Sorrowful Joe Page 3

his ugliness, right to his face. They told Joe how he deserved his punishment, of the evil he'd most certainly done to earn it; and how he should be ashamed for what he'd done, how he should be grateful we allowed him to be here at all, grateful for our enmity given to cleanse him of his karmic debt.

  And hadn't we all taken cruel satisfaction in his bent submissive head, his quiet tears? The men cursed him, the women spat into his food, and even the good Sisters of Charity averted their gaze from what was happening, clutching their rosaries in silent prayer, unable or unwilling to intervene.

  I prayed as well, prayed that Joe would simply stop coming here, would find another soup kitchen to haunt. I felt torn between my desire to complete my thesis, of which he'd now become an integral part, and my desire to end this conflict of hatred and guilt.

  I even suggested it to him indirectly one day, whispering as I filled his bowl: "There's another soup kitchen up on 62nd Street, you know: Perhaps you'd be happier there."

  Joe merely grunted, looked at me with his miserable eyes, and shook his head.

  "Why not?" I thought, looking back at him, my lips compressed into a hard thin line. "You been there already? Is it the same for you everywhere you go? And then I turned away, wondering if maybe he did deserve our antipathy after all.

  Another week or two went by, with the tension increasing daily. I began to feel I had to do something to end this. My dreams of Sorrowful Joe, but that time a nightly occurrence, were ruining my sleep; the animosity I carried towards the hapless man ruining the objectivity of my doctoral dissertation. And I saw, looking over my recent notes under the stark glare of my desk lamp, that his presence at the mission had now thrown off the pecking order pattern I'd been studying. With everyone banding together as more-or-less equals in their attacks on this common enemy, it had skewed my data terribly. That was the final straw: Joe had to go!

  By the first of April I'd made up my mind: I would bluntly tell "Sorry Joe" that he was no longer welcome here, that his presence had caused a dangerous unrest in the soup kitchen. Lunch hour finally arrived, and as I watched Joe make his slow approach up the mess line toward me, I licked my lips and cleared my throat in anticipation. At that instant, however, my attention was distracted by the tentative sound of a new entrant at the mission door, the tap tap tap of a white cane on tile, as a young woman with wrinkled slits where her eyes should have been moved carefully up to the back of the line behind Joe.

  The tip of her cane bumped against the worn heel of Joe's shoe, her outstretched hand brushing the back of his dirty overcoat as she found her place, got her bearings.

  "Excuse me, sir," she said politely; "but this is my first time here. Would you mind very much helping me find a place to sit and carrying my food?"

  All murmur of conversation and clink of dishes paused, as the room held its breath to listen. The pair had stopped directly in front of my vat of soup , this hideously deformed man and the blind girl who didn't know to what kind of a nightmare she was placing her trust in. Should I tell her?

  The words caught in my throat.

  "Uh...shu," Joe mumbled in reply, taking her bowl and holding it out to me. Dumbstruck, I filled it and watched as he led her gently to an empty place near the front of the dining hall, setting the bowl down on the table before her. He then returned for his own portions, but as he passed by the woman on the way to his usual lonely corner at the rear, she reached out a hand to grab hold of his jacket edge.

  "Please, is that you again sir?" She had a soft pretty voice. "Won't you sit by me to dine? I feel very nervous and alone in here right now."

  "Uh, I ca' si' hea," Joe protested, looking around at the glares, the warning scowls cast in his direction from beneath hostile brows all around the room. "I ha' muh ow' p'ace a' duh ba'."

  "Well then," the girl replied brightly, gathering her things and rising; "If you'll be kind enough to carry my bowl and lead the way, I'll follow you to your place."

  The room emitted a low growl; nostrils flared in silent anger, broken capillaries across noses and sere cheeks pulsed threateningly. But no one moved to stop them, not then.

  The young woman left shortly after she'd finished her meal, following Sorrowful Joe's footsteps out through the maze of tables as he left for his regular constitutional, and the incident was soon passed off as an isolated affront to the State of Things. Even the guru was too far into his cups that day to work up much of a lather on the subject.

