MATHETΩN

She stands at the register, flint-eyed and limp-jowled, a woman of a certain age. She badgers the waitstaff in her Noo Joisey accent. “Speak English! You’re in America now.”

Tonight she extends into the kitchen. “I know what’s going on in here. All the lounging around. Turn that music off!

“I know what’s going on in here―all the deceitfulness. Speak English―everything you say―so I know what’s going on.

“Turn that music off! I never want to come in here and hear it. I don’t like your music.

“If someone doesn’t turn that thing off I’ll break it. I don’t like your music. You’re in America now.”

She returns to the register, and I go to pay for my meal. I walk so my heels ring and stand so straight I’m in pain.

My words are clipped, more than an Englishman’s, like cutting glass. “The pen you are looking for is to the left of you, madam.” I steadfastly do not look at her.

I walk to my car and start breathing hard. It makes me cough. I think, I do not know how to be angry―I was never taught. I breathe harder and harder.

I take off my hat and pray. “Father, cure her and if she will not be cured curse her so she can’t do more harm. Lift those up she oppresses―don’t let your oath be in vain, that you will care for the oppressed. And teach me how to speak, how to be, how to change things― In the name of your son. Whom they killed.”

I feel at peace for a while, but as I climb the hill home I push the gas, and the tires scream for a half-block. Once I am at my desk I write about it.