Sorrowful Joe Read online

scientifically detached wording possible.

  My doctoral thesis, nearly complete now, dealt with the odd social phenomena I'd witnessed at the mission, in particular the seemingly instinctual development of and adherence to a very rigid pecking order among the mission regulars.

  I stared out the window at the flickering "Old Pueblo Bar And Grill" sign across the street, remembering the first such real scramble for position I'd witnessed about six months after starting my research project there. It was the day the "Guru" had arrived at the mission and begun an immediate battle for supremacy with Reverend Clemens, who up to this time had held sway over the group with his Baptist minister's persona and booming oratory,( when he wasn't too drunk to talk.)

  For a week or more the mission had been a complete shambles as the "Guru" challenged Clemens' every view and proclamation with an opposing one of his own. Fist fights had broken out, not among the challengers but between some of the onlookers taking sides; as well as loud arguments over places in the food line and seating, all just offshoots of the general turbulence being created by the two would be leaders. Molly had been reduced to tears at least twice, and one of the more ancient sots had succumbed to a heart attack face first in his bowl of bean soup. Then suddenly it was over. I never quite saw how or why, but Clemens simply capitulated, relinquishing his standing to become second in command. It was as subtle as finding the Guru now sitting at the center spot of the dining table that the Reverend had always occupied. And the rest of the mission habitants quickly and quietly fell back into place.

  This process of stratification, I'd expounded excitedly in my subsequent thesis journal, appeared to be very similar to that found in certain lower animal species such as wolf packs, with each member of this compact little group of society's bottom layer fighting to defend his or her own particular position in the social order. Perhaps, I'd ventured to hypothesize, the same instinct lies within all of us, but disguised under a thin veneer of civilization which, in this lowest stratum of society, has disappeared altogether...along with most of the other niceties which disguise our basic animal nature. Like bathing.

  I'd subsequently observed this same testy battle occur to a lesser degree each time a newcomer arrived, and through this process the 53rd Street Mission' pecking order had evolved before my very eyes.

  There was, I noted, a definite hierarchy of leader, sub-leaders, followers and sub-followers, each ordered by those above and in turn able to order all those below his or her particular stratum. This process followed on down the ranks until it reached the lowest member of the group, the one that everyone could abuse freely, the prime "peck-ee", the bottom of the bottom of the human refuse barrel.

  And of course at our mission that bottom dweller had now become "Sorrowful Joe". He was the man to hate, the man who - even if you were a toothless, hairless, drooling old wino - you could still look down upon, still feel you hadn't quite hit bottom yet in comparison with. He was the man to whom anyone could feel superior, and as such was of far more importance than I had initially realized...until things started to come apart.

  That his positioning in the lowest caste had been almost instantaneous, and that he had accepted it without a word of protest, was really no surprise. What was unusual, however, was the way his treatment by the others continued to worsen rather than leveling off. This behavior did not follow the reasoning of my thesis at all! Attacks on Joe by the others soon became physical as well as verbal, and more vicious with each passing day. It seemed like the others simply could not leave the poor man alone.

  One day after Joe had been there about a week, someone put out his foot and tripped the crippled miscreant as he shuffled past with his supper tray. Joe had fallen in clumsy abandon, yielding as a rag doll, while the bowl of soup and plate of salad skittered across the floor, spilling their content on the dirty tile. The hall rocked with derisive laughter.

  The next day it happened again; this time the act of tripping was followed by a vicious kick to Joe's rear, another to his ribs. And again the laughter. I rushed to the fallen man's aid before worse injury could be done, but even my furious rebuke could not quell the peals of mockery ripping through the hall. (Although Mother Superior's subsequent threats to withhold all future meals if there were any more attacks stopped the worst of the violence thereafter.)

  But what was I to make of all this, I wondered, tapping my pen against the blank sheets of paper that stared up at me expectantly from the desk in my little room that night. And how was I to keep my objectivity, my scientific detachment from the situation, and at the same time retain my humanity? I couldn't just sit by and watch him be hurt.

