How Divine
{An Umbrella Special Feature}


Michael Scott Cain

grew up shuttling between East Point, Georgia and New York City, so that wherever he lived, he was the kid with the weird accent. Now, splitting the difference, he lives in Frederick, Maryland, where he teaches at the community college.

His recent books are Midnight Train, a novel from Publishamerica, and East Point Poems, from Pudding House Press.


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Mick Meets the Holy Ghost

Pale red predawn tinted the white line
on Highway 85. Panama City behind me,
another day on a dead job for a boss
who wore his name (Jake) stitched in blue
above the left pocket of his shirt.
I was every bit as worn as a set of tires
on the winning car at the Daytona 500,
when he appeared out there hitchhiking.

“I guess you’re a little surprised to see me
with my thumb out.” He didn’t lock the seatbelt,
must have figured why bother?
He was a Georgia pine of a man,
dressed in a navy blue gangster’s suit,
charcoal shirt and power tie. Stick a briefcase
in his hand and he’d pass for an actor
up for a part in a mafia movie.
I didn’t have any memory of stopping
but there he was in the car.
It isn’t every day you give the holy ghost a ride.
One time I had a case of bronchitis
when the whole room felt like it was filled with gelatin
and my breath came thick and heavy
as though I were inhaling cherry jello
that continued to quiver in my lungs.
It felt like that inside the car.
“You got something to tell me?”
My words came out breathy, hoglike.
“You got something to say to me?”
The holy ghost shook his head
as though he were looking at a man
tossed untimely into a coffin.
“You humans,” he muttered. “You think
everything’s about you.
Can’t I be here for some other reason?”

“I am tired,” he whispered, “of people
not knowing a damn thing about me,
just sick at being the part of a Trinity
the very mention of which causes people
to screw up their faces and say ‘huh?’
You guys catch the drift about the father and the son
but put me in the mix and people get their heads
so strangled up you’d think they were on dope.
You ever heard a preacher try to explain me?
It’s like listening to a man trying not to sneeze
in the salad bowl. Nobody’s got the first idea.”
I could only sputter, a lawnmower out of gas.
“Don’t worry about it, son. I can tell
what you want to say. I wrote the book,
remember?” He shook his head once,
and then again. “I’m telling you,
it’s nothing but a bitch being me.
That’s why I put my thumb out on this road.
I’m on my way to Mississippi.
If I can’t be understood, at least I can
hear some of that good Delta blues.”
It’s not every day you get to hang with the Holy Ghost.
It isn’t every day you get to flip a coin in your head,
choose the path more or less taken.
I made a sharp left, floorboarded the van
and headed toward the Delta.

 
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