Goat Song by Thomas Drago

Author:Thomas Drago [Drago, Thomas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gold Avenue Press
Published: 2020-02-13T22:00:00+00:00

scene 13.

After midnight, Gabriela studies an image forming on her bruised wrist as Brad drives with his lights flashing. She recognizes the Greek letters and the layering from her days in Sunday school at Santissima d’Annunziata as a Chi-Rho, the crucifix Constantine witnessed over the burning skies of Gaul before the legendary Battle of the Milvian Bridge. The mythic prophecy declared that the ruler would become the world’s greatest conqueror, as long as he kept faith in the one true God. As long as he believed.

“You didn’t tell me Darrell was a conjurer.”

“Didn’t I?” Brad says.

“No.”

Brad chuckles. “Some folks say he has the face of Jesus in the stained glass windows at First Baptist, but I don’t see it.”

“Neither do I.” Gabriela adjusts her seatbelt harness. “How much do you know about theatre folklore?”

“In a word?”

“Mmm.”

“Not much.”

“I’ll give you the abridged version,” Gabriela says.

“That’ll do.” Brad turns left on Highway 77 toward downtown Crow Creek. “I ain’t never been much of a scholar.”

“No?” Gabriela’s not sure why that surprises her. Brad has keen intuition. Maybe that’s something you can’t learn from a textbook.

“Except for law enforcement, but Daddy taught me everything I know. If it weren’t for the football scholarship, I probably never would’ve gone to college. Then the war came, and I didn’t finish.”

“Fair enough.” Gabriela watches evergreens pass her window in a blur. “Theatre has its roots in storytelling, like all performance art. That’s universal. It doesn’t matter what part of the world you study.”

“People sit around and tell stories,” Brad says. “They change their voices and act out different characters. I get it.”

“Exactly.” Gabriela traces her finger on the glass, tracking dew drops. “Early theatre included songs with dancing and musicians. For the Greeks, this meant festivals and competitions.”

“Kinda like rock concerts?”

“Kind of. But imagine if they went on for weeks at a time.”

“Kinda like Woodstock.”

Gabriela’s not familiar enough with the hippie festival to recall any of the performers (she’d probably recognize some names if told) but knows of its cultural importance to radicals in late 1960s America. “Maybe. But they were scripted. They involved rituals and sacrifice.”

“Oh.”

“That means religion. Capisci?”

Brad nods. “So these stories they told were about their beliefs? About their gods?”

Gabriela smiles. “Now you’re catching on, sir.”

“Like Sunday services. The pastor tells stories about Jesus. We play music and sing songs to praise him.”

“Correct,” Gabriela says. “Communion is our modern sacrifice.”

“How so?”

“We eat the body and drink the blood.”

“Of course.” Brad slows at a red light but drives without stopping. “We reenact the Last Supper.”

“Yes,” Gabriela says. “But in a primitive culture, the sacrifices were different.”

“They were?”

Gabriela rubs her forehead as she searches for the right word in English. “They were…viscerale.”

“Visceral?” Brad says.

“Sì, visceral. For theatre, they slaughtered bulls as an offering. So imagine if we couldn’t start our Sunday worship without killing an animal first.”

“Visceral in the literal sense.”

“Mmm-hmm.” Gabriela clasps her cornicello. “Dionysus was the god of theatre. The Romans called him Bacchus.”

“I’ve heard of Bacchus.” Brad presses the gas pedal. “Shana and I went to New Orleans plenty before she passed.

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