CHRIST!
A Musical of the Lord
Words and music by Edwin B. Smock
Tim thumbed through the score with an expression of rising joy. Mrs. Passworth waved over the young choir director, a skinny guy with goofy glasses, a droopy bow tie, and a goatee. “Boys, this is Eddie, our Minister of Music. You’ll be in his hands from now on. Eddie, these are some of my best students from school — this is Tim, and that’s Daniel.”
“Boys, welcome!” Instantly I knew that Eddie’s nasal honk was enough to make this whole enterprise worthwhile. You could summon geese with that voice. His handshake was moist and sincere. “Welcome aboard, deelighted to have you. You’ve met the rest of our Combo?” Ah, so: that word must have come from him. “It’s pretty simple musical structure on the surface, three or four chords in most of the songs.” He turned the pages over my shoulder. “I didn’t write a piano part, so you can just play arpeggios, whatever you think. I’ve got my work cut out for me with the chorus. Basically all I need from you guys is to keep the beat and stay out of my way, okay?”
Sure, we could do that.
It dawned on me that Eddie must be Edwin B. Smock, composer and lyricist of Christ! “Hey Eddie, did you write this whole thing?”
“You bet I did,” he said, grinning, “and don’t give me any you-know-what about it!” He went off to gather the choir.
Tim wore a big doofus smile. “Deeelighted,” he said. “Did you get a look at these songs, Skippy?”
“Not yet,” I said. “But I have a feeling we’re going to be very happy here.”
This was one great-looking bunch of Christians. Not a pimple in sight — why do Christians always have such great skin? Also these Jackson girls wore clothes you didn’t see in Minor. Every one of them was showing off a spring tan with a skimpy blouse or sleeveless top, short-shorts, miniskirt. The boys looked sporty too — plaid pants were in that year, and Van Heusen velour pullovers in colors called “mustard” and “rust.”
I recognized a few kids from Minor: Celia Karn and her brother Greg, John Henry Ward and his sister Mary Virginia, Kirby Cook, Beth McDonald, Cathy Sessums, Tammy Lyall, Erin O’Bryen.
I flipped to the first page of the book.
ACT I
“Christ!” (Jesus, Chorus)
“Hey Mary, Guess What?” (God)
“Joseph, You’ve Got to Believe Me” (Mary)
Tim strummed the opening chords. “Oh Dagwood, this is better than I ever dreamed. Did you get a load of our Minister of Music?”
I smiled. “I surely did.”
Byron the drummer overheard us. “Eddie’s cool,” he said. “He’s only twenty-three, and he wrote the whole show himself. He’s amazing. You’ll see.”
Mickey twanged a note on his electric guitar. “What’s the matter, these guys don’t like Eddie?”
“I’m sure he’s great,” Tim said. “We just met him.”
“He’s a professional,” Mickey said. “He’s been to New York to see real live plays on Broadway. What shows have you seen?”
“This is my first,” I said. “I was hoping you guys could show us the ropes.”
“Jesus loves you,” said Ben the bass player. “That’s all the ropes you need.”
“Right on,” said Byron. “You guys are saved, right? I mean, why else would you be here?”
I recalled Dianne Frillinger’s scary dad asking the same question. I thought these guys must be joking, but Tim knew they weren’t. “Yeah,” he said, “we got saved about a year ago.”
Mickey frowned at me. “You don’t look all that saved to me.”
“Oh yeah,” I assured him. “One hundred percent.”
Tim said, “J.C. is my man.”
“Okay folks, listen up!” Eddie clapped his hands. “Is everyone excited?”
The girls applauded and went “Whoo!”
“Cause I know I am,” Eddie said. “Y’all chorus have been working so hard all spring. Now we’re ready to put this baby together, and take her on the road. Are you prepared to stride forth and make musical theater history?”
Everybody shouted YES! like at a pep rally.
“Like to introduce two new members of our Combo,” said Eddie. “That’s Tim on guitar and Dan on piano, everybody give ’em a big Full Flower welcome!” They clapped for us. We waved hello.
