Not many folk can keep a level head in a time of chaos and injustice. That’s just a fact. Oh, plenty try, but most just don’t know what to do with themselves ‘cept rage and spit, then burn down a barn.
Well, Genie was one of those remarkable people who knew how to keep it chill. Oh, he was cool when it was needed. Could keep a steady hand in the middle of any kinda storm. Now, don’t get me wrong, he was emotional for sure, but once he cried his piece, he could set his mind to something with such acute ferocity, that he was like my good friend’s sister’s momma, Gladiola, with a bushel of spiced steamed crabs, NOT TO BE MOVED!
And so it was with this incredibly level-headed ferocity that Genie decided, along with Maxy and just about everyone he knew, which was alot o’ folks, to organize a plan.
They started with an all night House Music party to get people aware of their lack of civil rights. Folks performed and danced and just set it off right. Even had some fireworks. Which, Maxy sarcastically pointed out,..was legal.
It was also decided that they would no longer keep silent. (Well, per se.) Since hummin’ was allowed as well as finger poppin’, the organized masses took to hummin’ their House Music in public and if they were too scared to do that, then they would wear the government headphones, but snap their fingers to the beat.
Oh, the land was shifting and changing quite fast. Even the birds seemed to know something. They flew out south way ahead of the winter season and the air took on a restless prickly heat. House Music was suddenly everywhere and so was the growing frustration of quite a few folks who were dyed-in-the-wool Discoers. They didn’t like the way things were going. They didn’t like it one bit!
Yeah, all you had to do was take a minute and look around, and you’d know that an epic battle was coming, but ole Mayor Ollie wouldn’t budge.
Well…believe it or not, but the humming and finger poppin’ campaign was very successful. The folks in the land were gettin’ hip to their rights, or rather the lack there of, but quick. So much so, that a few of the young ones started to get heavy hot and fueled up under their collars. They wanted things to move faster! And as youth is sometimes happy to do; they took matters into their own hands.
When a few of them went into a little soda shop and tried to get the owner to change the music on the Hi Fi to House, a fight broke out and some of these antsy younguns were arrested.
Genie was troubled. Maxy was elated. The people of the land were furious.
Since President Shrub was due to speak in the land, and present an award to the students of the local Disco High School, Mayor Ollie sent out a strong letter to Genie and “his friends” warning them “to cool it or else.” This added fuel to the fire. So, despite his growing worry, Genie and his friends just kept up the racket. They’d wear headphones, but now, some would sing out while standing in line. (Technically not legal, but there was a tiny loophole.) They’d wear t-shirts with slogans like:
I AM HOUSE MUSIC!!!!
HOUSE MUSIC IS LIFE!!!
FREEDOM TO DANCE!
FREEDOM TO SING!
FREEDOM TO SHOUT!
FREEDOM TO LIVE FREE!!!
Oh, they caused quite a ruckus. And the more equal rights they marched and shouted for, the more they incensed the rest of the land, hell, the whole world. In opposition, Disco lovers matched them slogan for slogan, t-shirt for t-shirt.
DISCO SAVES!
HOUSE MUSIC = DEATH!
JESUS LOVES DISCO!
DISCO IS THE RHYTHM OF AMERICA!
Oh, it was all turning into quite a mess for sure.
But the topper came when President Shrub, in his speech to the students of Disco High School, made a careless joke about House Music and a shoe from the audience came whizzing by his head.
The student and guilty shoe thrower was tackled to the ground and beaten so badly, he was hospitalized. His bloodied t-shirt, one from the pro-Disco opposition that he’d doctored a bit to say:
JESUS LOVES DISCO…and HOUSE!
was saved by one of his friends. It became the symbol, the flag, that led the charge. Genie’s people, now being called HM’s, were electrified by his courage and wanted to show their support by marching all the way to the town hall (even through some of the very neighborhoods that were against HM’s.) They were fast becoming a steamroller just waiting for the right leader.
Maxy created a special mix to give them a soundtrack.
Genie just walked away home. When they all turned around for his go-ahead, he was nowhere to be found.
Genie closed his front door and sat in the first chair he came to. There in his little house in the lower income part of the land near the ocean, he sat in the dark and thought and thought and pondered and mulled ’til his mind was just about putty and he was interrupted by a knock at his door.
It was Mayor Ollie.
Genie could tell from the look on his face that Ollie was a sad.
“Come in, Mayor Ollie.”
Ollie walked in and fell into a seat… ‘That high school kid just died, Genie.’
“Oh no.”, said Genie, turning on a light.
‘Turn it off.,’ said Ollie.
“Why?”
‘I don’t want people to know I’m here.’
Genie snapped the light off. “Then you should leave!”
‘No…’, Ollie sighed. ‘Sit down, Genie. There’s some things I need to say and then I’ll go. Once it’s out this kid has died, your people will tear up the entire land.’
“You brought this on yourself, Ollie. I can’t control-”
‘Let me finish.’, said Ollie. ‘Then it’s on you.’
Genie was sure he heard some kindness in Ollie’s voice. “I’ll listen to you, Ollie.” But he stayed alert…just in case.
So they sat in the dark, and Genie listened to his old friend for nearly an hour. When Ollie left Genie sat stunned and terrified. He couldn’t believe what he’d heard. His phone rang and rang. Maxy was trying to find him. But Genie ignored it. In that moment, a shaft of moonlight caught his eye as it happened to land on the high school boy’s famed bloodied t-shirt. The boys mother had given it to him in a frame.
JESUS LOVES DISCO...and HOUSE!
That’s when he knew what he had to do.
As the front door closed behind him, that same shaft of moonlight now rested on the broken glass of an empty frame.
STAY TUNED FOR THE NEXT THRILLING CHAPTER OF:
Obama Lamely Ducks: A Fairy Tale (Chapter Three)
And Remember…
The Revolution Will Be Caramelized!
Peace, y’all.
