God, I didn’t ask for a million dollars. I didn’t ask to be famous and powerful. I didn’t even ask for Nikki to take me back. I only asked for a meeting. A single face-to-face conversation. All I’ve done since I left the bad place was try to improve myself—to become exactly what You tell everyone to be: a good person. And here I am running through North Philly on a rainy Christmas Day—all alone. Why did You give us so many stories about miracles? Why did You send Your Son down from heaven? Why did You give us movies if life doesn’t ever end well? What kind of f**king God are You? Do You want me to be miserable for the rest of my life? Do You—
Something hits my shin hard, and then my palms are sliding across the wet concrete. I feel kicks landing on my back, my legs, my arms. I curl up into a ball, trying to protect myself, but the kicking continues. When it feels as though my kidneys have exploded, I look up to see who is doing this to me, but I only see the bottom of a sneaker just before it strikes my face.
Mad Nipper
When I wake, the rain has stopped, but I am shivering. I sit up, and my whole body hurts. My overcoat is gone. My leather loafers are gone. All the money I had in my pocket is gone. My leather belt is gone. The new watch my mother gave me for Christmas is gone. I touch my fingers to my face, and they turn red.
Looking around, I see that I am on a narrow street full of parked cars. Row houses on either side. Some are boarded up, many of the porches and steps attached to the fronts are in need of repair, and the streetlights above are not on—maybe smashed by rocks—making the whole world look dark. I am not in a good neighborhood, with no money, shoes, or any idea where I am. Part of me wants to lie on the sidewalk forever, but I’m afraid those bad people might come back to finish me off, and before I can really think about anything, I’m on my feet, limping down the block.
My right thigh muscle feels locked in place, and I cannot bend my right knee very well.
One house on the block is decorated for Christmas. On the porch is a manger scene with a plastic Mary and Joseph—both black. I limp toward Baby Jesus, thinking that people celebrating the holiday are more likely to help me than people without Christmas decorations, because—in the Bible—Jesus says we should help shoeless people who have been mugged.
When I finally get to the decorated row house, a funny thing happens. Instead of knocking on the door, I limp over to the black Mary and Joseph because I want to look into the manger and see if Baby Jesus is black too. My cramped leg screams with pain and gives out just as I reach the Nativity scene. On my hands and one knee, between His parents, I see that Baby Jesus is really black and plugged in—his dark face glows like amber, and a stream of white light blasts up through His little baby chest.
Squinting, taking in the light of Baby Jesus, I instantly realize that I was mugged because I cursed God, so I pray and say I’m sorry and I understand what God is telling me—that I need to work on my character some more before I will be allowed to find apart time’s end.
My pulse is pounding so hard in my ears that I do not even hear the front door open, nor do I hear a man walk out onto the porch.
“What you doin’ to Aunt Jasmine’s Nativity scene?” the man says.
And when I turn my head, God lets me know He has accepted my apology.
When they first brought Danny to the bad place, he wouldn’t talk. Like me and everyone else, he had a scar, but his was much larger and on the back of his head, making a bright pink line in his Afro. For a month or so, he just sort of sat in a chair by the window of his room as speech therapists visited and left frustrated. Me and the boys would stop in and say hello, but Danny only looked out the window when we talked to him, so we thought he was one of the people whose brain trauma was so bad he was most likely going to be a vegetable for the rest of his life—sort of like my roommate, Jackie. But after a month or so, Danny started taking his meals in the cafeteria with the rest of us, attending music and group therapy sessions, and even going on a few group excursions to the shops by the harbor and the Orioles games down at Camden Yards. It was obvious that he understood words and even was pretty normal—he just wouldn’t talk.
I don’t remember how long it took, but after a time, Danny started talking again, and I happened to be the first person he spoke to.
A girl from some fancy college in Baltimore came in to provide what we were told were “non-traditional treatments.” We had to volunteer for the sessions, as this girl was not a real therapist yet. We were skeptical at first, but when she came to promote the program, we were soon persuaded by her girlish figure and cute, innocent-looking face. She was very nice and quite attractive, so we all did whatever she said, hoping to keep her around—especially since there were no women patients in the bad place and the nurses were extremely ugly.
For the first week, our college student had us look into mirrors a lot as she encouraged us to really get to know ourselves, which was pretty out-there. She’d say things like, “Study your nose. Look at it until you really know it. Watch how it moves when you breathe in deeply. Appreciate the miracle of respiration. Now look at your tongue. Not just the top, but underneath. Study it. Contemplate the miracles of taste and speech.”
But then one day she paired us randomly, had us sit facing each other, and told us to stare into our partner’s eyes. She had us do this for a long time, and it was quite weird because the room was completely silent, and men do not usually look into each other’s eyes for long periods of time. Then she started telling us to imagine that our partner was someone we missed, or someone we had hurt in the past, or a family member we hadn’t seen for many years. She told us to see this person through our partner’s eyes, until that person was in front of us.