Chapter 32

After introducing Rachel, who I could tell Lars was checking out not too subtly (and vice versa), I managed to get my cousin’s attention back.

“I thought you were working at the garage.”

“Dad closed it down at eleven and I headed right over. Arnie came through for us, Tommy!”

Arnie Bernstein was a friend of Lars. He was a couple years older than him and was the leader of The Steelers, Lars’ first band. Arnie was the lead guitarists and one of the vocalists. He, along with Lars, got me into playing guitar. Arnie’s parents split when he was in his early teens and he and his mom moved back to her home in Western Pennsylvania and settled in East Chilton. The first thing that Arnie did when he turned eighteen was to move back to be with his father in Los Angeles and to start attending UCLA. Like Lars and me, Arnie was a big Journey fan. Unlike us, he had a father who was an executive at Journey’s label, Columbia Records. Needless to say, he was our source for all things Journey.

The record Lars was holding was an obscure Journey album that was released at the very end of last year and recorded in Japan for some Japanese cartoon (I guess they call it ‘Anime’). The album was called Dream After Dream and the album cover had a white dove in the foreground with a multicolored background. It was beautiful. It was not readily available in local record stores, as it was released shortly before the live album Captured (that Lars got me for my birthday) was out in stores. It was less successful because it wasn’t widely promoted like Captured.

I began jumping up and down like a little kid. The girls were laughing but I didn’t care. “Can we play it, Lars?”

Lars smirked. “Knock yourself out, buddy. Arnie sent you a copy too and this one is yours.”

Just then Janie and Jen barged into the room and a whole new set of introductions were made and hugs given. I was too distracted by my new record to pay as much attention as I should. I had a decent sized bedroom, but it was getting pretty cramped.

“Tommy, most of the album is instrumental, but you have to play the last song on side two,” said Lars.

I nodded and turned on my stereo after taking my album.

“What’s going on?” asked Jen, as I removed the disk after making short work of the shrink wrap.

“New Journey album,” stated Monique.

“Cool!” said Janie.

“I don’t see what the big deal is,” said Rachel, as I placed side two up on my Techniques turntable and cued it to the last track before mechanically dropping the needle carefully.

My heart almost stopped as I heard a string section and an acoustic guitar playing a beautiful plaintive melody in a minor key.

“This is pretty,” whispered my aunt turned sister.

“Yeah,” whispered Janie.

It was a ballad, which while not completely unusual for Journey (as they had some great ballads like Good Morning Girl and Patiently), I had never heard anything like this from them before. While Lars tended to favor songs that rocked like Lovin’ Touchin’ Squeezin’, Lady Luck, Wheel in the Sky, Line of Fire or Any Way You Want It, the song must have made some impact on him. I was beginning to see why when Steve Perry’s voice started to sing.

Then came the sad and lugubrious chorus, with typical Journey vocal harmonies.

Ooh, ooh little girl.

Ooh, ooh little girl.

ooh, ooh little girl.

Then verse two. The rest of the band joined in as Steve Smith’s back beat filled every one of Steve Perry’s pauses in his phrasing, driving the urgency of the song’s message.

The chorus then repeated, followed by a more upbeat ‘B section’ in the relative major key.

As the word ‘sorry’ was sung by Steve, the key immediately shifted back to minor and Neal Schon came in with one of the most remarkably beautiful and haunting guitar solos I have ever heard. Like with the opening strings opening and Steve’s sad, but sweet, lead vocal, it perfectly captured the abject sorrow of the lyrics and I was completely blown away. It had the soul of Pink Floyd’s David Gilmore mixed with the technique of Jimi Hendrix or a more modern player like Eddie Van Halen. Its range modulated from low to high on the fret bar. It went from sustained legato notes to fast and furious runs of virtuosity. People say that Clapton made his guitar cry on his solo on the Beatles’ song While My Guitar Weeps. Well, the tears came by the bucketful out of Neal’s Strat on this solo.

I never wanted it to finish, but like all good things it eventually had to end and it did. The song shifted

back to the chorus for the song’s climactic build-up.

Ooh, ooh little girl.

Ooh, ooh little girl.

ooh, ooh little girl.

Then, the song incongruously began to fade with an arpeggiated acoustic guitar backing Steve as he began scat singing a happier, softer melody with a harmonica playing some bluesy licks as the song faded. I guess it tried to leave the listener with a hopeful message after hearing a song so full of sorrow and regret. Still, I had never heard anything like it. Yeah, Queen, Yes, and Pink Floyd had done some amazingly inventive stuff with their music, but this was simply incredible coming from Journey.

The room was completely silent.

“Blew you away, huh?” asked Lars.