“Now listen up, people,” said Eddie. “There were those who predicted we’d never even get this far. And yet — here we are. On our way. This is the fulfillment of a dream for me personally. And before it’s over, I think this experience will touch each of us in ways we never expected.”
“Praise the Lord,” said a girl with lovely red hair.
“Praise the Lord,” Eddie said. “Now we’re headed into the homestretch. We have to make it great — not just good. This will be our first full-length run-through. Y’all know I’m a tough taskmaster, but you need to remember, when I’m being tough, it’s for you. With all the love in my heart. So just keep that in mind when I get on your nerves, which I plan to, a lot.”
Everybody chuckled.
“We’re with you, Eddie!” Mickey gave his guitar string a comical twang.
“Way to go! Way to go! I love it!” Eddie cried. “Now, the opening number is our grabber, folks — we gotta seize the audience by the throats and never let go. I want snappy, excited, bouncy . . . I want bounce. Combo? Kick us off.”
The chorus spread in three ranks across the stage. Byron rapped his drumstick on the rim, a peppy two-four rhythm. The choir sang:
Christ!
La la la la la, la la la
Christ!
La la la la la, la la la
If you’re feeling sad and blue
Who’s got real good news for you?
Who died on the cross for you?
Christ!
La la la laaaaaaa!
“Okay that’s good,” said Eddie, “but I really want to feel that punch when you say it — Chrrrrist! Like that! Okay? I don’t hear my baritones. Boys, sing out.”
Up With People, the New Christy Minstrels, the Fifth Dimension, the Pepsi Generation — Eddie Smock drew inspiration from all over. Tim and I kept our heads down and played softly. We dared not look at each other.
He was born in Bethlehem
No room at the inn for him
Pilate wanted death for him
Christ!
La la la laaaaaaa!
“Okay, well, that harmony’s still pretty rough,” Eddie said, “but hey, doesn’t our new and improved Combo sound great? Fantastic! You guys add a whole new dimension! Now, I want to just plunge on ahead.”
The second song featured a tall, good-looking boy, Ted Herring, as God, singing to the Virgin Mary, a beautiful brunette named Alicia Duchamp.
Hey Mary, guess what?
You’re gonna have a baby!
Yeah, ready or not —
I know you don’t believe it!
Of all the gals in Galilee
You’re the only gal for me
Hey May-rayy, guess what?!
Ya gonna have a Savior boy!
The songs were not rock and roll, but they were authentically snappy, lively show tunes. Eddie was a guy with a dream. He was also the most excited, cheerful guy in the room. He laughed and poked fun at our mistakes without hurting any feelings. He was not much older than we were, though he tried to look older with that goatee. I’d never seen anyone so comfortable in charge of other people.
From the sunny faces of the choir I could see that they’d all been saved, and Eddie was a hero to them.
I doubted I would ever fit in here. Everybody seemed a little too happy.
Eddie called a ten-minute break while he worked out the dance moves for the second big production number, “Third Manger on the Right.” Byron and Mickey said, “Hey, guys, come with us.” We went out of the sanctuary, down a maze of long twisting hallways.
Tim said, “Where are we going?”
“To hell if you don’t chan
ge your ways!” Byron said with a grin.
Mickey stopped before a tiny elevator, punched the button with his elbow. “They just installed this thing for the rich old ladies who can’t hack the stairs,” he told us. “Gotta keep those big offerings coming in.”
We crowded in. I didn’t really like being jammed in this tiny space with all the other boys. A steel gate slid shut. The elevator rose slowly.
Between the second and third floors Byron pulled out the STOP button, jolting us to a halt.
I said, “Hey, what are you doing?”
“Be cool.” Byron brought from his wallet a skinny hand-rolled cigarette and a book of matches. His eyes came up to mine. “Are you cool?”
“No!” I cried. “I mean yes!” Jesus, what was I doing here? Be cool, Daniel. At least act like you are. “I mean sure, go ahead. Not for me. What is that? Is that pot?”
“Tim? Are you cool?”
Tim said, “Fire it up.”
