The Exalting Joy

A comedy about two best friends and the second coming of "Jesus."

   There was nothing me and Cyrus wanted more than to change into a death metal band after the second coming of “Jesus.” But one of the songs we played live was the Super Mario Theme song on ukulele and Theremin. And no one who plays ukulele or the Theremin is evil. We wanted to and I thought it was the thought that counted. We tried putting a lot of distortion on our instruments but it still sounded sunny. It sounded better but wasn’t what we were looking for. We tried switching all our songs to minor chords but that just sounded ugly. I even tried singing in that weird throaty roar but it hurt my throat. It’s hard to go from songs about liking that girl at school that I knew in Sunday school who turned into a punk (“Sheena Is a Punk Rocker, And Now She’s Hot”) to praising a dark under lord; who, if I’m right about Jesus, isn’t real either.

   We didn’t hate Jesus. We hated some Joshua Gomes from Riverside who used to work a Taco bell drive-thru claiming to be Jesus. He didn’t seem Christ like to me but somehow all the local churches were convinced he was. When me and Cyrus heard that “Jesus” was going to visit our youth group we never went to another meeting. We both claimed we could see the die pouring out of his sleeve into the water to turn it into “wine.” He looked like Jesus when he walked on water but we could see the platform underneath him when he walked on Lake Silverwood.

   We struck on something when I picked up my uke and started rapidly strumming from the C chord to F until hitting G for four beats. I sang: “It was a sequel two thousand and forty four years in the making/ Now he’s back to life looking for donations for the taking/ The second coming of Christ/ Was born in Riverside/ The new one picked apostlettes and they are all pretty/ Either this guys a fantastic lover or I’m worse than I thought at loving/ The second coming of Christ/ Was born in Riverside.” We played forty versus like that. We traded off like that for a while. Cyrus took particular pleasure in knowing his mother, a high up of New Christ followers, was right outside our door. He didn’t expect her to come in kissing his cheek, thanking him for finally seeing the light.

   “Dude!” He taps my knee.

   “Cyrus!” I said

   “She didn’t know we were kidding.”

   “Yeah?”

   “Do you not know how awesome that is?”

   “Yeah I do!”

   “We gotta think of more things like that.”

   I start setting up the mics.

   “What are you doing?” He didn’t like when I touched his equipment.

   “We’re recording this. We‘ll call it ‘the Sequel’.”

   “Oh yeah? Right on ya,” he ripped the cords out of my hands. “Don’t touch my stuff.”

   We were able to record most of it on one take. Our basic track was me singing with my uke, and him drumming on a snare drum and a cymbal. After we were done filling in the other instruments, Cyrus wrote a great horn part and he played trumpet while I played sax. He picked up the guitar and started playing a riff that went E, A, Bsus2 and back to E. I started singing to an old folk melody: “I love Jesus/He's a buddy mine/What a guy/He died so I'd be saved/I wear a rosary/Like a BFF necklace/He protects me from Martians/Who want to probe my brain.”

   Then Cyrus continued with a chorus: “Sometimes my faith is like a dog/Once I let it back in/I see something cool in the yard/I need to go out again/Jesus fights vampires/He tamed the wolf man/He deserves my love/He rids the of zombies,“ He had to stop playing because he was almost having a giggle fit.

   So I started again: “Thanks to Jesus/I can eat bacon/I can have cheeseburgers/Although I don't like cheese.”

   Than we both started singing: “Sometimes my faith is like a dog/Once I let it back in/I see something cool in the yard/I need to go out again.”

   I looked back over to the computer and pressed the space key to stop recording.

   Cyrus looked at me dazed, “You were recording that, dude?”

   “Sure was.”

   “Sweet.”

   Cyrus’ mother came back into the room, “I heard that. Can I have copy please. Cyrus never lets me listen to his music.”

   “Probably because he doesn’t think it’s good enough.”

   “Yes, but I’m a chair for the ceremony in three weeks and we need some kids playing up there.” Cyrus looked at me and rolled his eyes. She noticed, “Don’t roll your eyes at me. We need kids there so other kids wont feel so weird about joining.”

   “That’s true. When I saw other kids drinking and doing drugs I felt more comfortable getting into drinking,” Cyrus looked at his mom and pushed out his jaw, “and drugs.”

   “Will you do it son, please? For me. For mom.”

