6
HOROSCOPE
B Y SOUP
CAN SAM
STA FF
P S Y C H IC
Gemini (May 22-June 22) Friends leave you
high and dry? That's fine. There will be more
of them. There always are.Cancer (June
23-Jtlly 23)
Leo (July 24-Aug. 23) Don't be afraid to speak
your mind this month - especially when it
comes to calling a spade a spade. OK. So you
look like shit. Really. Pull it together.f
Virgo (Aug. 24Sept. 23) Obsessing over trivial
and useless shit? Everyone does it. Just do it
less and you'll be a/iot happier with yourself
(and so will everyone else).
Libra (Sept. 24-Oct. 23) You know you're a
Portlander when you start complaining that
it's not raining after two weeks of sunshine.
Take a cold shower.
Scorpio (Oct. 24-Nov. 22) Being a leader sucks;
Being looked at like a leader sucks even
more. Don't do it this month. Let others .
around you fail or succeed on their own.
Sagittarius (Nov. 23-Dec. 22) I'm tired of
writing about your future. Every month we
do this, and every month Soup Can ishaying.J
to tell you that energy is in the air, take
advantage of it. And every month you just go
H about your business not really ever paying
attention to other people's feelings or needs.
Typical. Oh, Christ You'll get screwed again.
Capricorn (Dec. 23-Jan. 19) Rebound sex? I'll
take two. So should you.
Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) Grass is greener on
the other side of the fence? Pretty green over
here, too. Can we just take the damn fence
down jn d have the best of both worlds? Try
giving a little to get a little this month.
Pisces (Feb. 20-March 20) You're so vein. Oh,
don't worry. So is Soup Can. Be vain, but do
it with kindness.
Aries (March 21-April 19) I've run out of
answers for you. I've run out of answers for .
myself. I suppose we've simply run out of
answers for ourselves. Sound familiar? It's the
Mayor's slogan, dummy. Use it or lose it.
Taurus (April 20-May 21) Did you see Santa
Claus on the cover of this issue? It's that Time
of year again. He's making a list - a parolee
list, a secret list, a felony list... Judging by the
look of things; X-mas is going to suck this
year. Do something nice for a stranger
already.
C E LE B R A TIN G Ä S S G U m
Street roots
Education * Dialogue * Independence |
Labor King Conclusion
BY JAY THIEMEYER
eCently I was reading about a literary
critic studying late-stage productivity
among writers and musicians. He
found these aging geniuses tended to
display “intransigence, difficulty, and
unresolved contradiction,” as well a sf
impatience with “coherent sense.” f
I coulddig i t It reminded me of someone
I knew at that Lighthouse mission. The
young burly tiiinister, the proselytizer,
fifteen years ‘away from drink’ who
delivered the rote sermon hill of fire and
brimstone, the phosphor. We were sinners
aH! he’d scream, and doomed to Hell! if we
didn’t find Redemption right there and
then! (And we wouldn’t get any of that finé
fisheye soup or a bed for the night or -
shower (but no change of clothes)), if we
didn’t surrender completely! and admit what
we were! and give it UP! for thè Lord!
(PRAISE Gawd!)
Every single one of us, I swear, every
single night, made our way to the front to
be healed, saved, fed, bathed and bedded.
We were like small children following the
need of our dirty, tired bodies and the
minister’s call. It was a miracle.
We grew numb to his act, a sad thing in
itself. First time I watched this man’s
performance, my mouth fell open I was so !
absorbed. In fact, I was mesmerized. He
was athletic, which I expected, but his voice
was operatic. Grand, round, it filled the
room, with its plain blond, well-ordered-
pews, and tired men, slumped and rendered
down and gazing quietly forward.
Not albof us who paraded to the front
were just desperate for a bed. I got the
feeling that he moved all of us. He was the
real thing when at full throttle. He. told us
5 he had suffered enough in his time as a
sinner, and he was finished.
The Devil had had his way with him for
way too long and he had been ready to
come into the fold. And there was no
amount of temptation that would lure him .
away. He didn’t have time to play. The devil -
didn’t play, he reminded us. He wanted us
to see what he-saw, and not fail ourselves
the way he had faded himself and the ones
he loved for so long. So damn long, he
would say. And we all knew what he was
talking about He might have been a
showman with a captive audience, but
somewhere inside him there was an
irreducible nugget of truth and that’s what
he managed to get through to us. He gave
freely what had been given to him. T hat
'
there was a way out and he had found it. He
was glorying in it and we could toó. Gome
with me to Him, he’d say. Over and over in '
a thousand different voices, soft and fierce,
low and high, every permutation of:
Amazing Grace can be yours! If you just
come with me on the path of righteousness!
And some fell into his thrall like it was
truly Heaven-sent It was an amazing call
and response. And not a one of us failed to
go to the front with him. Miracle.
Almost 25 years later, when I visited
Atlanta to attend the ILS. Social Forum, I
went by Open Door Community to see if
anything was the same, if there was anyone
■
left there that I knew. The location hadn’t
changed but it was summer and all the
clerical family who had started it up to help
| the homeless, Progressive Presbyterians,
graduates of Candler Seminary a t nearby
Emory, were off on retreat for the summer.
Only the men and women who lived there,
having been taken in from the street, still
only a handful for the dozen of so beds the
large brick house had to offer, were
managing things.
When the door opened, I was greeted by
a face I recognized from the years before.
He was gray now and wore a trimmed
beard. He smiled, though. Something I
hadn’t seen before. I was impressed by th a t
He was momentarily, unnecessarily
He gave freely wlsat bad been given I® him«
That there was a way eat and be had found
it. Be was glorying In it and we conld too.
Come with me to H im , he'd say. Over and.
over in a thousand different voices, soft and
fierce, low and high, every permutation oh
Mmazing (brace can be yonrsl
embarrassed; we both knew that the mighty
were especially liable to fall a great length
and it had happened to him. It had simply
been what was intended and he accepted* it.
With a smile. I be damned. He was, smiling
and I had to smile right back. We had to
laugh. He was a good man and it was good
that he realized I saw that. Didn’t agree
with him or his religion, but I knew a good
man. We shook hands and he invited me in
for coffee.
The huge old house was ours. It was cool
inside. Hot as hell and twice as humid
outside on Ponce De Leon, but cool and
comfortable inside. I told him what I was in
town for and he invited me to attend.the
vigil that evening for Hightower I believe
the man’s name was. Troy Davis would be
vigilled days later before I left town. Two
men sentenced to die in the Georgia
electric chair. He and I focused on what was
going on now.
By now, we had learned that what was
intended was to.be there for another man
(or, sadly, an endless stream of men) due to
die in the chair. Sentenced by som e cracker
judge in this godless redneck state. No
show there. Nothing to dance and sing
about there. Just godless men hiding behind
a god they made up to co-sign their, hate.
He finished off our afternoon by telling
me he’d see me at 7 down at the
neighborhood church. G o to the side door.
. A man named Bill is secretarying.’ We had
more in. common than I knew. Back in ‘82,
sitting in the back of that mass of tired
men, I thought he was as distant in his
espousal of a hateful god as could be
imagined. That there wasn’t a single thread
that bound us.
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