Reiss DuPlessis
The windshield wipers are not fast or strong enough to win the battle with the pounding rain hitting with the force of a fire hose. When the wiper goes swiftly to the left, I can see for a split second. Then, nothing but smeared glass. When it returns to the right, again I can see, but only for a second. I hope no one makes a fast move in front of me between swipes. This is crazy. It’s not supposed to rain like this in Southern California. I’ll never get to the V. A. Hospital. I wonder how everyone else is doing driving in this Los Angeles style monsoon. The windows are fogging up. What next? Maybe the car will spring a leak! Why did I even think that? My little Dodge Dart convertible wouldn’t do that to me... or would it? I imagine dripping sounds all around me. Can’t take an eye off the freeway long enough to check. Just drive. Don’t look around. If it leaks, it leaks, as long as it doesn’t leak on my new guitar in it’s new case.
With the love and sensitivity of a father caressing his new born babe, I reach over and run my right hand, lovingly, up and down the cold, but dry guitar case that is wedged in front of the passenger seat. Sister Letitia would tell me that Saint Cecelia is looking over me and my guitar. She is, after all, the patron saint of musicians. I wonder if Saint Cecelia considers all of us who, just because we can strum three chords, carry a tune and, when we learn a few songs, call ourselves folk singers, musicians enough to be worth her time. I may have an advantage because I studied the piano with Sister Letitia. All of those years spent singing in the boy’s choir should earn points too. She’ ll take care of me. So far, so good, at least the car is not leaking. Thank you Saint Cecelia!
Frightened drivers are passing with great caution on either side of me. They want to make it home safely for the Christmas holidays. I can, as l glance at cars beside mine, see drivers clutching the steering wheel, desperately trying to see through their rain beaten windshields.
Finally, I see the exit to the hospital. Why in the world did it have to rain like this tonight? Oh well, we’ll do a better show.
The most important thing, as I get out of the car, is the guitar. Please, Saint Cecelia, stop the rain! I don’t want the guitar to get wet. Saint Cecelia must be busy with bigger stars, as the rain soaks me, my fancy folk singer’s shirt and the guitar case. With a mad dash, I’m inside the building. The guitar case first. Dry it first. The heck with the shirt. The heck with me. Take care of the guitar!
Sufficiently dry, I find the office where I meet the woman with whom we arranged this Christmas show for the patients. “You’re the first one here. Sit and relax,” she says, “the patients are being brought down to the Rec. Room.”
Good. I take the guitar from its case, check it over inch by inch, string by string. All is well, except, it is badly out of tune. Time goes by and no one arrives. What in the world? Where are Raychel, Pam, Eddie and all of the others? The woman in charge says, “You are the only one here. Ready?”
Oh God! Only me? I’m just a fake folk singer. I just got this guitar three weeks ago! I only know a few chords and songs. How am I going to pull this off? Saint Cecelia, you had better be there with me or I’ll......
Suddenly, I’m out there. There are patients all around me. There is no stage set up. It’s just the Rec. Room with patients in beds, wheel chairs and some leaning on crutches. How am I going to pull this off? Panic!
I idly strum the guitar and tell the group of sick and injured veterans that I think I should start with a very serious love song; and with no further introduction, I sing:
Passengers will please refrain from flushing toilets
while the train is standing in the station, I love you.
We encourage constipation while the train is in the station.
Moonlight always makes me think of you.
If you feel you have to go and other people are too slow,
there is only one thing you can do,
you'll just have to take a chance,
be brave and do it in your pants
and I'll forgive you darling, I love you!
Encouraged by the laughter and applause, I say out loud, “OK, Saint Cecelia, close your ears!” And so begins the concert of the bawdiest songs I can remember from the wonderful book, Bawdy Songs and Backroom Ballads. It deteriorates to songs too bawdy even for that book. “Please, Saint Cecelia, forgive me, but the veterans are having a good time and so am I!
I know I should sing Christmas carols, but the bawdy songs are saving my neck. They love them and the lyrics are enough to make up for my three chord guitar and singing that is not the slightest threat to Burl Ives or Theodore Bikel.
I notice one patient sitting in a wheel chair not reacting the way the others are. He is just sitting, arms dangling over the sides of his chair. Every now and again, I walk by him and sing in his direction. No reaction.... just a stare and some, seemingly, involuntary movement of his hands.
During a five minute break, while there are some announcements, one of the attendants tells me the man in the wheel chair is David and he has not spoken for some time. He just sits and stares. I try not to let the sadness of David’s story affect me as I walk back out and sing the rest of the bawdy songs.
For a few minutes, I sing a couple of the Christmas songs to make it, legitimately, a Christmas program, but it is obvious, those are not what the guys want to hear. So, it’s back to the good songs.
To end the show, I use my all time favorite:
“My wife she died in the bathtub. She died of a terrible fit.
To fulfill her very last wishes, she was buried in six feet of...
Sweet Violets, Sweeter than all the roses, covered all over from head to foot ,
Covered all over with soot.”
I go through verse after verse, always with the Sweet Violets ending of each.
Then, it’s time for the final verse.
And now that my story is ended,
And I must make my exit,
If any of you feel offended,
Stick your head in a barrel of..
Before I could sing “Sweet Violets,” the song is ended by that lone silent man called David, with his perfectly timed, on pitch, one note, one word ending: “Shit!”
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