  Over the ensuing week I observed a new phenomenon develop: The others now began to justify their hateful acts by allocation of blame, holding Joe culpable for his own physical deformities and therefore deserving of their resultant ill treatment.

  The Guru had sparked this latest inspiration. An aging, burnt-out ex-flower child who'd lost most of his rational mind and all of his ambition to LSD in the early seventies, he was a self-proclaimed prophet and unchallenged authority on Eastern religious philosophy, as well as top dog at this particular kennel. Though seldom coherent in his obscure, demented rhetoric, he was always quite loud and self-assured, which counted far more than common sense amongst his adherents, most of whom had had their own reasoning power permanently addled by drugs or alcohol as well.

  His original intention in saying what he had about Joe seemed at first glance to be simply an attempt to reassert his leadership. Later, though, it came to me that he might, subconsciously at least, have sensed his people's need to find a cause and justification for their unfathomable hatred of Sorrowful Joe, and, as leader, it was his job to provide them this outlet. Whatever his intention, the Guru's words proved to be a pivotal turning point in the group's attitude towards the unfortunate wretch.

  It happened on a day in early March: A cold rain had whipped the filth on the sidewalk outside the mission into a gray froth, and the hall was filled with shivering misbegots, lingering over their lunch remnants in order to avoid returning to such unfriendly elements. (Though in my personal opinion the stench of their own wet, unwashed bodies, smelling like sides of rancid beef, was enough to kill any appetite and drive one out into the fresh air regardless of chill factor. But that's just me.)

  Despite the weather, Joe finished his meal rather quickly and left the mission to take his customary pilgrimage along the bottle-strewn sidewalks outside. As soon as he was gone, the usual hateful gossip about him began. But after a few moments Reverend Clemens, the black Baptist minister who'd fallen from grace, felled by shots of Wild Turkey years earlier, raised his voice in what must have been a momentary paroxysm of revivalist guilt, and proclaimed to his small bored audience that they should show more Christian charity towards the miserable creature.

  "What dry unhealthy womb must he have sprung from, to be so bent and misshapen?" the minister expounded. "Like a tender shoot that's been forced to worm and bend itself in a tortuous path through the rocky, barren ground into which its seed was mistakenly planted, Amen! As the twig is bent, so grows the tree, Amen!" Clemens cried in evangelical tones. "I say his disability is more something to be admired, as evidence of his tenacity to survive, than to be reviled for what that tenacity has cost him!"

  The group had begun to nod in a sleepy stupor of agreement at this new viewpoint, when the Guru literally sprang from his chair, pounding the table with his open palm hard enough to make the plates - and the patrons - jump.

  "Karma!" He proclaimed, his filthy long gray beard quivering violently, his stringy shoulder-length hair framing a gaunt face inset with wild black eyes.

  "Karma!" He yelled again, and every head in the place turned, every ear tuned in. "Sorry's appearance is no more nor less than the outward manifestation of his karma: It is proof of his inner ugliness, his vile nature. What a man does in his past life comes back on him in the present, to live out, to pay for. That's karma. This person the Revere
nd Clemens asks you to now bleed for, can you imagine what horrible, unspeakable evils he must have perpetuated to deserve such deformities? Why, he could be Dr. Mengali, or Hitler himself! Yes, Hitler!!" The bearded man hissed at them urgently. "I say he has earned his punishment of ugliness, and part of his punishment is our hatred and rejection. I say give him his full due, let him live out his karma and let him have our fury as well, that he may be thoroughly cleansed of his debt!"

  Although this was neither the longest nor the loudest of the Guru's speeches, it was arguably the most lucid proclamation I'd heard come from the man in the two and a half years I'd known him. And it affected me - I have to admit that - just as it affected the rest of them.

  After that day it was as if all restrictions were lifted, our loathing and acrimony allowed to blossom into a beautiful blood red flower, a living monster ready to spring upon the misshapen beggar at every opportunity.

  The derelicts, the drifters, the bag ladies and sodden alcoholics, all began to speak openly of