  But the next afternoon the blind girl returned, taking her place in line behind Joe again; and once more she insisted on joining him at the back table for lunch. Once more the street people at the other tables snarled and muttered their outrage through mouthfuls of bread and beans, but again no one seemed willing to take the first step to break up this unwarranted friendship.

  It was, I noted in my journal that night, strange to see Joe involved in conversation, even if the girl did do most of the talking, chatting animatedly through lunch while old "Sorry" merely nodded and grunted from time to time. Never-the-less I thought I saw that horrible face break into a shy smile once at something she said.

  The following day and the next the scene repeated. By the fifth day Joe began to open up a little, talking with his new friend in quiet tones which nobody else could hear, but which the sightless woman appeared to find fascinating.

  This was, apparently, too much for the rest of the derelicts to let pass. Hair-chin Molly sauntered up to the serving table where I was cleaning the after lunch mess.

  "Doncha think we outta tell 'er what kind of monster she's wastin' 'er time with?" the old woman sneered, jerking her head in the direction of the offending pair, her spittle shooting out from the spaces around the single fanglike tooth in the middle of her upper gum as she spoke.

  "Now Molly, why don't you just let them be," I advised, looking at the woman sternly...even though I'd been turning the same mean-spirited idea over in my own mind just moments before.

  "Pfff," Molly snorted, returning to her place at a nearby table to resume a desultory conversation with her cronies.

  A moment later I was approached again.

  "Madame!" the Guru blared in his most theatrical voice: "I feel strongly that we must warn this innocent girl against further communication with Sorry Joe. Not only is she interfering with the necessary repayment of his spiritual debt, but it is possible some of his bad karma might rub off on her as well."

  "Oh please!" I rolled my eyes. I may not know much about karma, Mr. Stevens..."

  "Guru Stevens!"

  "Whatever. But this is a Christian mission, sir, and Christian doctrine advises tolerance and forgiveness of sin." (I might not have liked Sorry Joe much, but I like the aging hippie and his aging hypocrisy even less!) "And," I added stiffly, seeing the intransigent argument remaining in his fierce dark eyes; "If you and your friends wish to continue taking your free daily bread at this particular Christian mission you will respect our tenets and behave accordingly."

  "Hmmmp!" the long-haired man muttered, the down-turned lips behind his beard and mustache evincing his displeasure. But he gave no further argument, returning to his seat to scowl darkly at the pair in question.

  Ugly Joe and the blind girl left soon after, smiling and chatting as if oblivious to the arguments going on about them.

  For two more days their meetings continued, the friendship growing, the conversations beginning to linger on past lunch. But the tension and unreleased venom was growing amongst the mission habitants in suit, and not just directed toward Sorrowful Joe but toward the blind woman now as well.

  He was their whipping boy, after all; the one who, by being at the bottom of the heap, had raised them up a notch. They needed him, needed someone to punish for their failings, their futility; someone upon whom they could take out their rage at themselves.

  And she was denying them this, this awful joy, this release.

  By the seventh day they were able to take it no longer. The crisis occurred when, as the deformed old cripple and
the sightless girl talked happily together, she suddenly knelt down before him and, taking his gnarled hands in hers, kissed them with great tenderness and fervor. He pulled one hand away to gently caress her brow. At this the crowd of derelicts gasped and growled as one enraged animal, then rose to their feet and began moving stealthily towards the happy couple. Quietly they encircled the pair. Throats were cleared noisily, weights shifted with accompanying sighs and grunts, until Joe and the woman at last raised their heads to the crowd.

  "Yes?" the young woman queried, raising her sightless eyes to the presences she felt around her. "What is it?"

  Sorry Joe merely looked up, blue eyes teary as if he'd been expecting this.

  When I realized what was going on, a jittery fear crawled up into my throat. I started around the side of the long serving table, my steps as uncertain as my intentions. On one hand I felt a responsibility to break this confrontation up, prevent this surly mob from destroying the meager happiness of a poor repulsive man who'd never really done them any harm. On the other, I told myself I shouldn't interfere; I needed to maintain my