They had a light-up Jesus on their mantle

Tsiyu

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Fri Jun-03-05 04:52 AM
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They had a light-up Jesus on their mantle

A life-size, backlit face I swore was Willy Nelson.

"Nice Willy Nelson...thingy," I said.

"Um. That's Jesus," she said.

"Really?"

"Yeah. If you start over there and walk across the room, his eyes follow you."

"Hmmmm," said I. "Kinda creepy." She looked at me warily, as if my squeamishness over the light-up Jesus might indicate some sort of demonic posession. But then the other woman started talking and I went back to wondering why I wasn't downstairs with the band.

This is always my dilemma at band practice in certain circles. I'm a musician, so I want to be where the music is, but if the band is all-male, many times the wives/girlfriends of the musicians expect me - a female as well - to visit with them. But I was there with a male friend, checking out the new blues band he's joined. I really wanted to be in the basement supporting him and listening to the tunes.

Still, I decided to be polite when the wife of the lead singer invited me to tour their house. She seemed pretty engaging and cool at first. After she told me a tale about doing shrooms while riding a Harley, I was thinking she was kind of funny and cool and worth getting to know. But I had my doubts.

The lawn jockey put me off, but I only caught it from the porch - didn't see it driving up - so I wasn't sure what "race" the silly thing was. Some folks have Caucasian lawn jockeys and I suppose that wouldn't bother me but the black ones always do.

As the evening wore on, the Wife of Lead Singer waxed drunk and poetic about her love for Indians; cheesy faux Native American Art was everywhere (watched over by the Jesus/Willy light-up head) so I didn't doubt her. She told a story about going into a "finer" department store in a nearby town in her leathers, only to be treated like dirt by the sales staff. Oh, by golly, she called the manager and had that bitch fired! Don't they know Harley riders have lots of $$$$$????

Then I went into the bathroom and noticed the old Durham tobacco signs with all the gross caricatures of blacks. I was disgusted. Some folks may view those items as "collectibles." I find them extremely offensive. As offensive as the cheesy Indian art? Worse.

The two women must have caught my vibe, because the more vacuous one started baiting me, calling Deep Throat a snitch, blah fucking, freeper blah blah. I held my own and finally said, "I am a raging Liberal and I make no excuses and take no prisoners...." and proceeded to lay out my very simple philosophy for them. Before I could finish, they were admitting * was a fucking nutjob motherfucker.(I never got to ask why Nixon wasn't.)

More conversation ensued, with some interesting discoveries made, but then the image of a local politician appeared on the TV screen next to the Light-Up Jesus head. This particular politician has been indicted with a few others in a bribery sting. I believe five of the guys are white and this guy is black. So Miss Spider-Who-Only-Seem-Vacuous proceeds to look me in the eye and say, "just like a n___."

Oh, I knew it was coming. The Racist's "test." I say the "n" word and watch your reaction. Are you with us Whiteys or not?

I wanted to slap her, verbally if not physically, but our Hostess with the Mostest got up from the sofa and called her in another room before I could say anything so I used that as my cue to join the band. Guess she knew things were about to get ugly if she didn't redirect her guests, because I was ready to go off and it had to have shown on my face.

I grabbed another beer because I was simmering, just hating these fucknuts, wondering how you can play blues and hate the people who created it, how you can revere Native Americans without understanding their most basic philosophies, how you can rant about an uppity white woman treating you poorly because of the style of your dress, yet your home demeans a whole race of people because of the color of their skin.

And even though I didn't come there to play, even though I told one of the cooler guys "no thanks" when he tried to hand me his guitar, by the time I finished that beer I was ready to smoke em. "Gimme that guitar."

So I watched the two husbands of racists (who no doubt join their wives in the mindset) lose the smirks on their faces and watch their eyes pop open cuz I was ON. And I sang a little about prejudice and people who don't have the answers and I kicked those motherfucker's asses and then walked out without saying a word to the bitches.

Mrs. N-word comes out to the car as we're leaving and proceeds to repeat over and over, "You sang good. You sang so good." Fuck you, I wanted to say. But I just thought to myself, Yeah, I know. I "sing good" all the time, and you're an ignorant asswipe ALL the time.

But Jesus is watching from the mantle so it's all okay....

And that was my fun night out this week.