   I turned to Cyrus, “Yeah dude, for mom!”

   He looked at my a little c**k eyed, “Ok, we’ll do it.”

   He waited until his mother was walking down the stairs before whispering to me, “Dude what are you thinking, we don’t actually believe this stuff.”

   “And that’s not funny to you, Cyrus?”

   “Oh yeah. Look man I don‘t really,” he looked at the ground, “I don‘t feel comfortable mocking all those people. It’s one thing when it’s just us messing around but-”

   Suddenly a his mother ran back into the room, “I forgot boys, what’s your name this week?”

   “The Exalting Joy.” I said with a smile. Cyrus glared at me.

   “I love it,” she said and embraced her son. “I’m so proud of you. You don’t know how much this means to me.”

   The night of the concert came and we were allowed to play for half an hour. We wrote four more songs, “Forgiveness At The Next Window,” “Check Out The Faith On Her,” “He Gave Us Burritos, He Is King,” and Cyrus wanted to play one that his mother wrote, “Helped Me Help Myself.” We recruited two of our friends Roller and Mathews to play bass and drums. We’d been practicing nearly everyday except for Sundays. Cyrus started going to church every week. “Research,” he would say. Roller and Mathews didn’t really care what we sang. They were always high and didn’t even know what we were singing about or why.

   When we started walking away from the prayer group. We had thirty minutes before we went on. I pulled Cyrus, Roller, and Mathews aside, “Guys I was thinking about ‘He Gave Us Burritos, He Is King.’ We have to play that last.”

   “Why, man?” Asked Roller.

   “Yeah, why, man?” Followed Mathews.

   Cyrus put his hand on my shoulder and dug his nails in a little. “I think we should play my mom’s song last.”

   I tried to shake his hand off me. “I was just saying we should leave them with a high spirited one. With energy.”

   “Why don’t we just speed up his mom’s, man?”

   “Yeah man?”

   “I’m okay with that,” I spun around to get Cyrus off me and slipped, having to hold his shoulders to keep from falling down. “Is that ok with you Cyrus?”

   “Yeah, whatever.” He grabbed my elbows and helped me up.

   “Dude, are you ok?” I handed Roller and Mathews a bag with enough for one and a half bowls and they wandered off.

   Me and Cyrus stood face to face, his eyes on the floor, mine on his forehead. He looked over his shoulder at the curtain, where his mom was. “Yeah I guess I’m just nervous.”

   “Ok, buddy. Go get some air and be back in thirty minutes. I don’t want to mess up our first gig.” He turned around and almost walked out the door before I caught up with him. “I almost forgot. I had a new idea for a song. It’s called ‘Jesus Is In All Of Us, Especially Him’. What do you think?”

   “Who’s the ‘him’?”

   “Oh, Jesus.”

   His face started to look like an accountants. “Than that’s what it should be called: ‘Jesus Is In All Of Us, Especially Jesus’.”

   “Yeah that’s awesome.” I pat him on his shoulder. “Hey dude, we got something really good here. It’ll be fun.”

   He smiled, shrugged, and stepped outside. I went off to find Roller and Mathews to see if they left some for me.

   The three of us got to the stage ten minutes early and Cyrus was already there. He was watching his mother give a speech about how much “This Man” has meant to him.

   She looked over at the side of the stage and smiled. “Here is my son and his band, the Exalting Joy!”

We took our spots and I turned to Cyrus’ mother, “It’s not just his band, ma’am.” It got the laughter it deserved. I turned to the crowd and squinted. The stage lights weren’t bright. He was. “This one’s called ‘The Sequel’.”

   When we got to the chorus I looked at Joshua’s face in the front row. He was laughing. When I looked around him, it looked like he was the only one. And when we sang I love Jesus and we got to the part about him fighting wolf men and zombies he put his fist in the air. After “Forgiveness At The Next Window” and “Check Out The Faith On Her”, he looked around at the people not laughing and made a “c’mon” gesture with his hands. He stood up and clapped after every song. Someone booed when we finished “He Gave Us Burritos, He Is King” but not from him. He seemed like a Messiah I could get behind. I looked over my shoulder at Cyrus and he was two feet away from his mic. His eye brows are twisted at the middle and his jaw is clenched. He kept looking over at his mother who looked like a lobster, red and hunched over.

   “Thank you, sir,” I said to Joshua. “This last one was written by Cyrus’ mother, Carol Lees and I think her son should sing it.”

