Hallelujah!

Yesterday we spent the day looking through old boxes, excavating the basement, searching for torn seams in dusty air mattresses. My jeans are filthy; my black shirt too. It looks like I stepped on a bloated, vacuum-bag land mine. I can't feel my legs. I can't help thinking there's something symbolic about checking for air leaks; running your fingers over smooth plastic and feeling for punctures, listening for the soft hiss of escaping air as the mattress exhales, taping up the holes, making it stronger. It's what we do to our selves when he have the intention to grow, to learn, to expand. No matter what we do though, no matter how full our hearts or heads become, no matter how many seams we patch up, we can't ever stop the air from seeping out. Even the healthiest, most air-tight air mattress will suffer from deflation over time. This is because gas molecules permeate through most solids. A friend made the analogy of a ball bearing dropped down a two mile stretch of wire mesh. It might take it a while, maybe hours, but eventually that ball bearing will make its way through to the other side. This is symbolic too. We're always losing pieces of ourselves to time; big silver birthday balloons huddled in a corner, dented and caving in, filling up with emptiness. Hanging helplessly from the ceiling, like wounded piñatas we wait for blindfolded time to bash us apart.

When we were done I went home and did some moderate cleaning while I drank a Corona and listened to Etta James, Solomon Burke, and James Carr. I'd never heard Solomon Burke before. He was very good, though I admit there is some novelty to hearing talented soul singers from that era. There's something charming about an expression of pain you haven't yet heard. Over and over I found myself kidnapped by aching melodies, musical ransom notes for lost love. More and more lately I think loneliness is what we are when we are most naked. Take away our money, clothes, possessions and companions and what do we have? Need. To need is to admit incompleteness, unfulfillment, insufficience; a desire for something other. And what is that, if not loneliness?

Oh, I nearly forgot about this morning:

I go to drop off some shirts at the dry cleaner and I walk outside right as the bus comes. Sweet. I board through the backdoor and over my headphones I could swear I hear a girl whisper "I wouldn't get on this bus if I were you." I hear it too late to turn to her to see whether she was talking to me or if I'd misheard her, and then the doors close. I touch my metro card to the reader and head toward the empty seat in the back. Once the bus is in motion I hear impassioned speech coming from the middle of the bus. People look very uncomfortable. I lower the volume on my headphones a bit to hear what's going on. I see a dude, homeless looking, maybe my age, drugged out, crazy, gesticulating with a black water bottle in one hand. His other hand is in the pocket of his hoody. Dude is yelling about Jesus and talking about how he's murdered someone and he's sorry for what he's done, how he's gonna make it right. People look really uncomfortable. He starts talking even louder, about the lord and redemption and salvation and atonement. People are visibly nervous. While this is happening, the bus driver is eyeing him in the rearview. The driver comes over the PA and says Divisadero is the last stop. Everyone looks annoyed, but thankful to be getting off the bus.

At this point we're a few minutes to Divisadero, maybe three stops away, four max. Dude literally begins screaming the word hallelujah at the top of his lungs, over and over and over and reaches into his pocket. I'm thinking, oh fuck, dude's gonna pull out a gun and start shooting up the bus. I'm gonna die here. Like this? C'mon! I almost died on Saturday; not again! Now we're coming up on Divisadero, he still hasn't stopped roaring hallelujah and the bus is like a fucking feedback loop of tension. People start rushing for the door and the guy lunges at some chick but doesn't touch her. Everyone is startled. I look at him as I pass and he starts beseeching people to embrace Jesus. I still don't know what the dude has in his pocket. Everyone gets off the bus and the driver is trying to get him off but he won't get off. Then, the driver gets out of the bus. The dude is in there screaming hallelujah, hallelujah! Hallelujah! You can hear the sirens coming. I just realized this story is anticlimactic. I didn't stick around to see the confrontation between him and the cops because I had to get to work. But if I were him, when they got there I would've definitely told them I was a huge Jeff Buckley fan.

The moral of the story is, if you ever need to stop and completely empty a bus, just keep yelling about Jesus for as long as you can, as loud as you can. Your prayers will be answered.