A Brief Interlude
                          From Tales From the Front
                        Copyright 1995 by Dave Laird

The street-child, god-child turned his golden head away from the chaotic
exuberance of the street and, pulling his blanket closer around his
shoulders, plaintively wailed, "Can't you see, this is where it is AT!"

I looked down the avenue of pain, grimacing for there were spiders and
roaches, things that barely crawled from one meaningless destination to
another, surrounded by children, blind to the danger at their feet. Faceless
men picked their way through the human debris, looking for lunch or dinner,
and somewhere nearby, a baby wailed its first cry.

"I meean, man...can't you just see, this is where it is at? This is what is
happening!" he wailed again.

An old black man materialized out of the throng, and noticing the young
star-child, wrapped in a blanket remonstrating with me, looked at us through
rheumy yellow eyes. Carefully taking the curbside stogie out of the corner
of his mouth, he stopped. He spat onto the pavement.

He reached down, inside himself, to a place we might recognize but never
see, introspectively examining each of the icons from his life, holding them
close, yet invisible behind his eyes. Shaking his head, he more closely
examined the meaning of his life, taking his time, now, being certain to
miss nothing, his kept his eyes downcast and shielded.

"No," he said evenly from a distance. "This is not where it's at. YOU are
where it's at for us all."

Shaking his head once more, with a quizzical smile, he added, "No, this is
not where it's at. Since the first stars stared down on this planet, this
has always been the great HAS BEEN. You have always been where it is at, and
frankly, we're losing you."

He restored the stogie at a jaunty angle, and with no further words to
share, sidled on down the avenue, fading into the early evening mist that
rises off the river to hide our shame.

Another in the collection... Taken from a series called West First Street
and Other Mortuaries