Song for a Vanilla Cynic

It all began with the shrill ring of a phone. It was Morty, my pianist friend. He wanted me to sing a solo for his congregation that Sunday. I didn’t mind, except for the fact that I would have to go to church to sing a solo there. This posed a small problem for me, because recently I had proudly declared myself a cynic. Not a hardcore cynic—I gave that up years ago, after a nasty bout of pneumonia and the election of Bill Clinton. I was a soft-serve cynic: a vanilla cynic.

I love to write poetry, stare out of windows, and believe in Barry Manilow. I cry when I see Dumbo’s mother caressing him with her trunk through those awful bars—but also I don’t believe I’ll have social security when I am old. I’ll be living in a rusty trailer, gouging clay from the hill with broken fingernails and eating it with my yappy Chihuahua while lamenting my freelance career. I also believe we will all be reduced to Jerry Springer guests in our everyday lives if we continue to watch reality shows, and that fifteen years from now, we will have to ride bicycles again if we want to get around. I tend to teeter between pure sap and sour factuality—and most people I know do, too.

One subject on which I don’t waver is church. I simply don’t go. Oh, I did when I was growing up—all Midwestern Lutherans do—and I enjoyed it. Who wouldn’t enjoy drawing pictures of arks, three-toed sloths (I was interesting), and rainbows; or passing notes to your current church crush in the middle of the sermon? But that was then and this is now—and I had lived in New York City for thirteen years! I saw things, I learned things, and I roamed the streets and thought about things (between martinis). I talked about things, ad nauseam. I didn’t go to church once, thank you very much. And anyway, now I was into indigenous.

“It’s fifty bucks,” Morty bribed. Oooh … or one song? That’s two weeks’ worth of gas! I decided to perform “On Eagles’ Wings.” Soooo easy. I had done this song growing up, I didn’t have to practice it more than once, the word “eagle” in it makes it practically Native American, and it had only three measly verses. My only worry was that I get a bit lumpy-throated when singing religious numbers. I’ve often tried remedying this by thinking about sex, or nuns in underwear, but I always end up singing around a watery eye and a swelling chest. This is extremely humiliating to someone who believes religion is obsolete, and that God is in the banana you are eating.

When Sunday morning arrived, however, my feelings were definitely in the realm of sour factuality, as I stumbled out of bed and staggered to the coffeemaker—only to find I was out of coffee. Then I sobbed.