He was a big Big tall kid
really a young man
they enjoyed his unexpected shyness
it was refreshing
given his size he could have been gregarious overbearing
he could have been dangerous
young men out of high school are
often so full of themselves that the only way they might understand Respect was
to be throttled
who gets throttled
to-day -- maybe dissed
-- though apparently few can absorb
it their skins arent thick enough or theyre not in possession of
a deeper resilience
it seems if theyre anyone theres an entourage to attest
to their prowess
growing up
not that he participated
entourages were called gangs
and a gang to him was
nothing more than a loud colourful admission that they couldnt stand up for
themselves
he stood up for himself by
himself
his
old man said afterwards that maybe that wasnt a good idea
Youre fast you should have
run
the gang beat him up pretty
good
he winded up in the hospital
but there was one thing he took
from them with him
it hung in his eyes like cheap Used
Car Sale pennants
their faces
each and every one of their
five faces
they didnt give him great
odds 5:1
he might have been willing to
leave well enough alone when they beat him down
had they stopped
pummeling him
but they didnt
on his knees he took their
barrage of leather shoe and booted kicks
too lazy he thought to bend over
and use their fists
so he hung their faces in his
eyes
until
the glare of the overhead hospital lights etched bleached them onto his
brain
he turned them over and over and
over like a deck of five cards
over and over quietly
they were like dirty wash thrown over a line to
air out their repulsive stink
air
them out so when time came to wash them the Fels Naptha soap and clear water
had a real shot at cleansing them
then
recovered
he caught up with them one at
a time
he gave them even odds 1:1
let
them best man win
the cycle replete
which for him made the big Big
kids shyness very refreshing
she said she was drawn to his
timidity his courteousness thoughtfulness
but as they got to know him
better they realised his gentile attributes were only had by a kind of social
retardedness
they were more from a
deficit than a forging of spirit
Denial enforces its particular
aspects
forging
tempered steel eradicating its
impurities forms something Denial can
never incorporate
they were slight reveals
never blatant
subtle delicate
if you werent looking for them
you might not see them
people hustling around him paid
him no matter or attention and the
grocer who needed the bulk moved and unloaded and stacked paid him no mind
either
it was as if hed been read fairy
tales his whole life
and in this small cloistered
rural town
weeds
were thinned almost as they peeped their uncomely heads from of the ground
Worldliness she said
of the town was unnecessary in a
household of God and Worship
she was sympathetic
always more
compassionate than he
but she had been raised with religion
his parents tried to raise him
with religion
and
he tried
but during a Catechism lesson telling of the story of Daniel in the Lions
Den he laughed
he was punished
nuns held at his
shoulders and knelt him on a broom handle
he was
tagged
and at home his parents
read the pinned note instructing them that he was to recite numerous Hail Marys
and Art Fathers and beg for Gods Forgiveness
For what he asked
I know exactly what hungry lions would do to Daniel
it occurred to him then the astonished glimmer in their eyes
his parents wanted him to have religion for them
No he said
recognizing for the first time his way was to please himself
before he pleased
anyone else
-- Youre very sympathetic babe I love that in you
But I got to tell you and you know how my hearing works when you said
worldliness was unnecessary in a household of God and Worship
I thought you said briefly
until I recognised it was too
incongruent
a hellhole of
God and Worship
And in that thin moment of
rapture I nearly snaked your worship into
warship
Whew from the mouth of babes huh
-- Matthew
21:16
-- Jesus youd know better than me
Mayhem Double aught
1544, Sunday,
15 2. 15
2222, Sunday, 15 2.
15
