4. Not Short Where It Counts #3
Now, under the flickering glow of the station’s neon sign, they stood shoulder to shoulder to shoulder, forming a huddle of mismatched luggage, newfound solidarity, and musical aspirations. There wasn’t much left to say, at least with simple words.
Rebekkah took a step forward, her chest rising as if she were about to belt out a confession to the universe itself. Instead, she sang.
“David had Jonathan and Adam had Eve,” she began, her voice laced with melodramatic sincerity, like she was auditioning for a musical no one at the bus stop had asked for.
Japheth quickly picked up the thread, glancing nervously at Rebekkah, then throwing his arms wide like he was inviting the whole world to hear,
“Cain had Abel before he made him bleed.”
Ronald, not one to be theatrically outshone, tossed his jacket over his shoulder, eyes gleaming with campy intensity,
“Alexander had Hephaestion way back in the day.”
He paused, throwing a wink at Japheth, who returned it and sang,
“They’re not in the Bible, and I think they’re…”
The former duo, that was now a throuple, but not in the modern sense, was nevertheless in perfect sync; they threw their heads back and sang,
“Hey! You!! You gotta have friends.
God got lonely, so He made a Holy Ghost!”
Japheth, never one to let a rhyme go unmatched, queried their cautious and curious audience of stragglers in the parking lot,
"Throwing a party?
Jesus is a bitchin’ host.”
Ronald, spinning around with a flair that suggested he might break into a triple pirouette at any moment, joined the chorus with gleeful abandon,
“Hey! You!! Ya gotta have friends.
Three’s a magic number. It’s the most!”
Unsure if the situation was safe or suspect, the last remaining travellers skittered away into the night, leaving Trinity an empty house to perform to.
But they hardly noticed. The bus station’s desolation seemed to melt away as Rebekkah took centre stage again, her face lit with a sort of clumsy and accidental lighting from the buzzing orange neon that nevertheless added an air of avant-garde, indie, artistic integrity generally found in off-off-Broadway performances or late-late-night karaoke as she sang,
“Mary had Elizabeth and the wise men were three.”
Japheth, his arms stretched like Moses parting the very metaphorical sea of self-doubt that had plagued them all afternoon, chimed in,
“Moses had Aaron when he parted that sea.”
Ronald, always ready to veer into the absurd with a foot firmly on the gas, added with a vocal flourish,
“Siegfried and Roy play with their tigers all day.”
Japheth shrugged theatrically,
“Again, they’re not in the Bible,
and I think they’re…”
“Hey! You!! Ya gotta have friends,” Rebekkah, Japheth, and Ronald, as if well-rehearsed (which they were not), came together in chorus, their voices bouncing off the brick of adjacent buildings.
“God got lonely, so He made a Holy Ghost!
Hey! You!! Ya gotta have friends.
Throwing a party? Jesus is a bitchin’ host.
Hey! You!! Ya gotta have friends.
Three’s a magic number. It’s the most!”
The parking lot’s shadows deepened, but their voices carried on, as if the lack of an audience didn’t matter. This was their moment, completely untethered from reality but moored fast to each other.
Rebekkah, now fully immersed in her role as lead singer (at least on this new number), continued with fervour,
“Jesus had his disciples when they sat down to feed.”
Japheth, chest puffed out like a proud biblical scholar (or maybe just proud of his vocal range), followed,
“Noah had three sons: Ham and Shem and me!”
Ronald, twirled a non-existent baton (or cane, it’s hard to determine which he was imagining), before delivering his line,
“Joseph was the Liberace of his day!
They both had coloured coats, but Liberace was…”
Trinity burst into the final refrain, their voices soaring over the sound of distant traffic and the hum of fluorescent lights,
“Hey! You!! Ya gotta have friends.
God got lonely, so He made a Holy Ghost.
Hey! You!! Ya gotta have friends.
Throwing a party? Jesus is a bitchin’ host.
Hey! You!! Ya gotta have friends.
Three’s a magic number. It’s the most!”
As the final note hung in the air, then slipped away into the night, there was a moment of silence.
The kind of silence where the weight of everything unsaid lingered and all were hesitant to break the spell as unaddressed worries swirled around them like trash reluctant to stay in the bin.
The absurdity of their situation, the spontaneity of their decision, their potential delusion, and the fact that they had just publicly declared their throuple status in a bus station parking lot ballooned into a pregnant pause between them–until finally, Rebecca broke the silence.
“Well, that was something,” Rebekkah finally said, shaking her head in disbelief, though her smile betrayed her. “I feel like we had a really great flow together.”
Japheth glanced at Ronald, who had jumped onto a bench seat and clapped his hands against his jaw. “I don’t know how we all knew the lyrics at the same time, to something we’ve never sung before. We got Holy Ghosted!”
The three of them stood there for a beat and felt their skin prickle with the possibility.
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