The Fight

And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcasses of men thathave transgressed against me... Isaiah 66:24

The street speaks the language of the street Dumb ass Jesus freak! Who you think you are? until he goes berserk, shining-eyed preacher, his Straight razor in his pale fist making them scatter. Face anointed with tears he can't blink back, he stands alone in the intersection; a car begins to honk, another and another, : and soon everyone is honking: until the Lords chosen, abandoned, proud, wanders to the sidewalk and leans against a lamppost so in wound into himself he doesn't notice us, bystanders who gawk or look away, his passion unfathomed as the madness falling upon Saul, Saul who hurls his javelin at David whom he loves: he seems both together, Saul's madness and David's slender strength, his rage and frailty volatile in the air, his razor shaky in his hand. He moves off through shimmering exhaust as they dodge and mock, his smooth, hairless! face spectral in the fumes ; I penetrate, imagining his heartbeat racing in my ears: What do I know of him but his clothes and skin, the text he sob-shouts, The broad walk of Babylon shall be utterly broken...? I try to hold him in mind, to see him reading at his: Bible in the quiet of dawn, pronouncing the words to himself as he sits in a chair or lies on a bed, the lamp beside him casting its light across the well-thumbed page scholar of his book, lover of the Word, his Bible holding demons and gods arid the God of his desire, of his rage; pain distilled into His love, the cover worn smooth by reverential hands.,.but the sidewalk bears him off, tugging him from me, his fate covert, private, all his own, fending off my gaze, reluctant to let him go; his fury and tears choking up the words he hurls at his tormentors—Bastards, busybastards, just steer clear of me, OK?just steer the clear- still dodging, mocking... I keep my distance from his razor and his tormentors, too scared to intervene, my boundaries drawn as if Llooked down on him from Heaven the way the saved look down at the damned, my eyes riveted by his:abandonment and pain...and yes, mingling with my sorrow and compassionmy heart unveiled to His all-seeing eye 'whose Dark as well as Light refracts through every soulaq a mute satisfaction pulsing in my veins.

"The Fight" from The Dreamhouse ©1999 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.