In town, they say my daddy been possessed by the spirit of King
Saul—the simmering rage that makes him cuff me over Christian
radio, curse me for his cirrhotic gut. He plays the game of
uproar. Writes midnight checks to televangelists, smashes the
homosexual television, buys my mama a gold necklace & then rips
it from her neck. The controlling spirit. The use you up & throw
you away ghost. With a spear, he pins our household to the wall.
My mama stops telling what the neighbors done when he raises his
fist, calls her those terrible names. She believes him & I should talk
back but I never talkback. I am his fortune-teller, a cautious
gnostic with a serpent’s tongue, to praise & to spit on. Smart
daughter & shoulda been a son. Weren’t Samuel the teacher of
Rasputin? I lie because my prayers are too treasonous to claim.
Daddy you a just ruler, Daddy you so brave, Daddy, yes, we’d be
dead without you, we’d be dead on the street like rats, yes, we is
like rats exactly. I seen an army fall before, & in the end it was the
rats who swallowed every last gilded thread on their bodies &
chewed up the bodies, too. Come Judgment, the littlest is the
largest. Knowing all the ways to poison a king, I hold an empty
cup, soothsay & wait for a man to rise up in the shadow of this
second giant & make me his thousandth concubine. What I was
raised for, daughter of the bootstrap king with the taste of dust still
in my mouth. Every gum-snapping girl is a prophet, the waitress
after hours with hands on her hips, the wadded dollar bills a tarot.
Come Judgment, I know how it will happen. When the townsfolk
wanted a leader, Saul—domineering, cunning, powerful—seemed
like an all-right choice. Powerful in a powerless town, almost a
blessing, almost the word of the Lord. Yes, he is a good king,
how the K.K.K. chopped my daddy’s wood for him, winter, 1968—
damned if they’d see a white boy freeze.
- Essy Stone (from The New Yorker)
Essy Stone