I thought I could avoid the bottle directly below my chin by vomiting more, but nothing would come out. I was truly empty, and there was no easy escape from the situation. I turned toward the hand and found myself looking into a frowning, sweaty face that appeared over a large belly covered in a sleeveless T-shirt that had once been white. The face was cruel, its lips tight. Its sidelong glance was openly accusatory. For some reason, such accusations never come straight at you, but are always launched at exactly a forty-five-degree angle, with the face sloping away a little to fix the direction of the sidelong stare.

I smiled in spite of myself. Before me were two options, without any possible third. Either I take the water gratefully and down it all at once, quenching my thirst and poisoning myself, or I … It didn’t take long for me to turn my face away. My body followed, with the goal of getting out of there. The man’s rough hand grabbed my shoulder and forced me to stop as he poured the water over me. Then he spat in my face and squeezed the base of my neck until my soul was gasping out.

The pain was excruciating. I knelt, stained in my own vomit that mixed with the refuse of the street where I fell. With perfect clarity, he could sense my disgust at his merely looking at me, as well as my disgust for his water, his fingers, him, his street, and his entire world without exception. It was a sharp disgust, hard and impudent. The man looked directly into the eyes of that disgust and spat on it. It was only my disgust with myself that he failed to see.

———

That spot on my back is itching again. I feel it getting hot and then burning, but I can’t get at it. I turn in a circle, trying to reach it. Then I press myself against the door, but the cool touch of the wood only makes me feel more despair, and it itches worse. God! After the passage of all these years, the pain still comes back to me. I wish I were able to rip off the spot and replace it with a metal plate. Yet that would only replace the pain with an even bigger one.

I began to go down regularly to the place where the Lord’s flock settled. Street by street, corner by corner, I discovered most of the places they lived. I wandered by day and got lost by night. I sometimes discovered passageways and alleys where time was lost and became meaningless. I would cast about, seeking my quarry, yearning for a beating, to present my body as a blood offering to people ground down by coercion and humiliation. This is my body: take it, trample it, pierce it, eat it … I did not succeed in giving everyone my “offering,” for there were some who scorned and rejected me, thinking I was drunk, or a vagabond, or mentally ill. But by the end of the day, I always succeeded in provoking someone’s rage.