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"I'M BLACK JESUS MOTHER-FUCKERS!!!!" The Messiah is screaming in the fog at Barbara Asher Square located in the heart of Five Points. The Messiah is screaming quite loudly in fact, louder than the traffic roaring behind him on Marietta St, louder than the music coming off the Kiosks selling pirated CD's & DVD's, louder than the rumble-roar of the trains crisscrossing beneath us on the tracks under the square. The WORD of the BLOOD of the LAMB echoing down the rows of immaculate sneakers in the FOOTLOCKER, ricochetting off the aisles of candy bars with names like constellations in the CVS & Walgreens, firing into the lobby of the Wachovia building where his voice shook the stoic ATM's, it burst through the little hole in the wall Mom&Pops selling phonecards & knock off imitation cologne, rebounding down the wide expanse of the square washing over the lost,desperate and hurried with equal POWER,with equal SHAME and with equal LOVE. The Messiah is issuing a challenge to the Monday faced wanderers of the square...
"I'M BLACK JESUS AND WHAT ARE Y'ALL GONNA DO ABOUT IT! AIN'T NONE OF YOU GONNA KNOCK ME DOWN!AIN'T NONE OF YOU GOT SHIT TO SAY TO ME!!" A few people look up from their sportspages,from their cellphones, from flicking crumbs at the pigeons, from rummaging through the garbage and they all look up at the Messiah- who has now spread his arms out in the sign of Osiris slain, the LUX light of the cross!!! High Yellow Second coming staring up into the sky at something beyond the mist swallowed skyline, looking at something
beyond the eyes of the damned and disbelievers... but what???
He starts shouting again, but somewhere under the smell of exhaust pipes and stray Phillies( lit up with complete contempt to the bored cops shuffling around a shithole of a beat by the stations entrance) is the seductive grease stench coming off the BK, I really shouldn't, y'know as an edgy young writer and blah,blah,blah fuck this... I decide to duck in and grab some long over due dinner.
When I come back out chewing on a luke warm fish filet with extra Mercury and pickles I pick up on the silence. I don't hear the WORD of the BLOOD of the LAMB marching in all the decibel glory befitting of the African American King of Jews. I was only in there five minutes- if it was the pigs i'd at least still see the scene of a scuffle or a squad car filling out the paper work while the Messiah barked cuffed from the back of the car. But no, the bored cops were still staring into the space, the locals had gone back to the sports pages and cellphones, the pigeons hopped and pecked the ground for nourishment: It was like the Messiah was never here.
I wanna go up to one of the locals and be like
"Yo man. Where's Black Jesus at?"
And one of the kiosk venders would turn down his burnt Usher, nod his head sadly and slowly to himself and nod to the empty gray cloud swirl where he was just standing and testifying.
"He was posessed by the White Mans God- you could tell by the stink of burnt money and oppresion in the air. The CITY heard his threats and challenges, and swallowed the poor fool whole with her fogs to remind us who was really in charge here." At this he spreads his arms out wide and spins to indicate the invisible CITY around us, watching and judging quietly from a million perspectives.
But I don't ask anyone anything.
I just go on chewing my sandwich and scanning the crowd for any sign of the Messiah, but he's gone. I guess his last threats were heard by someone or something bigger than the SON of GOD, or at least that SON of GOD.
I finish up my fish filet and make my way underground, going down slow on the escalators into the belly of MOTHER CITY- the true GODDESS of the A.T.L.
I go down deep to make my connection and ride the stops home in the dark.
"I'M BLACK JESUS AND WHAT ARE Y'ALL GONNA DO ABOUT IT! AIN'T NONE OF YOU GONNA KNOCK ME DOWN!AIN'T NONE OF YOU GOT SHIT TO SAY TO ME!!" A few people look up from their sportspages,from their cellphones, from flicking crumbs at the pigeons, from rummaging through the garbage and they all look up at the Messiah- who has now spread his arms out in the sign of Osiris slain, the LUX light of the cross!!! High Yellow Second coming staring up into the sky at something beyond the mist swallowed skyline, looking at something
beyond the eyes of the damned and disbelievers... but what???
He starts shouting again, but somewhere under the smell of exhaust pipes and stray Phillies( lit up with complete contempt to the bored cops shuffling around a shithole of a beat by the stations entrance) is the seductive grease stench coming off the BK, I really shouldn't, y'know as an edgy young writer and blah,blah,blah fuck this... I decide to duck in and grab some long over due dinner.
When I come back out chewing on a luke warm fish filet with extra Mercury and pickles I pick up on the silence. I don't hear the WORD of the BLOOD of the LAMB marching in all the decibel glory befitting of the African American King of Jews. I was only in there five minutes- if it was the pigs i'd at least still see the scene of a scuffle or a squad car filling out the paper work while the Messiah barked cuffed from the back of the car. But no, the bored cops were still staring into the space, the locals had gone back to the sports pages and cellphones, the pigeons hopped and pecked the ground for nourishment: It was like the Messiah was never here.
I wanna go up to one of the locals and be like
"Yo man. Where's Black Jesus at?"
And one of the kiosk venders would turn down his burnt Usher, nod his head sadly and slowly to himself and nod to the empty gray cloud swirl where he was just standing and testifying.
"He was posessed by the White Mans God- you could tell by the stink of burnt money and oppresion in the air. The CITY heard his threats and challenges, and swallowed the poor fool whole with her fogs to remind us who was really in charge here." At this he spreads his arms out wide and spins to indicate the invisible CITY around us, watching and judging quietly from a million perspectives.
But I don't ask anyone anything.
I just go on chewing my sandwich and scanning the crowd for any sign of the Messiah, but he's gone. I guess his last threats were heard by someone or something bigger than the SON of GOD, or at least that SON of GOD.
I finish up my fish filet and make my way underground, going down slow on the escalators into the belly of MOTHER CITY- the true GODDESS of the A.T.L.
I go down deep to make my connection and ride the stops home in the dark.