41

http://www.illbejohnbrown.com/

i eased into the early hours of my forty-first year in a basement bar on great jones street, standing in a dark rectangle listening to loud hillbilly music and a voice i've known the better part of my time in this city. this was luck. it was also luck that a plywood bar looking like something built by 19 year olds in off campus housing actually had a bottle of maker's mark sitting quietly on something pretending to be a shelf. as is the case in many basement music venues in new york city, glassware for neat bourbon came in the form of clear plastic juice glasses.

toward the end of the evening, i stood in my band t-shirt, sipping good bourbon from cheap plastic there with the sweetie while folks i know, some better than others, sang "i saw the light", a song hank williams wrote when my parents were children, not too far after the second world war. now, i rarely find myself in a church other than when i'm tricked into going to a wedding, but i grew up with gospel music around me plenty. and i know what it's for. i understand how it works. there is clapping. there is foot stomping. good gospel music, real gospel music, makes you feel like your insides are laughing. and when you hear people you know singing a song you have always known and when that song is a very good gospel song, when you have this good bourbon sitting there in plastic and the sweetie there singing along, just like other people are singing along, people clapping time like fools, some you know well, some strangers and plenty in between, you think maybe 41 isn't that old at all.