Department E-7
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Why God Permits Evil," Miller Williams
The West Baltimore father who confessed to throwing his 3-year-old son off the Key Bridge told police that demons made him do it.
The Baltimore Sun
1.
A man, mocha-skinned, black hair, pig-tailed, holds the pay telephone in one hand,
bangs it against the silver upright casket of glass until all of it shakes so hard
I think it will topple, or the glass will explode, but nothing happens, and then he screams
into the little black holes, throws up flecks of spit, flesh stains on glass
visibly scarred as if by fingernails, magic marker's graffitied names. His breath fumes, scarf
tied at brow, like horns, and we waiting for change in the convenience store [End Page 260]
can hardly believe this hurricane in a box, catastrophe of soul that now kicks
what walls him in, hurled side to side, pain-scalded, demons tearing his camo-jacket.
2.
"Omigod, what in hell," says a woman, young, soiled, bleached-out waitress
uniform, her just bought Marlboro light not yet lit falling, "Omigod," so
I think of my daughter at the mall, sorrow and love, her cell-phone losing the link and boyfriend,
repeating, in fear "omigod, omigod" as real as dinner where we sit, wife, me
hearing the high, thin end of prayer, a mantra, I think, that weird word I once used
to chant, blue suit of the Air Force on me, dropping my son at day care, Nixon hurling
us at Laos, Cambodia, radio hysterical, Stones drowning our cries my son's frantictiny wings.
3.
"Might be drugs,"clerk slurs, Budweiser shoved [End Page 261]
in bag a boy's body-size. Then we see the kid, legs kick, mouth gasps, and, Jesus,
he's pale, naked, cow-brown eyes, freezing, diaper ripped, I can't help
wanting the hate I feel, suddenly loving the kid, knife of mania in my heart, but
the man steps out, squeezes the body that screams, same face, smaller, until it grins,
shuts bi-fold doors, strides calm to car, powers up, straps down the kid, wiggles
himself deep, locks in, like a pilot forehead pinched, turns into the wind,
shifts, rolls, darts past all air-wakes of trucks, is gone, shrunk like a toy floating.
4.
It's afternoon, school not out, yellow buses lumber, seagulls cast, hungry, flakes
at black trees, lifting whatever road-kill, mashed, is visible. Today ice,
forecast, makes iron day last, taste infinite, dragging grit piled [End Page 262]
at the berm, gray bridge abutments tide-marked, world-slime, us
gazing up road, dreaming ways out of plant lots, butter sun, sweet lying
with a woman, beach breeze, horizons of families in sand, heads grim
as the road I must take. How escape what's breaking, ahead, heave it from us?
5.
Climbing the Key Bridge I slow over mud, marsh, boats half-sunk, duck blinds
like prayer stalls unused, glare of taillights, traffic's steam, creatures jammed up,
then stop on a metal grid. Each eye flicks, inches forward, dented green Toyota
dead right, emergency flashers like anger. I see him, I think, coat-bloated. Or I'm
scared, caught, pushed. Face an instant's all he is, less, and I'm over
the crest, wind eddies so strong bridge, car, bodies fuse, easy to believe a plummet's [End Page 263]
coming, now's exposed crack in what keeps us just blood something's
jiggled. Could I have stopped him, son of a bitch at the edge? I'm too late, seagulls shriek.
Black chops below, horns honk as if God wants me to move on, so I do,
queasy and tracked in mid-air. Drive, the grid ticks at each of our tires, rusted welds
and rivets cradling us over the deep we wheel past, trembling.
6.
Which word can say what a man faces? Phosphorous bursts blow away demons
and Skywalker grins, righteous, weightless horrors drift to dust, bottoms
of film cans, only dust, no bodies in framed light. But death is, Brother, I think,
the truth. We snap...
