Paid in Full - Part I

"And he said unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which be Caesar's, and unto God the things which be God's."
-Luke 20:25

Some time back in 1980 my family was invited to visit with another American family who lived near us in the outskirts of Naples, Italy. I can't recall the date, or any any names for that matter, but what I do remember vividly is one of the most monumental events that shaped my youth and my life as a whole.

While I was hanging out with their sons, one of them produced a large portable stereo and asked me a very direct question.

"Do your parents let you listen to this?"

I didn't know what "this" was, so I really didn't know what to say.

He smiled and pushed the play button.

All of a sudden I heard one of the most powerful sounds I had ever heard in my life. It was the sound of an hundred feet stomping, not once, but twice, and then two hundred hands clapping together in one percussive staccato pulse. Then, after what seemed like only the space of a quarter note, the pattern repeated, and then repeated again, and kept repeating, forming a consistent and steady rhythm pattern. Stomp, stomp, clap. Stomp, stomp, clap.

Then, as if emerging from my own soul, these words were given life:

"Buddy are a boy, make a big noise playing in the street, gonna be a big man some day, you got mud on your face, you big disgrace, kicking your can all over the place."

The sky tore open and the hosts of warring angels joined in chorus, "We will, we will, rock you!" And again, "We will, we will, rock you!"

My hidden rage erupted as the voice rang out again, "Buddy are a young man, hard man, shouting in the street, gonna take on the world some day, you got blood on your face, you big disgrace, waving your banner all over the place."

The hosts of heaven again chanted their war cry.

I was ablaze.

My entire life flashed before my eyes, from the labored beginning to the bitter lonely end, and in a moment of revelation that which had become my own voice chanted, "Buddy you're an old man, poor man, pleading with your eyes, gonna make you some peace some day, you got mud on your face, you big disgrace, somebody better put you back in your place."

The angels swept me up and flew me into the sky, chanting with ever increasing vigor as the ground fell beneath us. As we approached the clouds I could hear the sound of creation; the creation of sound. A steady note. The note. It intensified as we penetrated the cloud cover, and continued to permeate every molecule of air and water. I was entranced, consumed.

All of a sudden, we burst through the clouds, and, as the light of heaven enabled me to see for the first time in my life, the sound exploded into what can only be described as the divine chord.

I was in the presence of God.

I no longer believed in Him. I knew Him.

Then, only two short years later, He spoke to me, calling me by my name.

I remember it as if it were today. I had awakened that morning knowing that my life was about to change forever, again.

We were eating at the cafeteria in the mini mall side of the superstore nearest to our new house in France. I had finished my steak haché, a nearly raw patty of ground beef that was the closest thing to a burger that they served, and a voice inside me told me to get up and go to the music section of the store. It was a familiar voice; one I had learned to trust implicitly.

I walked up to the first rotating cassette rack and turned it 180 degrees. Right there before my eyes was a cassette with nothing more than a red square with a diagonal white line crossing in front of it on its cover.

I picked it up, sensing the pent up power inside, and took it to the counter. I asked the salesman if there would be any way that I could hear it. He took it from my hands, removed the plastic covering, put the cassette in the nearest stereo, and turned up the volume.

It began faintly with the sound of a cymbal, struck at the very moment of creation, a crash lost in time, awaiting my arrival to finally be revealed.

Then, without warning, the veil of the holy of holies was torn from the top to the bottom, and, with the sound of waxed strings strung over a hodgepodge of assorted parts, vibrating over hand wound pickups, ringing out via an heavily modified and overdriven Marshall amplifier, God spoke to me through the hands of Edward Van Halen and said, "I love you, my son."

I asked the salesman how much I owed him.

"Forty-seven francs, twenty centimes," he said.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out every single cent I had to my name. I counted slowly and deliberately to be sure that I knew exactly how much there was.

I had forty-seven francs and twenty centimes.