On the radio, above the griddle, “Goodbye Joe, me gotta go…” Jesus, likes his eggs over easy. Two eggs sat in a shallow pool of bacon grease at the Waffle House…as Jesus sipped an RC Cola. Most days he was stoned. On Sundays he went to church and preached to sundown.
“When I get feelin’ better when I’m feelin’ no pain.” His voice would drop into a low, gravelly rhythm, drawing the sweat out of the congregation until the women fanned themselves with funeral home fans and the men stared hard at the floorboards, feeling the heat of a furnace they couldn’t see. They wanted the fire.
“I’m gonna get me some wings,” as he lit a Marlboro, “and fly away.” The jukebox clicked, and the song changed to something slow and mourning, like a funeral procession in slow motion. Jesus was gone, but the smell of bacon and old coffee lingered, a ghost of a meal in a town that forgot how to pray. Jesus, likes his eggs over easy.