I said, “I thought all you guys were, like, Jesus freaks.”
“We are,” Mickey said.
“Praise the Lord and don’t Bogart that joint,” said Byron, striking a match. He touched it to the end of the cigarette, sucked in the smoke, and handed it to Mickey. Mickey inhaled and twisted up his face, and blew out the smoke laughing. The elevator filled with acrid perfume.
“What about Ben?” I said.
“Ben doesn’t partake,” Mickey said. “Ben is naturally stoned.”
“Stoned on Jesus,” said Byron.
I was shocked to see Tim take a puff. We had talked about pot, and decided it was stupid. Go to jail for smoking a weed? No thanks! Besides, the smoke made a terrible stink. I thought of that Three Dog Night song, “Mama Told Me Not to Come.” I put myself in the role of the guy who wants the hell out of the creepy party. If somebody caught us in here . . .
“I bet Jesus got high,” Mickey said. “There must have been dope growing everywhere in the Bible times. There was no law against it back then.”
“I can’t really picture Jesus using that stuff,” I said.
“You don’t think Jesus was cool?” Byron sucked in a chestful of smoke.
“I’m sure he was,” I said.
“But he couldn’t have smoked weed, Mickey, they were out in the desert! I bet they had hash or something.”
“Man, did you see Alicia Duchamp?” Mickey said. “In that little stripey thing? Wouldn’t you love to take that thing off with your teeth?”
“I hear you, man.” Byron offered the burning thing to me. I waved it away and watched Tim take another sip of smoke. I was impressed and appalled at how sophisticated he was pretending to be.
Byron said, “I’m done. Tim?”
“No more for me!” Tim’s grin was stupid. “You guys make a hell of a Combo.”
Byron spat on his fingers, pinched out the tiny cigarette. Then he pulled out a tiny spray can and squirted mint deodorizer over our heads. Mickey pushed in the STOP button. The elevator jerked back to life.
The three of them tittered all the way down the hall. We passed a couple necking just inside the double doors to the sanctuary.
This was not like any church I’d ever seen.
My favorite part of Christ! so far was a plaintive Act II ballad by the teenage Jesus, played by earnest, red-haired Matt Smith.
I’m just a boy with two dads
One is a carpenter, he’s so sad
One is a Father I never see
He’s up in heaven, waiting for me
I watched Eddie Smock huddling with Carol Nason, the tall silky blonde in the role of Mary Magdalene. Eddie sang a scrap of melody, and Carol sang it back. “Give it everything you’ve got,” he said. “This is your Ethel Merman showstopper.”
People said I was a girl of the streets
I wasn’t worthy to sit at his feet
Can’t they see that I’m not that kind of girl?
He fills the world with his beautiful song
He feeds the hungry, he rights the wrong
I’d like to help, but I’m not that kind of girl
Not that kind of girl, no!
I’m just clay in God’s hands to play with
Not that kind of girl, no!
I’ve only got two hands to pray with
This time she belted it out, really let it all go. We whistled and clapped. “Carol!” cried Eddie. “That was heart-stopping! Oh folks, I don’t want to jinx us, but — is anybody else beginning to think we’ve got something really special here?” His enthusiasm roused the chorus for the remaining songs, of which there were many. Edwin B. Smock the songwriter was extremely prolific. It was way late in the night by the time we reached the chorus of “Find a Way to Believe,” the Invitation, the closing anthem intended to rouse people from their seats and bring them down front to accept Jesus Christ as their personal savior.
We played the last bars and collapsed in the pews.
“Of course it could use a trim here and there,” Eddie said, “but I think it’s just great, don’t y’all?” He was up on the balls of his feet, smacking gum, bursting with energy from hearing his masterpiece for the first time.
We all tried to swallow our yawns. Mrs. Passworth rose up from the pew where she’d been snoozing. “Kids, you were wonderful! Eddie, we need to cut it.”
“Yes, I was just saying that, Irene!” he said in a tight voice. “While you were sleeping! But did you have any opinion of the parts you managed to stay awake for?”
