Spirits Rejoice

(19th annual Four Square Gospel Church Convention. Los Angeles Examiner photo from Bancroft Library.)

Last Monday a bomb threat at the Van Nuys Fire Station nearly closed down the meeting of MTA's San Fernando Valley Governance Council. Instead it brought the fiery spirit of Aimee Semple McPherson down upon the Marvin Braude Constituent Center. The sterile corner room became a tent of old time revival that had me rocking in my chair.

"Alleluia!" Angels moisten the eyes as the Chair calls for signal preemption to replace signal priority on the Orange Line.

"Amen!" Sweat beads collect until tiny streams roll down cheeks of harmonic tongues on swaying indigo robes that form the choir sonic ecstatic, affirming the Chair's demand for crossing gates at Orange Line intersections.

"But wait!" A growl builds from a pigeon's whisper as the necessary lesson of vigilance against corrosive power enters the homily.

"I know L-A-D-O-T..." A hiss bursts from the crowd, like the static clarity from the man playing a Fender knock-off through his boom box perched atop a shopping cart in the parking lot of the NoHo Ralph's, as "D-O-T" is mouthed, "will raise a jurisdictional ruckus at the challenge to north-south traffic. But we must get people out of their cars!"

The congregation erupts. Shouts of "Glory be to God" and "Praise Him!" roll through the chamber.

But the crown is yet to be placed.

"The astonishing success of the Orange Line, which in less than two years has surpassed the Gold Line in daily ridership shows the Curitiba model can work in L.A. For a fraction of the billions spent on a single rail line, we can build a rapid transit system throughout the city!"

Suddenly, a handsome man of about fifty with slicked back hair leaps onto his back row chair. He writhes and digs manicured nails into a double breasted Zanetti suit clad body as if ripping away leeches found after bathing in a murky pond. His lungs trumpet forth voices of the Pentecost like the horn of Donald Ayler on "Truth is Marching In" as it must have sounded at Coltrane's funeral.

He falls to the floor and crawls, a trembling salamander, toward the podium. Sweaty palms hoist unsteady limbs upright, saliva drips from lips moving frenetically at the mike, "bblbbbl...yayaya...I-I-I-I-I-I wawawawa was blblbblliind. I wawawas blind. I was blind. I was blind but now I see. I was blind but now I see. I was blind but now I see!"