The Night Jesus Burned

I was 13 when "The Wall" was released, but it wasn't until the following year that the album really took hold. It was winter, and I remember listening to the radio interview with Roger Waters and David Gilmour one Sunday night shortly after it came out. They'd intimated how difficult the music had been to create, and at least for Roger, I remember hearing that it had brought him to the brink of madness trying to complete the work.

So much about that album defined my later teenage years.. the isolation of being one of three siblings, yet feeling like an only child; the daily drama of high school; the 'burnout' friends I tried to identify with; not knowing what I wanted to do with my life... it was all there, beneath the music and the lyrics of "The Wall". From the start, the album had a serious hold on my psyche, and in one particular case, my ability to think logically.

I remember listening to it for the first time that night, at my friend's house, how blown away we were by the magnitude of the 2-album opus. The music was ethereal, and the cover art also appealed to my artistic side. The concept of the album seemed legendary, a compelling story from a group I'd only taken a half-hearted interest in previously.

I used to make a habit of going to sleep while music played in the background. My bedroom was upstairs at the time, far from the confines of the rest of the house. On this particular evening, back from the album's debut at my friend's house, I played the cassette tape a second time.

I lit a candle inside a statuette of Jesus my grandmother had given me, set it on top of my turntable, and turned off all the lights, increasing the mystical effect of the music. It was actually a wooden-framed cross, with a pointed roof and a circular space built in the middle for a small tealight candle. I decided to put a small votive in glass there instead, which fit quite nicely.

I woke up suddenly, right about the time "Run Like Hell" kicked in, and I did run, because Jesus was on fire. Over time, the flame of the candle had ignited the wooden frame, and the fire was beginning to produce some black smoke. In the context of scale, it was a blaze that would have made a pyromaniac proud, but it said nothing about my ability to get to Heaven someday. I managed to douse the flame with an old t-shirt and open the window next to my bed to clear the air. Since the room had slanted ceilings and paneled walls, I shudder to think what could have happened had I not woken up.

The next morning I awoke to the charred remains of my fated heirloom, feeling guilty and blasphemous then as now, when I hear that song somewhere that takes me back to the night Jesus burned.