Ha! At some point I stopped writing expository prose (was it Kerouac?) and it all took on flavors of dramatic monologue. My anxieties as a speaker bleed through. I’m riven with hesitations, gaps, breaks.

“After his death, let’s remember?”—if I put a period there, I would be giving an order, which I am loathe to do. There’s a swerve from assertion. Also, memory itself feels untenable and untried. What does a Christian do? Forgive and forget! Or maybe just forget.

“It’s difficult to keep up with Evangelical scandal?”—There’s wincing psychic hesitation here. We’re not allowed to keep score.

“I reflect?”—I’m asking permission, grasping at straws, trying to navigate the uncertain terrain that opens up after this story. A revered pastor in his dotage was annihilated because he made some humane remarks about gay Christian people. Nobody is “good enough” to avoid the moralist’s buzzsaw.