Free Bible Stories for Adults by James Morrow Page B

Italian sportswear, the employees of Biagiotti’s had convened a colloquy on Dante. Instead of purchasing French shoes, the crowd in Jourdan’s was holding an impromptu encounter group. “The thing of it is,” a teary-eyed young man croaked as Michael bustled past, “I still love her.” To which an aging matron replied, “We could tell, Warren—we could just
tell.
”
    A shocking sight awaited Michael as he swung through the revolving door and stepped onto Madison Avenue. The crowd had turned against the parade—against Saint Patrick’s Day per se, it seemed. They were attacking the marchers with bricks, showering them with broken bottles, beating them with lead pipes. Screams zagged through the frigid air. Wounds blossomed like red carnations.
    From his post by the Fifty-sixth Street entrance, the security man, Manuel, contemplated the chaos with bemusement.
    â€œWith what meaning do you invest this disturbance?” Michael asked, rushing up.
    The Irishmen were fighting back now, employing every weapon at hand—batons, harps, trumpets, ceremonial shillelaghs. “The spectators have deciphered the parade’s subtext,” Manuel replied. He had shed his accent—or, rather, he had traded his Puerto Rican lilt for a nondescript succession of nasal, mid-Atlantic inflections. “Such a festivity says, implicitly, ‘At some non-relativistic level we Irish believe ourselves to possess a superior culture.’”
    â€œI didn’t know you spoke English,” said Michael.
    â€œA sea change has overtaken me.” Manuel adjusted his pith helmet. “I have become mysteriously competent at encrypting and decoding verbal messages.”
    At which point a refugee from the besieged parade—a drum major in a white serge uniform decorated with green shamrocks—staggered toward the Tower entrance. Pain twisted his face. Blood slicked his forehead.
    Manuel leveled a hostile glance at the intruder, then lightly touched the sleeve of Michael’s overcoat. “Now please excuse me while I shoot this approaching drum major in the head. You see, Mr. Prete, I find myself in fundamental agreement with the mob’s interpretation, and I take concomitant offense at the tacit ethnocentrism of this event.”
    â€œExcuse me,” said the drum major, “but I couldn’t help overhearing your last remark. Do you really intend to shoot me?”
    â€œI understand how, from your perspective, that is not justifiable praxis on my part.” Manuel drew out his Smith & Wesson.
    â€œLet me hasten to aver I am no longer conspicuously ethnic.” The drum major wiped the gore from his brow. “You’ll note, for example, that I’ve lost my brogue. In fact, I’ve started talking like some self-important Englishman.”
    â€œThe issue, I suppose, is whether our newfound homogeneity truly mitigates the nationalistic fanaticism I was about to counter via my revolver.”
    â€œSurely you no longer have a case against me.”
    â€œAm
contraire
, do you not see that I am suddenly free to hate your very essence, not merely your customs, clothing, and speech? I still feel obligated to fire this gun, acting out of those pathological instincts that are the inevitable Darwinian heritage of all carnivorous primates.”
    â€œNow that you put it that way . . .”
    â€œErgo . . .”
    As soon as the bullet departed the barrel of the revolver, messily separating the Irishman from his cranium, Michael began a mad dash down Fifth Avenue.
    â€œI wish to effect an immediate exit!” he yelled, hopping into a waiting taxi. “Please cross the Hudson posthaste.”
    The Rastafarian driver looked Michael squarely in the eye. Amazingly, he was the same cabbie who’d shuttled Michael to his initial interview with the Almighty.
    â€œJudging by the desperation in your voice,” said the Jamaican, “I