Kierk, in the front of the crowd now, begins to shuffle and nod along, hesitantly at first. Then, committing, he closes his eyes and lets the words rock over him, swaying to the preacher’s rhythm. He’s now with the other devotees, undergoing this strange public conversion. Kierk begins to shout—Amen!—during the downtime between sentences to punctuate the preacher’s points. The preacher, emboldened by this new buttressing and vital force, responds in kind, becoming more vitriolic, more enthused. Kierk feels the eyes from behind, the members of the crowd disdainful, but he keeps clapping and shouting, nodding his head in agreement. Luckily he is wearing one of the few T-shirts that survived the purging of his old clothes, and although his new sneakers squeak cleanly against the pavement his movements and general attitude are convincing enough. The couple sitting on the steps looks on in confusion at this whirling dervish, this repentant sinner, and then back to the Whole Foods bags he’d set down beside them.

Kierk twists like a cobra in front of a snake charmer. Even the street preacher now seems impressed by Kierk’s personal passion, the other desperate souls are egged on, and they continue this kind of dance to the preacher’s rant, which itself winds from the evils of science to the glory of service to the giving away of all wealth. A small part of Kierk, blasé and impassive behind his eyes, is impressed at the oration. He wonders if afterward the preacher trembles as he washes his face in the sink of a public restroom. But as the preaching drags on long beyond Kierk’s expectations, it begins to change from annoyed to snapping anger. He wonders what would happen if he went up and planted his fucking foot into the street preacher’s little stool and kicked it out from under him. Mostly he is annoyed at himself: he did not count on having to maintain the charade so long. The preacher, as if sensing Kierk’s approaching boiling point, stops, gumshoe mouth and all cylinders fired, and becomes again a man, pausing, glancing around at the traffic, blinking, and Kierk knows that look—it’s the same look on Kierk’s face when he finishes writing a scene, feeling precisely how Brahma must feel at each new creation of the world as he emerges from the center of it all blinking, looks around, lights up a cigarette, holds it up to his mouth with blue hands, takes a drag.

The preacher is gathering up his little stand and Kierk walks up to him looking like he just came out of a dance club.

“Amen, man, that was great talk.”

Kierk had been right. The preacher does tremble afterward.

“I’m glad you liked it. But it is not me speaking. Can I provide you any assistance?”

“You said you were a member of . . .”