Praying Only Makes It Worse

I am the decider. I make the decisions. I walk to work and work hard at work so I can give myself the gift of knowing I can do things.

A paper is handed to me and I know exactly what to do with it, exactly how to make it right. The person who handed it to me doesn’t have a clue what all will go into it, my solution. They won’t even notice when everything is fixed, but I won’t ask for recognition. This is why I get handed the papers, not someone else.

On the walk home, I slip my arm through my bag’s strap so if someone grabbed it, they wouldn’t get away, and they’d have to deal with (one thumb pushed into my chest as I say this) me.

A chirp floats out of an abandoned home’s gutter on my street. Scratching in the drain pipe as I unhook the gate latch. The end of the pipe is smooshed flat from the boots of failed renovators. I put my bag down and kneel. The bolts are fused to the drain with white paint. I pinch and twist. I have to really dig in.

Last night, my wife said, “You don’t believe in it anymore. I’m just trying to help you. It helps me, and all you have to say is, ‘Good for you’?”

Some people actually know how to stop themselves from thinking, “Who cares? Who wants to hear any of that?” Some people don’t even think to think this at all. Can you believe that?

The bolt decides to give up the fight. Yeah, I knew it. I knew it. The bird, I believe a wren, flies out, more like shoots.

I think, “Grab it!”

But it’s slipping between parked cars on the other side of the street before I can even drop the flimsy tube from my hands.

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Calvin Cummings lives in Baltimore, MD.