Beth Simon

Zaire

  

We've been waiting for this, The Prince of Zaire, rock 'n roll genius. Right from the start, amps, cranked. Enormous sound. The Prince himself has a high laser voice, a long thin whip of vibrato fast as a snake. When the rhythm guitar player undulates, stomps the heel of his foot into floor, doubles over and howls, the horns scream, and the drums come on beating.

The Prince is a giant, a blue water bull, over six and a half feet, over three hundred pounds. Everyone in this theater is yearning for him to paw our ground, bury us in his endless sweet continent of flesh. The Prince rolls his belly out to us like a magic carpet, and we will him to stride across and lay his rich weight upon us, his mesmeric pressure, his mineral heat, until the fault lines shimmer, until we crack, splinter, blow apart.

The tall muscled guy dancing near the stage is my best friend, Carl. Last year he discovered West African bands, Tabu Ley Rochereau, Dr. Nico, the Soukous Stars. He knows every move to "Afrika Mokili Mobimba," and taught me the lyrics, Lingala and French, to "Continent Quarantine" and "Le Congo Belge." He's wearing the skimpy spandex t-shirt he filched from me earlier this evening when he stopped by to do a little excitement. After we got right, he drew a batch of CDs out of his briefcase and fanned them across the table. Said he'd spent the afternoon working the back aisles at B- Side and SunCoast and Johnny B Goode. Said I should help myself.

I cued up Funkadelic just to let Bootsy Collins scoot those tight dark licks across my skin, leaving Carl free to rifle my closet. He emerged the Detroit vision of Arabian Nights in my fishnet tights, charmeuse harems, the open-toed wedges he claims are gender neutral. He flirted with my pushup bra, and he must have used my massage oil because from where I stand now, his neat waist, bare and glistening above my gold chain link belt, points like an arrow to his heart. Carl's not into women. Our friendship's pure as a digital bass line, but he loves the Prince, all of the players. He is dying to get down on his hands and knees, but no one at a microphone would ever love him back, or even run a tongue across his lips.

While Carl was conjuring tonight's dream suit, I gave myself a facial and cabled in on some Uncle Tom news head droning "Mobuto" and "famine" and "the Congolese aftermath," talking a trade-off of sleeping sickness for the wealth of new diseases. He said "specter" three times and made it add up to the west half of Africa and every one of these guys, drums, lead, rhythm, horns, soprano sax and alto and the one on marimba, being HIV positive or Ebola survivors, but at the moment, none of us cares.

What can he say we don't already know? We grew up on blood, weird death and flies, but what we're sick of is social workers driving over, saying "Girl," and "Homey" and "It ain't about nothin," going on about welfare, telling what not to do. They think our lives are a boogie town mix of Boyz In The Hood with Discovery channel, when the fact is, they adore how we live, and anyway, the band has gone wild with music and we've exploded into the aisles.

Strobes slice the auditorium, black, silver and white. We pop through the darkness. The air smells of gun powder, nitro, laundromat steam. Sweat is the catalyst. The band segues into "The Walls of Kinshasa." I am all over hungry. Carl says, when the time is right, protection's irrelevant. The girl dancing in front of me, half standing, half crouched, knees spread, is pumping her crotch. This morning, we sat next to each other in The Temp Girl wait room. The shoulder pads on our black silk jackets kissed while we figured the odds on a week's worth of work. It's the end of the month and we're both out of milk, but tonight, her head wrap's a gelee and her woven kikoi is tied on so tightly the wide stripes bunch over her butt like a grin.

She tips her head back, her red lips part, she drinks and drinks the celestial river, the rubies and sapphires, the emerald green spangles spilling from the moon of endless mirrors turning on the ceiling. River of sorrow. River of jewels. The Prince sings his own language and I know every word. Le Feticheur. Le Sorcerier. Le Destin. La Gloire.