“Wonderful,” she said, “really, it’s wonderful, but look at the time! My Lord, it’s half-past eleven!”
Eddie’s smile froze. “Okay! Well! I’m just the composer and lyricist and director, so maybe that’s why I thought it went great for a first run-through!”
“Of course it did, Eddie, we’re all exhausted,” she said. “Can we talk about this tomorrow?”
He stalked up the aisle, waving goodbye over his shoulder.
“Beautiful,” Tim said as we climbed into his dad’s Buick. (I had tried to pay for the new seat belt in back, but Patsy Cousins wouldn’t hear of it.) “Start to finish, every moment a memory that will last us a lifetime. Do you agree, Skippy?”
“Oh yeah.”
“Edwin B. Smock will go down in history,” he went on. “Centuries from now they’ll be building monuments to Edwin B. Smock.”
“And you wanna know the weird thing? I like him,” I said. “I mean, yes he is a total goofball, but also — he really believes in this stuff. He means it. You can tell.”
“Yeah, my bones hurt from trying not to laugh,” Tim said. “What a massive fruitcake!”
“Tim — how did it feel, getting high? I can’t believe you did that.”
“I didn’t really feel it, but I didn’t want to say anything. Apparently there’s all kinds of wild action going on at this church. Byron said last year some of them got drunk and stole the preacher’s car and drove to Biloxi. They didn’t even get in trouble.”
“You think all the kids are that wild, or just Byron and Mickey?”
“I don’t know, but we’re gonna have fun finding out,” he said. “And the great thing is — it’s church! Church! Who’s gonna question us? Did you see those girls sneaking out to smoke? Some of them were making out, too.”
“With each other? Gross!”
“No, Dumwood, with guys. Mickey said all these Christian girls are super horny.”
I reached for the seat belt, thought better of it. “He said that?”
“Their daddies are Christian, so they never get to go on dates or anything. The more Christian they are, the hornier they get. By the time they get old enough for youth group, they’re on fire.”
“Do you think — wow.”
“And no chaperones. Telling you, son, bad boys have all the fun. We shoulda known, the place to find the wild bunch was church.”
“You should be careful,” I said. “I don’t think you oughta be smoking that stuff.”
“Was that not crazy? Right in
the elevator! I couldn’t believe it.”
“I mean, seriously. With your police record and all.”
He braked for the first stoplight of Minor. “Are you gonna keep throwing that up to me from now on? Damn, I’m sorry I ever told you.”
“You didn’t tell me. I forced it out of you.”
“Oh forget it,” he said.
“You said reckless driving? They put you in jail?”
“You ready to go home now, Skippy?”
“Tim, what the hell is so bad that you still can’t talk about it?”
He turned east. “My God, you love to drag stuff up! It was nothing, okay? A stupid speeding ticket. They put me in jail for one night, to scare me.”
“But they suspended your license. And you’re still driving around without it.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know, son. You’re not as much fun as you used to be.”
I couldn’t argue with that. We rode in silence down the Old Raymond Road.
Tim said, “Look, truce. Okay?”
“Sure. I don’t care.”
“What can I say?” He grinned and started singing. “I’m just a boy with two daaaaaads . . .”
I couldn’t help joining in: “One is a carpenter, he’s so sad!”
10
I WAS UP LATE, skimming Great Expectations for the final. Three more exams, then Contest in Vicksburg, and school would be out for the summer. Outside I heard a car horn — shave and a haircut, two bits! — answered by the howl of Mrs. Grissom’s beagle.
Jacko snored on the other side of the Freak Annex. I hurried out, flapping my flip-flops down the driveway.
Tim spoke from the darkness. “Check it out!”
“You’re waking up the whole neighborhood!” I hissed.
“Would you shut up and check out my wheels?” He slapped the roof of a gleaming dark blue Ford Pinto, spotless and sleek-looking, with pinstripes and the dealer sticker in the window.
“Wow. Timmy — this is yours?”
“Bet your ass, Skippy! Mine, all mine! Happy birthday to me . . .”
“My God, they gave you a car? I didn’t even know it was your birthday.”