Downtown I walk past rows of storefronts, windows full of worldly goods. I don’t let myself look inside or think about the shopgirls standing in their short skirts—how they pull their panty hose up over their long legs in the morning, how they push their firm breasts into the cups of their lacy bras, how they splash perfume behind their ears and knees in anticipation. Finally I take my position at the center of town, stand silently in the rain at the intersection of Broadway and Main. People drive past in their warm, dry cars, listening to pop songs about love, or more often about lovemaking—the words barely clothed in a fine, see-through mesh of metaphor that leaves little to the imagination. Some of them honk their horns at me. Perhaps they know me. In better weather they might speak to me, offer me their blessing or ask for mine. More likely they recognize what I represent, why I am here. They understand that safe inside their cars they are swimming in filthy thoughts, vile debauchery.

A man and a woman in a blue Mercedes drive past slowly, staring at me with unbelieving eyes. The man wears an expensive suit, the woman a silk blouse under a tweed blazer. No doubt they’ve just come from a motel, where they’ve been engaging in every illicit sex act conceivable. No doubt his penis now hangs between his legs swollen red, bruised and sore from pounding inside her tight and hungry hole. No doubt her vagina likewise feels ragged and sore from their debauch, its soft walls stretched and battered from the satanic thrashing action of the devil’s massive, oversize piston. It takes a long time for the car to turn the corner, an eternity. All the while the woman looks into my eyes, first through the hysterical waving arms of the windshield wipers, then, head turned sharply to the side, through the passenger window, a harlot, a fellow sinner in need of spiritual guidance, pleading for help, for compassion. I am here for her, a beacon set firmly in place in the midst of a storm. I loosen my hand from its tether to signal and the cross slips, pulling me with it to the wet concrete. When I touch my face, my hand comes away bloody. She is gone.

I could have saved her. I could have taught her how to love. I could have taken her by the hand. I could have undressed her with my teeth. I could have…