There is the Word

I.

She is a little sex worker and she has arms that are thin like wires. She bobs her head when she walks. Once, she turned herself into a little monster and ate insects. She lives in the garden of a parish. She likes to run and hide behind rocks and throw sticks at the parish dogs.

In March, men in black and white suits climb out of long cars. The men have moustaches. The men are serious. The men wear rubber gloves and carry brief cases and write long notes in notebooks. “Little sex worker where is the priest?” One man asks. He stoops and tries to shake her hand but she spits at him. The other men laugh. Little sex worker, little sex worker, the men will write long notes in their notebooks.

II.

The priest goes out and eats the apples in the trees in the front yard of the parish. But he eats too many apples and his stomach turns and he has to lie down. He starts to snore and he dreams about sex. He should not dream about sex. He should not dream about women who wear criss-cross nylons and slave boots. But he does not care about that.

She is a little sex worker and she starts to cry. The men decide not to bother the little sex worker. She looks like she is upset. The little sex worker thinks the priest should pay her money so that she can buy a new dress for her nineteenth birthday.

Little sex worker, the priest will not pay you any money. But he might let you into heaven if you sex yourself more often.

III.

In June, she goes into the alley and bleeds and turns her belly into the snaked path woods of her ins and outs. She is a drug user. This is the church, he says. This is the congregation. Later, she looks at her belly and it is still round and she thinks that something has kicked and started to want to walk out of the snakes. But the little sex worker has just been released from jail and she does not know what to do. When she was in jail she was in a place called Roseys. In Roseys the women are sweet and only rape one another out of love. Now, the little sex worker looks at her stomach and begins to think that she has little snakes in her stomach and that it is only snakes that want to climb out of her.

The little sex worker goes into the alley and stabs herself in the stomach. But the turns and twists of the snakes do not go away and the priest stands with his hand on a statue of Mary. He shakes his head and mutters, “Silly child, in the beginning there was the word and the word was god.”

IV.

It is autumn quickly after and the little sex worker is in a white bed with white sheets and the walls are white and she thinks that the snakes in her stomach are dead. The priest stands next to her and holds a book and when he sees that she is awake he begins to read. He reads for a long time and she gets tired and falls asleep. When he is finally done he pats her on the head, “little sex worker,” He says.

The little sex worker is short and used. She has had needles in her arm that almost told her to kill herself. But she has also had needles in her arm that were not as angry and mad. Some needles have been nicer to her body. She is part and she is unsick and sick. It is possible that she could be rescued and saved and brought back through the basements of the steepled houses. The altered children will still play with her and learn that her body and their bodies are part of the back and forth and the in and out.

V.

The little sex workers usually commit suicide before they are really unrecoverable. They stand and look at themselves in the mirror and they see their reflections and they begin to cry and think that they are dead. Those are holy days for the priest. He can bring them into heaven on those days.

The priest thinks that the sex workers live tragic lives. He feels sad that the sex workers must do so many terrible thinks. But he knows his church will bring the sex workers into the kingdom of heaven. When the sex worker is dead she cannot do terrible and sick things. Then she is ready to be clean and safe.

Little sex workers might string themselves up behind the parishes and die from the sins of the other boys and men who wear robes. But they are not Christ. And only the boys and the men with the shark stares can give her Christ.


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