Night Prayers Read Online Free Page B

bus.
    Alone. As if she was waiting for him.
    Mica took
that
as a sign, too.
    Her waist-length hair was the color of autumn leaves and the eyes that met his were soft and gentle and matched her voice. Her name was Piper and, although she looked a lot like Piper Laurie's character in
Carrie
, she told Mica she was an agnostic.
    And he forgave her.
    More than forgave her.
    He kept quiet.
    They never made it to the debate and Mica turned in his return bus ticket the next day.
    Three weeks later, when he called home to explain, his mama cried and his daddy cursed him. But he was an
adult
and they-couldn't-do-anything-about-it-go-to-hell.
    Then Mica started to think about what he'd done.
    And left two days later.
    Without a word.
    But he did leave his Bible along with a note on the cheap motel's stationary that told Piper that he forgave her for leading him astray.
    Good-bye.
    Shit… what dredged up THAT old walnut?
    Mica blinked his eyes and watched the strawberry blond continue jogging up the street away from him.
    Oh.
    Eleven years and he still phased out at the sight of red hair.
    Leaning back against the side of an all night video rental store, Mica took a deep breath and licked the salt off his lips. A few years back he actually tried to find out what happened to Piper. He hoped she'd taken his blessings and Bible and found God… or at least her way back home.
    Wherever that was.
    He'd never asked. And he never heard from or about her again.
    But he still checked out every red-head who passed. Just in case.
    Mica ran his hand through his lank brown hair and watched another jogger — this one a middle-aged Philippino
— dart into traffic between a stretched limo and a Ram Van. And marveled at the miracle. Less than a month earlier, at the world famous intersection of Sunset and Vine, Mica had seen a kid in a Raider's jacket try the same thing and become road pizza.
    The kid had probably been a Gang Banger, but Mica prayed for his soul anyway.
    Hell, he prayed for them
all
.
    Every last one of them.
    A girl with a green dragon tattooed across her forehead glared at him. Mica tipped his red satin uniform cap at her and smiled. She flipped him off.
    A normal exchange for "The Strip".
    Stepping away from the building, and back into the thick of the sidewalk traffic, Mica lifted his arms ala Mary Tyler Moore and smiled.
    "I
love
this town!"
    "Then go fuck a manhole cover," a man wearing a short-sleeved garbage bag over stained long Johns growled at him.
    Mica spun on his imitation Hush Puppies, grasped the man's knobby shoulders and pulled him in as close as the stench of cheap wine and well-aged sweat would allow.
    "You can feel that Love, too, brother — just open your heart!"
    The man shrugged away Mica's hands and quickly brushed off his shoulders with excrement caked fingers.
    "God damned
pervert
!"
    He knocked past Mica and stumbled away, muttering angrily to himself. Mica watched the man until he was swallowed by the meandering crowd and shook his head. Oh well, the night was still young.
    Checking his watch against the large neon-encased clock in the Pawn Shop
(We Accept Used CDs)
Mica quickly readjusted his cap and joined the steady flow pushing eastward. It was 9:48… which just gave him enough time to
almost
make it to work on time.
    It still bothered him that he couldn't spread The Word as a full time occupation. But even a preacher has to eat, and the Lord
had
provided him with gainful employment.
    Such as it was.
    Sighing, Mica stuffed his hands into the black-and-red satin jacket (that was also part of his uniform and probably the reason the man had misunderstood his pure intentions) and ignored the rhythmic grunting that was coming from a narrow alley between the porno bookshop and Army/Navy Surplus store.
    Tried
to ignore it.
    Halfway across, Mica looked in. In the backwashed glow from the streets, he saw four people exchanging points of view. One man was slamming his rod into the narrow ass of a teenaged boy