He turned from preaching to the choir

to walking among the pews —-

 

coffee with two acquaintances

at the sidewalk café on a gorgeous,

 

late summer’s afternoon between

three, old, white guys — clever, sarcastic,

 

repartee, tete-a-tete about nothing much

at all that matters other than and perhaps

 

including yesterday’s sail on the thirty-six

footer that the owners only use as a day-

 

sailor anymore. Then, economic theories

and ideological javelins were hoisted, lines

 

drawn in the middle of the table, tempers

rising, two right-wing, free-market dudes,

 

one “What are you anyway?” “Socialistic

capitalist.”  “What’s that?” “Responsible

 

economics with regulations to keep

good old-fashioned greed in check.”

 

They stared blankly.  One reference to

Bloomfield Hills touched a nerve and

 

torched the rhetoric: “Don’t make this

personal!”  Hmmm.  “Not personal, just

 

demographic, brother, and a reference to

your contemporary, the Republican candidate.

 

Wasn’t he from there? So you pulled

yourselves up by your bootstraps, boys?

 

I thought those were Docksiders, prefer-

ably worn sockless now showing the

 

spider veins around your ankles.  Perhaps

 

you boys pulled yourselves up by your own

Ralph Lauren soft cotton crews.”

 

They hoisted spoon javelins waving

Them in the pleasant breeze, because they

 

were not hoisted up on the shoulders

of those who went before.  They did it

 

alone. They stood their ground over

coffee as they do now as old, shriveled,

 

white guys standing against the inevitable

coming of the rainbow coalition — blacks,

 

browns, yellows, reds — the people of

color who make the white guys blanch.

 

“Sixty-four million sidlin’ up to the

public trough, dead-beats, not lookin’

 

for work.  Tell ‘em to get a job. Nobody

made them take those pay-day loans. No-

 

body held a gun to their heads to take

those home loans. When are they going

 

to learn to take personal responsibility

like we have? We’ve earned what we have.”

 

He walked up the aisle, turned to the

choir and started singing, “Jesus loves

 

the little children, all the children of the

world. Red and Yellow, Black and White,

 

they are precious in his sight.  Jesus

loves the little children of the world.”

 

He felt a tap on his shoulder.  Turning

he heard Jesus say, “You forgot Brown.”

 

The old, shriveled, white preacher said,

“Sorry. I’m trying.”