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When I bent down to stack the papers, I thought the sensation I had had in my brain earlier was the same sensation I had once felt when I shook a pomegranate near my ear. Or, not exactly a sensation, but a sound. That when I shook the pomegranate it had made the same sound as the sound my blood made when it swiveled in my brain, and that both sounds led to the same sensation: of something having dissolved where it shouldn’t have. I went over the memory, from when I picked up the pomegranate to when I shook it near my ear: I had squeezed the pomegranate by rolling it, had pressed into it with my thumbs, juiced it without cracking it open, because it’s the only way to juice a pomegranate without any special machines. All the juice was swiveling about inside the shell of the pomegranate, channeling its way around the seeds the way river water channels itself around driftwood. When I put the pomegranate down I could still hear the juice working its way around the seeds that were dead without their pulp. I had squeezed the pomegranate till the pulp was dead. I could invent a machine to juice pomegranates, I thought, and not just pomegranates but persimmons too, some very basic, cheap tool people could use in their homes, and then I imagined a thousand people, all wearing their house slippers, juicing their pomegranates and persimmons for breakfast, and I thought, never mind, no doubt someone has already invented it.

Some of the prisoners were strung like beef

From the ceilings of their cells. “Gus”

Was led around on a leash. I mean dragged.

Others were ridden like mules. The guards

Were under a tremendous amount of pleasure.

I mean pressure. Pretty disgusting. Not

What you’d expect from Americans.

Just kidding. I’m only talking about people

Having a good time, blowing off steam.

It happened inside a single room.

For me. Forgive me

If you feel with this assertion I diminish you

Or the integrity of your story.

But it’s true: I was nowhere, there,

On the frayed brown carpet, between two beds—

Mine to the right, my brother’s to the left—

Counting the tiny holes

In the radiator cover, dark eyes

Piercing through painted-white metal.

When I looked around, I saw nothing that I was.

Not even other nothings, like me.

Do you think I take from you?

I do not take from you, I am you.

CHAIRMAN FRANCIS: Our church is the street, our faith is the people, and our laws are constantly changing. If a law offends us, we pluck it out. If a minister offends us, we pluck him out and elect a new minister who is young and strong and can recognize evil’s ever-changing face. We don’t believe in miracles, we believe in action. But action takes money. Mr. Chairman, the church of Democratic Progression needs your financial support. Now, Mr. Chairman, how much would you pay to nip evil in the bud? Now I’m not talking about wiping out evil entirely, just your own little personal dark speck. Would you pay forty dollars, Mr. Chairman? Thirty dollars? Twenty dollars, the price of four filthy movies? NO. Mr. Chairman, for just fifteen dollars a month you can keep a chairman, like myself, on the streets fighting evil on your behalf.

“Now, because it’s his birthday and he wasn’t supposed to make it this far, he asked that we throw him a bash, like the old Augusta blowouts, and he asked that at midnight we shoot him dead.”

I stared at him. He didn’t waver.

“We figure you’re the best guy to do it,” he said, slapping a hand on my shoulder.

“I’ve never even shot a gun,” I said.

He pulled up my shirt and took the gun from the back of my pants. “It’s pretty basic. Point and pull. You’ve seen the movies.” He aimed the pistol at the portrait of the old man, said “Bang” and faked the recoil, then blew imaginary smoke from the barrel.