Preacherman: Godspeed inspired fiction by T.Chow (600 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.8 on 8 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by T.chow <trcose.at.wisc.edu> (View user info) at 2004-01-22 18:54:06 EST
The tattered curbside cradled Preach's head. His comfort in concrete and cardboard found not only place in his spirit, but in his mind. The Street was his mother. She bore to him all manner of vittle and good fortune. She brought him water; she brought him shelter: she brought him food.
Providence Street malingered heavy and grey through East Trouton with a toe in Capps Bay and a finger in Fallar Park. Here Preach made his home, his livelihood: if you'd like to call it that. Atop the soapbox on the corner of Providence and Nixon, Preach cried in silent clairvoyance. Or at the corner of Providence and Cumberland, he bled his thought into the passing. Beneath the great Gate of Fallar Park his thoughts echoed and shook the storefronts and spanked the glass.
He tried very, very hard for the passers to hear him. His brain strained and pulled with the effort. His message was not word. No, it was not actions. It was simple thought and one thought alone.
Once Preach tried to give his message over on the corner of Walker and Whitney, but it would not work. No one could hear him there.
Now Preach was never actually told by anyone that they heard his message, but he could see it in passers' faces when they knew. On the corner of Walker and Whitney, Preach was sure no one heard him. They would not even look up. He raised his hands up and shook the sky and squeezed the clouds in his fists; still everyone looked only at their feet, at the sidewalk, at objects always just out of sight. They could not hear him. Preach loved that street too nonetheless; after all, it was only like a part of Providence Street, wasn't it? Not unlike a sister.
But the next day, Preach went back to Providence Street. Up nice and high where he could see the bay at the end. And he never tried to leave it after that.
Preach's life was good. Everyone knew him on Providence Street. They never said so, no, of course not. But they recognized him. The passers bought Preach lunch everyday, he was always sure to smile when they chingle-changed a quarter or a dime into his hat.
Oh yes, the hat.
Preach loved his hat. It was a glorious hat. Preach found it one day on the side of the road. Didn't I tell you Providence Street provided? He was sure some passer had dropped it; or perhaps it was carried on the wind from another part of Trouton. If someone should someday claim it, Preach would return it to the owner without even thinking about it. He was as honest as they come. Fortunately Preach was lucky enough to never have met the original owner of that cherished hat.
Every week Preach had a routine. Mondays, he started at the Bay. He sermoned there, breathing salt and fish and facing the long road up to Fallar Park. Tuesdays he was at the corner of Cleveland and Providence, two blocks up from the Bay. Wednesdays he was next to the Golden Harvest Bakery, another three blocks towards the park. Thursdays he was on Nixon and Providence, yet another block closer. By Sunday, Preach sat enthroned atop the soapbox, beneath the great arches of the Park Gate. It smelled of green grass and trees and the pond, and he gazed down Providence Street at the sparkling Bay, and there was nothing better in his life than those Sundays. There were always fewer passers, and he occasionally allow himself a rest to just stand and watch the sky and the sea and the street, and to imagine what it would be like to be the street or to be the sky or the sea. There would be no more thought messages, they would see and they would know.
When Preach was very very old, he would sometimes forget the day. He sometimes spent two or three in a row at the Gates. Better to err on the side of comfort, right? But in any case, Preach deserved as much. He was honest as they come and he worked very hard to deliver his message.
The view never lost its luster. Providence Street, his mother, was never old, never dull. That chaotic beauty of passers: those Preach did not even know, the cars all shining beneath a sparkling Bay, the sky on the storefronts. Silent and still in his rapt concentration, above the crowds on his soapbox, Preach was not brought down for anything, suffered not his silence to be broken, he just thought and thought hard for the rest to understand, even if no one ever thanked him.
When Preach died, up in Fallar Park, at the top of Providence Street, some noticed. The bakery wondered for a bit if he had passed away or just went to another part of the city. Some of the street's regulars wondered where that haggard, happily silent bum was. No one could really say that his or her life was any worse off after Preach was gone, but it wasn't better. He never really said anything. Some wondered what it was he was always looking at. Some people wondered why Preach didn't just get a job, and stop doing nothing all day. Some wondered if Preach might be crazy, or retarded. And some wondered what it was he was thinking about all the time.
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Sometimes I wish something horrible would happen to me so i could have an excuse to be a crazy homeless person.
User Reviews
Submitted by charly <choo choo> at 2004-01-23 17:12:48 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
godspeed me black emperor!
Submitted by loki (user info) at 2004-01-23 11:11:02 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by iddqd (user info) at 2004-01-23 08:25:12 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
its a nice story, or rather, a nice start to a story, or rather still its a nice start, and a nice end, it just needs some meat.
i think this is the first post of yours ive actually clicked on. ill read more from now on.
Submitted by dakingisdead (user info) at 2004-01-23 02:59:24 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Fucking A.
Submitted by T.chow (user info) at 2004-01-23 00:57:27 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
um...i once had a piece of quartz.
Submitted by 1.5gramsPureEvil (user info) at 2004-01-22 21:13:52 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
this one time, i kicked a bum. then he got up off the ground and tried to charge me for a rock tumbler. i think he was crazy, because the only rock tumbler i had gotten that day i bought a t macy's on the corner of mitchell and lincoln.
kookie
Submitted by T.chow (user info) at 2004-01-22 20:55:03 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
i looooooove cults!
Submitted by Phinch (user info) at 2004-01-22 18:58:17 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
join my cult.
http://www.ubersite.com/m/22244