My dad plays the violin still. For forty years, fifty years, I don’t know, give or take, with the Cedar Rapids Symphony, which later became the itinerant Orchestra Iowa after the Cedar River flooded in 2008 and half the downtown was under nineteen feet above-flood-stage water, and the Paramount Theater and its famous Wurlitzer organ was ruined, and for four years the symphony traveled to available, dry venues around the state, mostly Davenport, I think, or Dubuque. Now my dad plays the violin for Simpson College in Indianola, two hours west and a shorter commute, and the chamber ensemble plays the orchestra accompaniment for silent film reels, like Lillian Gish’s The Mothering Heart. It’s not a particularly feminist film.
Before the chamber ensemble or Simpson College or Orchestra Iowa after the flood, my dad backed out the driveway at night and blinked his headlights three times to me (I love you, maybe, I’m thinking about you, kid) and drove to the Paramount Theater, downtown and two blocks from the railroad tracks that may or may not lead to Nebraska.
And I went, too, dozens of times, or a dozen times, or six. Or three. I don’t remember. And I didn’t love it and I still don’t. I like it very much when I’m reading or working or driving to have classical music on as one of several things that I’m doing, especially Debussy, or Mozart, or a Bach cello suite, especially no. 1 in G Major, but I’m not very good at sitting still to listen to music, not now and I never was. I went to a Lena Horne concert once in St. Louis as a ninth-grader. How old is a person in ninth grade? Fourteen? Old enough to behave. I didn’t. It’s one of the three or four regrets of my life. If ever possible, and affordable, I’ll travel in time not to buy the Kensington apartment that tripled in value before we left Brooklyn, but to sit still at a Lena Horne concert in St. Louis when I was fourteen and should have known better, even if I didn’t yet know her from the Cotton Club, or Ziegfeld, or blacklisted for affiliations with communist-led groups.
There were two crossdressers, or drag queens, or trans women at that Lena Horne concert. We saw them walking down the street toward the theater when we were still on the bus. They were tall, thin, black, exquisite; they wore a long feather in their hair. Everyone on the bus was at the windows on that side, looking at those CDs/queens/trans women and laughing. Probably jeering, but I don’t remember. Probably jeering loudly out the window. I don’t remember that. I don’t remember if I also laughed or jeered. I remember being mesmerized by the feather, though, by the tall, thin, black, exquisite. I remember knowing that they were my people, though I would be silent and closeted for years yet. Wear dresses yet for years. I saw them later at the concert, inside, when I was restless and unruly and ruining the show for the man behind me who likely knew exactly about the Cotton Club and Ziegfeld. I saw their tall feathers in the crowd.
I don’t know how many times I went to the symphony. It could have been a lot or almost never. I think I sometimes “got” to go, and I use the word ironically, when my mom’s friends weren’t going to use their tickets, and my mom would bring us to sit next to her in her friends’ empty seats. Sometimes I sat in the balcony with my older brother, the one today I’m not sure I care whether he lives or dies, and Dad would signal to Mom between symphonies, or concertos, whatever. Hands folded under his head, one finger: one kid asleep. Probably me, bored literally senseless by doing only one thing while listening to music. Hands folded under his head, two fingers: my older brother had fallen asleep, too. One time, perhaps the first time, I wore a green velvet dress and black patent leather Mary Janes. I brought coloring books to have another thing to do while I listened to music. I snuck in books to read in the dim light. I drew with a pencil in the program. I read the program notes in the dark. Eventually, inevitably, I fell asleep. Hands folded under his head, one finger.
I don’t think there was ever a time that we didn’t eat afterward at The Dragon, a Chinese Restaurant for fifty years four blocks from the Paramount Theater, two blocks on the other side of the railroad tracks I never ran away on with Ryan Smith. My mom split lo mein with my brother, I think every time. I always ate a hamburger, dozens of times, or a dozen times, or six. Or three. If my little brother was there, he ate a hamburger, too. He must have been sometimes, I remember two of us with burgers. We ate rice for dessert with milk and sugar. It was years before I learned to eat rice properly. It was years before I learned that rice is a savory dish. It was years before I stopped being silent and closeted. Stopped wearing dresses. I was always cold afterward, and my mom always said, The blood has gone to your stomach to digest the food. Or she said it only once. But whenever I’m cold after a meal I remember The Dragon Restaurant and my mother, and a late night after the symphony, and being full and sleepy. I hated the symphony and sitting still. I loved belonging and coming along. I loved white rice with milk and sugar.
That restaurant became a gay bar later, after the river flooded downtown. But I had long gone.
Rev. Miller Hoffman 