited to find them in my desk drawer.

She was helping me pack everything in plastic tote boxes and I stole two pretty owls made of ceramic from another girl's desk.  I remembered then, how you had made fun of me because I said some people are afraid of owls and you said they were not.

"Owls are not snakes," you had said.  You said they were just owls and no one was afraid of owls.

I begged to differ.

No matter, though, I was proud of you that you were not scared of anything.  I needed you in my life.  I needed someone who wasn't scared.  Someone who wasn't fearful.

I bought you, I mean, I stole you, a pretty ceramic owl. I would wrap it up in shiny gift wrap and give you it for Christmas. I was so excited to know you would be sitting on my couch, looking unafraid, opening the owl package.

The man who took my desk over, began singing, "Handel's Messiah" - then the whole office began to break out in the melody and harmony of the classic.

I stumbled and fell back in an office chair absolutely dumbfounded.  The people in this podunk town knew the song I had told you they did not!!!

I reached for you in my sleep.

You were there.

Thank God, Goddess, the Universe and all the faeries.

Thank the wood elves you love so much, and Gollum.  Oh, yeah, I love that Gollum myself, feel sorry for the poor chap even, since he lost his pretty gold ring and all that... so thank HIM too.  Thank everyone I had ever met or imagined in my whole entire life.

THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!

YOU WERE THERE.

Hallelujah.

You had not left me.

We could sing.

We would sing.

We would sing "Handel's Messiah."