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could contain the music that poured out into the world: gospel
music. Not your grandmother’s gospel music, either. Not even your
mother’s gospel music. This was your funky older brother’s gospel
music, infused with a heavy dose of Sly and the Family Stone.
Whoever was performing in there was burning down the house: I could
feel the bass beat clear in the marrow of my bones and I wasn’t
even inside yet. Lord, but if anyone in there had a pacemaker it
had to be thumping in their chest like Jack Rabbit Slim.
    As I reached the top step, two doormen
dressed in matching gray suits swung the front doors open for me
like I was the Queen of England. A tidal wave of sound washed over
me. I felt as if I had literally been lifted off my feet and rushed
upward to heaven. It was the most amazing sound I have ever heard:
a Niagra Falls of voices raised in chorus, fueled by passion just
this side of hysteria, soaring over the music of a band that must
have numbered over a dozen people to be making such a ruckus. The
hair on my arms rose as adrenaline shot through my body. This was
why people fell to the ground and spoke in tongues, why normally
sane individuals fainted in ecstasy praising a higher power. Music
like this was impossible to hear and remain unmoved. It was faith
in its most robust incarnation, hope made real in sound. Alto
voices, baritones, tenor, sopranos soaring above them all, guitars,
drums, bells, at least two sets of keyboards—and a driving backbeat
that threatened to blow out the stained glass windows above
me.
    The crush inside was so great, I could
not see the front of the church. I began to wiggle my way through
the crowd, slipping from sliver of space to space. People stepped
aside willingly or looked past me. No one seemed to overtly notice
I was white. They were too polite or hypnotized by the show in
front of them. Some swayed along, a very few sang along, but most
seemed content to watch. This was not a service, I realized, but a
performance. And someone was giving it their all.
    Suddenly, a contralto voice filled the
air above the crowd with a note that hovered, swelled and broke,
then ran up and down the scales in a spectacular display of vocal
fireworks. The crowd erupted in applause and I realized that
whoever the singer was, she was just getting started. She was
Whitney Houston on steroids, with a hefty dose of Ethel Merman
thrown in. She was my chance to reach the front, as every eye was
on center stage. I weaseled through packs of families and bypassed
groups of sweet-smelling men with gleaming shaved heads that shone
like mahogany in the crimson-stained light pouring in through the
stained glass windows.
    I finally reached a cross aisle and
made my way to a side area near the left wall where I’d be able to
get closer to the stage at the front of the church. As I drew
closer, I spotted the source of the driving backbeat that was
rattling the fillings in my teeth. I stopped short, astonished.
This was not something you see every day: middle-aged triplets,
aligned in a row, each one dressed in a different colored
pencil-legged zoot suit: purple, gray and black.  Each held a
Fender Bass 350 and their fingers were flying as they dipped
forward and leaned backward in perfect unison, emitting a beat that
rattled my breastbone like a train driving through the
church.
    All three of them were identical, tall
and slender, with coffee-colored skin, delicate features, gleaming
gold teeth winking at the crowd, eyes closed as they concentrated
on the music. A crowd of young women clustered at their feet gazed
upward at them with a rapture not even their mothers could muster
for the Lord himself. Behind them, a huge stained glass window
displayed three angels reaching out to Saint Peter. But,
honey—those angels didn’t have a prayer of being noticed, not with
that competition nearby.
    My god. Most unholy fantasies unreeled
in my mind as I stared at the trifecta of perfection above me. Now,
they were proof