Sorrowful Joe Page 4

scientific detachment, let matters take their natural course (like the field biologist lets the bobcat kill the litter of baby rabbits?) and merely record the results.

  "Woman!" It was the Guru who broke silence first, his voice a deep powerful bark. "Do you know with whom you've been carrying on? Do you know who this man is that you've befriended?"

  "Do you?" she returned lightly, a small smile playing about the unpainted lips, her useless eyes shifting ceaselessly behind the slitted lids.

  "This man is called Sorrowful Joe," the Guru boomed ominously.

  "Because he's such a sorry sight," old Molly interjected, cackling wildly and jabbing her sweater clad elbow into the ribs of those nearby, urging them to join her boisterous laughter.

  The Guru cut off her cachinnation with a hard glare. "He is being punished for his iniquities; his bad karma is upon him in the manner of gross physical deformities. He must be made to pay for his crimes against man fully, and without any of your undeserved kindness or friendship."

  "Is that so?" The blind woman answered placidly, folding her hands beneath her chin.

  "If you sawr him, you'd know 'twas so!" An ill-looking man shouted, his rheumy bloodshot eyes firing momentarily, then sputtering out.

  "God is punishing him for his sins," another voice cried angrily. "That's why he looks the way he do!"

  "I may have no eyes," the young woman countered, her voice less soft now; "but my vision is certainly less clouded than yours."

  She rose up awkwardly from the bench as she said this, her voice encompassing and attacking everyone present. "You say you are a Christian mission..." she accused.

  And her words stopped me mid-stride, halfway across the room. A sudden inkling, a flash of memory, a picture stolen from my nightly dreams, these sank into the pit of my stomach like a cold fist.

  "....and yet not one of you has recognized this man. Hasn't anyone here ever read Isaiah?"

  An old nun at the back of the room gasped under the sudden weight of realization and sank to the floor, prostrating herself.

  The Guru looked stupidly around at the others: "What's she talking about?" he questioned each in turn with his eyes, but found only a reflection of his own confusion.

  "He hath no form or comeliness," the blind woman quoted, her voice ringing out strongly into the bewildered silence; "and when we shall see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him."

  "Oh dear God," a voice whimpered from the back of the crowd.

  "He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief," she continued above the ensuing murmur; "and we hid our faces from Him. He was despised, and we esteemed Him not."

  "What is this? What is she saying?" the Guru demanded, pulling at the shoulder of the former Reverend Clemens, who had just dissolved in tears. "What's she talking about?" He grabbed Molly, but she yanked her arm away, gawking at the blind girl open-mouthed, her single tooth dangling like something from The Muppet Show.

  "Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows; Yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted...But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon Him."

  A shudder had passed through the room as she quoted this last. A woman somewhere was crying out "Jesus!" over and over. Then I realized the woman was me.

  I rushed forward, moving through the wavery sea of my own tears, pushing aside the crowd of weeping, wailing people to get to the table where the blind woman stood, smiling serenely.

  "And with His stripes, we are healed," she whispered.

  Sorrowful Joe had vanished.

  I ran outside to find him, but was instantly caught by the way the muck of gray froth on the sidewalk looked like a stormy ocean. And above, at the way the sunlight came through that thick layer of clouds in a shimmering radiant halo of silver. A bus rolled up and wheezed to a stop beside me, shattered rainbows of oily water floating up into the air beside its wheels. Its doors opened to release a melody of voices and odors, a surprise of people. And I forgot momentarily what it was I was looking for in the wonder of finding what I didn't know I'd lost. When I remembered and began to look around, it was too late.

  I went home and threw away my dissertation papers that same afternoon, laughing at the flames that turned years of pretentiousness into a pile of ashes in the kitchen sink. And I began my new search, for truth.

  ********

  The rumors are always one step ahead of me, one soup kitchen, one city.

  Sometimes I get close.

  "Yeah, we had a guy like that last month, matter of fact. But we sent him on his way after a couple of days. Whatta mess, his face, ya know? Ruined everyone's appetite, poor guy."

  Mostly all I find is the same etched canvasses of faces over and over, those landscapes of bright patchwork sweaters and textured mats of hair that hover over the steaming fragrances of the soup bowls and cigarettes. All I find is a profound weariness in the reddened eyes and the dormant ember of hope still buried deep beneath the ash of their universal guilt and regret.

  "No ma'am, we never saw no such guy come in here. Yeah, I'd remember someone like that, I'm sure of it."

  I want to tell them: Don't worry, He's coming! Look for Him. Welcome Him! But I realize I'm not the messenger, I'm the message. So I just stay a few days, waiting and hoping, then move on.

  And sometimes I have this dream.

  The End