Curses

What is the point of cursing

the world and the people in it?

Surely it’s the sound

Of a soul writhing in anguish.

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There is a line between complaining and threatening. Lots of people have crossed that line in the past decade.

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Curses

The old man sat on his porch in a shirt yellowed at the armpits, stirring his coffee with a knife because the spoons had all gone missing. He spat into the yard, missing the weeds, and grinned at the stain while it sank into the dirt.

Neighbors used to tip their hats to the harmless grouch on the porch. But when he started shouting about socialists and pedophiles at the Fourth of July picnic, folks started giving him a wide berth. Even the dog seemed to know better. Children sprinted by as though his house was haunted.

He mumbled names to himself as they passed — “traitor” “mongrel,” “slut” — and he meant every last one of them.

At the store he pounded the counter with his fist, demanding to know why the bread cost more than last week and why “those illegals” were allowed in town. The clerk slid the loaf toward him without a word, like she was slipping dinner to a dangerous animal. The old man carried it out under his arm like a briefcase.

On Sundays he planted himself in the front pew and belted out hymns half a beat late, in a roaring, gravelly voice. No one shook his hand after the service. Even the pastor looked past him, hoping that their eyes would not meet. The old man stormed back to his truck, hymnbook still in his fist, and slammed the door loud enough for the whole congregation to hear.

At night he cursed at the radio until his throat rasped. He cursed the clerk, the pastor, the dog. The curses bounced off the peeling wallpaper and came back louder, circling the house like hornets. He was the only one they stung.

The lamps glared, the chair sagged, the air smelled of grease and mildew. He cursed the silence itself until his voice broke into a wheeze. By midnight the curses had run together, meaningless syllables, a drunkard’s nonsense song. He hunched smaller with every word, shrinking inside his own skin.

The town slept while insects rasped in the dark. A moth battered the lamp, thudding again and again against the yellow shade, the only creature that could stand his voice. He mumbled on, curses collapsing into gibberish, his chair sagging, the wallpaper peeling. You couldn’t tell whether he was howling a hymn or a hog call. He hunched smaller with every breath, until his words sounded less like rage than a plea for deliverance — a congregation of one, praying into the darkness.