I was there when the looting began, when the first brick was thrown through the German print shop window.
I was there when the street lights were pulled from the wires by an invisible force, and the same force flung the cross from the top of the steeple.
( Here is the church, here is the steeple, open the doors and there's all the people. )
I was there when the nurse met the mail man; a.k.a. the beauty and the football player.
I was there when she drank herself to death while her son listened to a Bill Cosby record on headphones in the next room.
I was there to scatter the ashes.
I was there when the piston failed to fire.
I was there when the paint coated the canvas a hundred times.
I was there to speed up the process.
I was there to put the breaks on too.
I was there to offer condolence and make jokes and move on to the next thing.
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"I petted the dogs who didn’t argue with me ever. All dogs love God. They’re wiser than their masters. I told that to the dogs, too, they listened to me perking up their ears and licking my face. They didn’t care one way or the other as long as I was there. St. Raymond of the Dogs is who I was that year, if no one or nothing else." - Jack Kerouac, Dharma Bums
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