I don’t know if you’ve ever been enjoying a really good whorehouse when a levee breaks, and I am not even sure if Slade and Alex have, either.
If that’s the way you’d put it, them enjoying the whorehouse, when the levee breaks.
If they’d been heeding warnings the levee was about to break, instead of fucking, they might have gotten out of there before it was too late.
Out in the street there were sounds of shrieks, then long silences; then crashing sounds, then long silences; big booms, then silences, and so on.
If they hadn’t been so drunk, they might have paused to look out the window. If they hadn’t been so immersed in what they were doing–
They might not have become immersed.
One of the things about flood waters is how filthy dirty contaminated are the waters.
As the waters follow their destructive flows, sewage pipes are broken, filth from the streets are swept up, garbage cans are tipped over, and dump yards are included because flood waters are inclusive and indiscriminate. That’s a good thing, in a way, in the Deep South.
We’re not talking baptismal waters.
Yet if you’ve been fucking away when the levees break, you’ll get baptised.
“Did you know that’s the way I got baptized,” said Alex. “I waded out into the waters fully dressed in my Sunday best. It wasn’t voluntary. The two big guys, who were elders or deacons or something, the size and strength of professional football players– they were, in fact, professional football players– New Orleans Saints– me just a little guy, eight years old, skin and bone, kicking away, trying to throw an elbow, TRYING TO BITE– it was all useless. I didn’t scream or try to scream. I was too traumatized. Being traumatized made me silent, I don’t know why. I understand rape victims who freeze up when it is inexplicable to folks who haven’t had this kind of experience why, if they are being raped, they don’t call for help. I was kind of being raped. There was so much fear. So much confusion. I hadn’t been properly prepared. I had NO preparation. It was partially my fault because I paid no attention in Sunday School to the stories about John the Baptist in the Gospels. I still can’t imagine how what John the Baptist was doing became customary, a custom persisting to this day…
“There is a lot of sadism in the Church. That’s all it is. The Church especially likes to scare the BeJesus out of little kids. At the age I was, I was terrified of blood. Yet the Church is blood this and blood that. I couldn’t stand the sight. I would start crying. If I saw someone bleeding– and now and then I did see someone bleeding– my childhood was one of violence–I would cover my eyes, turn away, and if my mother was nearby, bury my head in her genital area. At that age, I was the same height. Her presence comforted me. Her smell comforted me. She didn’t comfort me, and perhaps was not sympathetic to my need for comfort. Bloody violence did not frighten her. I believe she’d been desensitized to be able to bear the sadism of the Church.
“Damn it that minister held me under the water for a long time. When he pushed me under, he did so in a way preventing me from taking a deep breath. They all believed suffering builds character. If so, I guess, being a sadist builds character.”
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