   We switched places on the stage. I patted him on the shoulder as we passed and he didn’t make eye contact.

   “This is a slower one,” he said. He turned to me with not quite exalting joy in his eyes. I nodded.

   He strummed F to Bb to F and up to C. “He helped me help myself/ He helped me help myself/ I needed a light to light my path/ He gave without me having to ask.”

   The rest of the band joined in: “He helped me help myself/ He helped me help myself/ He gives me protection on this long rocky path/ He gives me the strength I didn’t know I had.”

   We sang those two versus in between guitar, key, bass, and drum fills. He was right, it should be played slow.

   We finished and his eyes didn’t leave the neck of the guitar. He looked up at Joshua, “Thank you.” And walked off to the right of the stage and started crying in his mother’s shoulder. He pointed at me and I assume said “his idea”, because when she looked up at me it was all hell fire.

   “Thank you all.” I said and me, Roller, and Mathews walk off the left side of the stage. I looked back at Joshua; he was winking giving a thumbs up and a finger shaped like a gun.

   I stood by the exit at midnight waiting for Cyrus. I started thinking about all those stories I heard about first gigs and how this didn’t match up because it felt like we played well. We just had the wrong audience, I told myself. I felt a certain pleasure from knowing that the second coming can take a joke. To be fair we weren’t laughing at him. We were laughing at all those people who just believed some fast food attendant with a beard was Jesus. Yeah, he got the joke.

   I see Cyrus walking under his mother’s arm towards me. She walks out leaving me and Cyrus alone in front of the exit. “That was fun man.”

   “Yeah, look man, about earlier- I can’t believe I started to cry. I just- I still don’t believe he’s Jesus, but-” His lip starts to tremble as he looks at his mom. “Look man, about earlier- I can’t believe I started to cry. I just- I still don’t believe he’s Jesus, but-”

   He stopped talking. I look over and Joshua is walking up to his mom. He clipped his Raybans in his shirt collar and pulled Cyrus’ mom’s neck to his lips and she smiles wide. He whispered and her body shook from a giggle.

   “Dude, Cyrus, you’re mom’s f*****g Jesus. Wait crap, I didn’t mean that.”

   Cyrus‘ body was shaking. They saw us staring at them and Cyrus’ mother ducked her head behind the wheel. Joshua pulled his Raybans back on and started in our direction. He got within ten feet of us and the smell of Axe was overpowering. He gave us two thumbs up, “What’s happening, my men? Killer set tonight. Too many people take me seriously I think.”

   “How?” Cyrus said giving into laughter.

   “You look like you’re trying to join a frat.” I said.

   Joshua’s face grew bright red. He waved to his twelve apostlettes and started walking to his limo.

   I shouted after him, “Dude, what’s with the p***y? I thought it was cougar season.” Me and Cyrus almost fell on each other laughing and dropped our guitars. Joshua limosine pulled out of the parking lot with a bird being flipped out the window.

   Me and Cyrus just waved. “Hey Cyrus,” I said, “I think Jesus just flipped us off.”

   “I can’t believe my mom almost got me to believe in that joke.”

   “Yeah,” we picked up our cases. “Dude, I’m sorry I called your mom a cougar.”

   “It‘s alright,” he said with a smile of confirmation. “I’ll see you later?”

   “Yeah you’ll see me later. When else would you see me?”

   “Yeah, right.” He slaps my shoulder and walks out. He stopped under a street light, “I really wanted to believe, ya know?”

   “Yeah dude,” I said, “I know.

Author's Note

Enjoy.

Reviews

[Kiara]

very amusing : )
once i started
there was no going back
enjoyed the humor witihn
your story concept
thanks for sharing
-arabella

[Tay Mo :)]

This is really good! Once i started reading it, i had to finish! Good job!

I love it!:) You know, I was supposed to be going out ten minutes ago but after I started reading this I couldn't stop!
Not only is it a great, sustainable and witty plot with good characters, but you blatantly know some stuff about music too, which although technically doesn't help the writing, earns you some cool points i think :) well done, good write! :D xx

[Ani Ashford]

Hey Phil,
You have a great sense of humor and a good flow with your story. Your words are lively. I almost forgot I wasn't one of the kids looking on. The way young people look at hypocracy and tend to make a joke of that which they question was a great way to write this. Well done.