#109 Something Like God- Jabari Asim
This is a very powerful story. Rex Canada, known only as
Curly is was a blind man, a local man, a man known to everyone in the
community. This is his funeral, he was killed by police while trying to protect
two boys from their harassments.
“Like many black men of his generation, he’d come north
hungry and hurried, tight-lipped and lean. Little in his pockets and even less
to say about where he had been and what sent him.”
Outside the church stands Gabriel Patterson aka. The
Liberator. He was leader of the Warriors of Freedom. They stand outside the
church, dressed in military fatigues patiently waiting to hand out rally
leaflets. Despite being next to a church, “Love was not high on his list of
priorities.”
Inside the church, moved by the moment and the power of the
Word, Rose closes her eyes and sings Poor Wayfaring Stranger for the
congregation. The sound seeps out to the waiting Gabriel and holds him rapt for
this moment is “Something like fate. Something like God.”
“Through the walls and windows of the church came a voice so
lovely and pure it almost hurt to hear it. If the Liberator had not been
careful, his soldiers might have seen him cry.”
The scene is put together beautifully, and the characters
entwined in their fate. The foreboding is palpable and the reality tragic.
Notable Passage: “She would pay like the Lord paid, with
welts and thorns and bruises and the taste of blood in her mouth.”
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