“They said they were going to kill us. I knew they meant it. George, my partner, knew it. We had just gone in to have a prayer meeting. We didn’t realize, about one week before, a white policeman had killed a black teenager, and this gang had sworn to kill the first white man who came into their neighborhood. I was just standing there, praying, a crowd around me, a crowd around George. They were big fellows. They stole the keys out of our van. When I turned, one fellow had just swung at George from behind. The thing I did, I started witnessing to them. I said, Well, I know you can kill me. I’m ready to go. But if you knew Christ the way we do, instead of having hate in your hearts, you’d have love.’ And then a white policeman came up on one of those little motorbikes. He said, ‘Is there any trouble? You’re not safe here.’ In myself, humanly speaking, I wanted to say, ‘Boy, you’re right. Look, we’re getting out. Just stay here, don’t move.’ But instead I actually said—I don’t think it was me, I really don’t—I said, ‘It’s okay, we’ll be all right. Thanks for stopping by.’ And he left. And we were alone. But the gang then, they lost it all. Gangs thrive on fear. They knew we weren’t afraid. So they brought the keys and let us go.”
Times Square. Nine p.m. Twenty-four degrees F. The Gospel will come out in grey-warm feathers of breath: God’s Word made visible. Art Williams, full-time evangelist, has been transacting business. White shirt, tie, glasses, fur hat, the kind of fur hat you commute with. His van is a drop-leaf table. Engineered for witnessing. A fold-out shelf to stand on; an easel where he poster-paints—blue, yellow, green, red—his show-and-tell sermon. Williams has drawn the New Testament minimum: two or three are huddled together. Jesus would have had trouble in a cold country. Two or three, not counting one very stoned black with his badass razor-blade amulet hung at his open throat. The black sings: who was it said they all have rhythm? Williams can’t get the Word in edgewise. His voice is Route 80 across Iowa, not much elevation or variety, but persistent as surface noise. Later the black will try hitting Williams for carfare. To New Jersey. That’s big around town now: carfare to New Jersey. Figure it out: a subway token can’t be worth the adroit panhandler’s time/labor, and it isn’t likely that anyone will sponsor your trip back to Miami Beach. So, New Jersey: one pint of cheap wine’s worth away. Williams hands him a tract. That and fifty cents will get you to the Kingdom of God.
Comments