Quiet Creature on the Corner

go brandishing the photo until I find the boy, still entertaining himself with the man with the Bible in his hand, and when the boy sees me he takes off running, clearly afraid that I’m a cop, and the man with the Bible in his hand comes over and puts his face into mine and in his thick rasp says, if we’re going crazy it’s because God is making us crazy, if we return to sanity it’s for the rest of you, Corinthians — and then he pointed to my chest, saying that those were the words of Saint Paul, the words of Saint Paul, I repeated, and suddenly he reminded me of a priest from back at the church in Glória who used to talk to me when I was more or less the age of the boy in the photo — he told me about the letters of Saint Paul to the Corinthans, Corinthians, Corinthonians, whatever, that priest would say: the purest poetry you could ever want to read, when you’re bigger you’ll see…and I turned to Naíra, half-stunned, and embraced her madly, and thus entwined we kept on walking.

if we’re going crazy it’s because God is making us crazy, if we return to sanity it’s for the rest of you, Corinthians

became fascinated, as what had begun as a theatrical seizure to get rid of the guy who called himself a cop had become a thing that had really thrown me outside myself