Crossed

‘Surgeons hate insects.’ She says. She is undersized. She has short arms and black hair and pasted yellowed skin. She looks like a troll. I would ask her if she has seen the outside before. But I am in the back, near the door. The men and women continue to come and it is loud and the people do not shut the door. The woman sweats. Her shattered oversized lawn green shirt turns dark. She would not listen. She does not like insects.

‘None of us like insects much.’ She says and squats or moves off her seat and stretches her thighs, maybe. Nobody talks after that. Not at first. Nobody says anything and it is quiet. She listens and turns and then she spits on the floor and regains her plumped squash squatted figure and oversizes her chair. But she is undersized. Sort of. She has her hands crossed now. I am not sure I am in the right basement. It does not look like a church.

I wonder where the man is. I wonder, where is the man that says he thinks that Jesus would like to see people come in and shake hands with one another and cross themselves. Maybe he is already here. Maybe this girl is really him and he just wants us to cross her hands. I think about it, I guess, and decide not to cross my hands.

‘That girl is not well-educated.’ Some girl says, finally. I don’t think she meant to say it too loud, or out loud at all. But she did and now the whole room looks at her. The lights begin to flicker a little bit and it feels like it is almost hot. It will be spring soon. Spring is kind of nice. It is too bad that it isn’t going to come because it is time to get crossed. There are three men in the front row and now I can see their faces. They have beards and glasses and suits on and they stare at the girl. I think they must be holy to be in such a place and to sit in the front. I wouldn’t sit in the front.

‘I am a surgeon.’ The woman who is a troll says. Maybe she actually is a troll and sits under bridges at night barking at single men and wishing that bad things would happen to them when they walk home.

‘Then why did you spit on the floor? Do you know where we are?’ The girl might be smart. I am a little uncomfortable because the man still has not come and said that we will get crossed tonight. It might be tomorrow night. This happened before. He didn’t come and then he got tired or something and we had to go home. People were sad and kind of upset because they weren’t able to get crossed.

‘It’s not your problem.’ The woman snaps back. The woman does snap. She is like a tiny tree that breaks and turns into a stick and is thin. I think that there is going to be another silence and people are going to shift and someone is going to have to say something but the man who is to cross us suddenly barges into the room and tells everyone to stand up. He yells at some of the people. He points a lot and his face is red. I shake my head. This man is probably gonna talk for a really long time, I think.

The man talks for a really long time. He talks about the things that make the human world and I begin to get tired and my feet hurt and I wonder if I can ever get crossed without going through all this. But the man won’t stop talking. He is talking and pointing and yelling and the people are whispering amen and other things that they say in church. I look at the girl and she has her head down. Her lips are moving. I think she is praying. The troll is clapping her hands. It is funny, but I think that the two women are kind of friends now. Soon, my head begins to hurt and I begin to get angry. The man keeps jabbing and pointing.

It is too much talking. I sigh and leave the basement. I don’t think that it is ever going to happen. Never, even in the back alleys of my whored mother’s trailer park, did I think that getting crucified would be such a pain in the ass.


[s]