Amplified Dog

Ooh My Soul

7 ooh mY soUl —Little Richard by night, ghosts roam Aunt ermyn’s elm-shrouded, hundred-year-old home. by day, my cousin pete, just out of high school combs his duck-tail and keeps time to records with his creaky rocking chair. i’m in the hall, creating all-star teams of baseball cards when, blaring through pete’s open door, i hear . . . war-drums? or is it a runaway train? Keepa knockin’but you cain’t come in, some kind of preacher shrieks, then squeals like tires around a curve. Those chugging drums, smoking piano, squawking duck-call saxophones make me feel like an oil rig ready to blow. i see wells pumping, teeter-totters bumping, giant turtle-heads working out and in as bronco riders wave tall hats in the air. i see girls twirling, dresses swirling high over their underwear, guys doing splits, or inch-worming across the floor. it makes me want to slam my head back and forth like a paddle ball—to jump, shout, bang my hands on walls, and flap them in the air—to fall onto the ground and writhe, flail, roar like Johnny Cerna in his famous Kiddieland tantrum. Keepa knockin’but you cain’t come in, the preacher howls. but i am in. i’m in the living room, bandstand onTV, dad ranting, “goddamn Congo beat!” i’m in the back seat of his ford a decade later, learning what that beat could be. i’m in my first band, hoarse 8 from screaming “longTall sally.” i’m in my college dorm, trying to jam that wild abandon into poems. i’m in my car, heading for work when Good Golly,Miss Molly! catapults out of my blaupunkt stereo. i’m walking into pete’s bedroom, where i’ve never dared to go. oh, womp bompalumomp,a lomp bam boom! i’m not thinking in words, but i know i’ve spent my seven years rehearsing how to feel this way. it’s more exciting than a touchdown any day, or a home run, a gunfight, hurricane waves at galveston, a five-pound bass on a cane pole. “What is that?” i ask pete. he says, “rock and roll.” ...