I just nodded. Words had completely failed me.

We continued to listen to other songs from the album. Many seemed to be incidental music for the animated movie the music had originally been written for (rather than being ‘real songs’), but it was still pretty cool., The first song on side one was Destiny. It had limited vocals that were mostly overdubbed Steve Perry vocals, which at times seemed at the furthest extent of his vocal range in harmony with himself. The song shifted several times, featuring sweeping strings, an upbeat instrumental section and a cool slow style guitar solo from Neal playing over a string section before ending. The song ran an almost whopping nine minutes. It was probably more a feat of incredible engineering and inventive musicianship than being a great song, but it was still very cool.

I was surprised how much Rachel liked it. She almost seemed against Rock music, but I suspect that she had never really been exposed to much of it, living with my grandparents. At one point, she picked up her violin and started playing around with the opening for Little Girl. She had it figured out in no time. I knew it would take me an awful long time to figure out Neal’s solo.

After a light lunch with my girls and family, Lars took off to see his girlfriend (much to Rachel’s apparent chagrin). Then my mom took all of the girls (including Rachel) riding. I got to spend some time with Willie, showing him how to do afternoon chores.

“I had so much fun with your dad and grandpas Tommy. They showed me the horses and the tractor ... it was so much fun when I got to ride on the tractor with Grandpa Sven!” he crowed.

I grinned at my new foster brother. Somehow, I didn’t think he had been smiling much lately. I don’t think Willie enjoyed shoveling the cow manure with me, but at least he was a good sport about it. Once we had finished washing up, he seemed to take to milking the cows pretty well. I was convinced I would have a good helper and eventually, a substitute when I went Philadelphia this summer.

After chores, we cleaned up and had an early dinner because we were going to church. Sadly, J squared had to leave for their own service, but the rest of us got dressed up and packed into three cars to go to St. Mark’s for Good Friday service.

The church looked stark, as it always does during Holy Week (as the altar is stripped after Palm Sunday). There were roughly about sixty people in attendance at the service. At St. Mark’s, the church used “Stations of the Cross” for the format of its Good Friday service. I was told that this format had been common in Catholic and Episcopal churches, but a few years ago, it was tried at St. Mark’s and had received mostly positive feedback from the congregation.

The set up for this service was that fourteen areas in the sanctuary were designated as ‘stations.’ These stations represent the chronological Gospel readings that start with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane and end with Jesus’ body being interred in his tomb. At each station, Pastor Bill would read the corresponding gospel reading at the labeled station. The altar, lecturn, pulpit, two entrances of the Sanctuary and a number of stained glass windows were used as station locations. The congregation could either sit in their pews or follow Pastor Bill to each station as he read. An occasional hymn or anthem was sung in between certain stations.

I could tell that Willie, like most kids, was bored. Monique on the other hand seemed interested. Apparently her church did not have any service like this.

In the fellowship area after the service, Pastor Bill greeted the Johansson/Matthews contingent. With Lars and Uncle Steve’s dates (The Harrington women), our group made up more than a third of the congregation. I also noticed that Johnny Martin was there with the third Harrington woman, Eva.

“So, how did you like the format, Sven? I’ve never heard you voice your opinion about it?” asked Pastor Bill.

“It’s nice enough, Pastor. Not sure how much longer Ingrid and I will be able to trudge between each station, but we’re okay for now.”

“Well, you can always sit and listen at any point. That is why we set up the stations the way we did. If you sit in the middle pews, you are never more than twenty-five feet away from any particular station.”

“That’s very clever, Father,” said Rachel.

“Rachel, honey, the priests go by the title, ‘Pastor’ in the Lutheran Church,” replied Granddad.

“It’s alright, Mr. Matthews. I’ll answer to any clerical title, but I don’t care for ‘Reverend’ or the shortened, ‘Rev,’” stated Pastor Bill.

Granddad laughed. “Our rector feels the same way. He described it as the most grandiose, yet meaningless modifier man ever bestowed on the clergy.”

Pastor joined in with a laugh of his own. “I had a professor at seminary who believed the same thing. The title seems to lack the humility we, as servants of God, want to project. To me, the clerical title ‘Father’ seems perhaps a bit too, if you please forgive the pun, paternalistic. Still, there is a level of affection and acknowledgment of leadership in the title, ‘Father.’ The same is true for the title Pastor’, which traditionally gets used in our denomination. The danger in the title ‘Reverend; is that it can give the impression of glorifying the owner of the title instead of glorifying God.”

While the adults talked Rachel pulled me aside.

“I really like your church and Pastor Bill, Tommy. I like Father Stephen at my church, but it seems much stuffier,” said Rachel.