Things Can Always Get Worse: A Memoir

Part 2 of 3

By Bob Boldt

Kim On Wong said he was born in China and was from a monastery where they practiced dance. He claimed no memory of his parents. He jumped ship, so to speak, when his troupe was on tour in Manhattan. Thanks to the sophisticated outlook of the Buddhist priests, he was taught rudimentary English and even Science, along with his dance instruction.

Portrait of Kim On Wong

    He was eighteen years old. He also had an accomplished physical ability that amazed all for whom he auditioned. He needed for little as any number of sponsors magically appeared, most of them men.

    Kim was homosexual. That was a double-edged sword back in a time when gay men were regarded by the straight community as being of less value than African Americans were regarded by the KKK. He knew all about the store on Halstead and the owner’s son, Frederic De Arechaga.

    El Sabarum’s north and southern shop windows were draped with black sheer fabric backlit by small dichroic spotlights in red, blue, and amber. They rained color down onto the full-sized statue of a cool, blue-lit Venus with her missing arms seamlessly re-applied, framed in the south window. She was matched by a bust of Pan, looking positively demonically red in the north window. I was pretty sure the neighborhood kids had to be chicken to go there for trick or treating. Just inside the door was what looked like an oversized baptismal font filled with Hershey bars and marzipan skulls for the little nippers should they appear.

Me and Regula, in collage

    “Bill, these are my friends, Bob and Regula, I told you about.” Gatekeeper, Bill was a tall, Nordically well-muscled blond 20-year-old who could have aced any casting call for extras for a sword and sandals film. He was wearing a red toga. “Welcome to The Temple of Isis. We even got some trick or treaters.”
    We were ushered past glass cases in the dimly lit shop and into an anti-room replete with authentic-looking Egyptian hieroglyphs. I’d sort of made a study of them for my Art History class. Still, the message was as lost to me as if it were in Greek. I was really impressed by the large ceiling mural of the Egyptian goddess Ma’at above the door to the inner sanctum. In the afterlife, the soul’s last judgment for the deceased, man or pharaoh, was to have his heart outweighed by a single one of Ma’at’s feathers. When it comes to eschatology, Egypt wrote the book.
    We left our footwear and padded our barefoot way into a large room behind the store. The space was laid out in two rows of four columns. They were copies from the famous temple ruin in Crete, dark rust-red with blue-green caps. At the far end was a large, recessed chamber holding a three-quarter sized Egyptian Isis sculpture highlighted by a distant pin spot. Her eyes seemed to sparkle in the white light. Against the walls on either side were about twenty people seated in white plastic chairs. Some were dressed all in white. Three little kids, two boys and a girl, played a restrained game of hide and seek among the columns. Numerous overhead speakers were playing a string quartet and harpsichord of some Mozart composition.

Kim On Wong by blacklite

    Our arrival was not a minute too soon. The record was abruptly scratched off. To the right of Isis a gate swung open. Four young men with drums entered followed by three older men, all dressed in white. The entourage, walked quickly down the line of columns, and onto an elevated platform at the other end of the hall. All stood. The plastic chairs were collected and disappeared. We formed ourselves in lines parallel to the stage. Each of the four drummers found a seat, adjusted the tension on his drum, and found a proper lap position. Kim whispered to us that ceremonies here always began with a chant to the African god Elluguha, “For good Luck.” He smiled.
    The most portly of the three men who followed the drummers began to chant. It was more like a singing supplication, in Spanish. It was an evocation of the African trickster god, the one who removes physical and spiritual barriers. He is the Cosmic Postman, carrying messages of command and supplication back and forth between two worlds. Elluguha stands at the doors of life and death. Ganesa, Ghede, Thoth and Ma’at, Till Euulenspiegel, Cayote, Buggs Bunny. That laugh echoes down history.

Calling down the gods of Africa

    The drums responded with deep throbs and high-pitched rim shots. The parishioners rhythmically responded like the waves of sound that seemed to move even the vibrating walls. Above all the voice of the man they call The Rooster was singing, evoking the Orisha, the Yoruba gods of West Africa.
    These tribes populating the land of the Niger River Delta were regarded as the spiritual and artistic aristocrats of the legendary high cultures of West Africa. They had a sophisticated, well-defined hierarchy of gods and goddesses who were supported by legends, specific rhythms, foods, and spells. During and after the African diaspora, the Yoruba gods gained a certain spiritual ascendancy among the black slaves in the New World. The languages, religions, and culture of the African were as forbidden as were the practices of the indigenous “Indian” population.
    Those wishing to perpetuate the power of the Orisha had to find strategies for overcoming these prohibitions. The result was Santeria, the worship of the saints, in which the Roman Catholic saints became the stand-ins for the African Gods. Santeria took hold in the southern United States and Cuba. It was said that Fidel had a protection deal going with Chango, the warlike Yoruba god. What else could possibly explain his miraculous ability to thwart all attempts of the CIA to assassinate him and pass away peacefully in his bed at 90? In Haiti the religion was called Voodoo and was shamelessly demonized by Hollywood. In Brazil the Orisha are celebrated as Candomble. Yemanja, the mermaid goddess of Africa, is the official patroness of Brazil, and Starbucks.
    South of the Border there has always been a spiritual stand-off, sometimes peaceful, between Roman Catholic monotheism and the polytheism of the indigenous population merging with the newly acquired African gods of the slaves the Catholics brought over. These two opposing theisms are no match for the aggressiveness of the Christian Religious fundamentalists who have come to so badly infect South and Central America’s spiritual and political life.

Drumming to the Ceiling –
Scanning the Zodiac

“Come on. Come on. Come on.” Kim’s pulling on my sleeve broke me from my meditation on the giant, reflective, golden mural of the Zodiac looming like a flying saucer overhead.
    “Frederic wants to talk to you. Follow me.” We snaked our way through the dancers keeping to the Rooster’s chant. Kim led us down a long hall lined on one side with floor to ceiling mirrors. I was holding Kim’s hand, and Regula was holding mine as we trailed down the hall to the beat of the African drums.

Copyright © 2022 by Bob Boldt