THE OBSERVER

STREET CORNER PREACHER

AT THE INTERSECTION, BUT NOT INTERSECTIONAL.

We haven’t seen him since before pandemic times, but the season of the Asher Avenue preacher ran from spring through fall.

For years now on Fridays, we’ve observed him in his unnatural habitat: A narrow concrete median of a narthex that’s 6 inches high, several car lengths long and located in the middle of four lanes of traffic on the east Asher side of Asher and University avenues. You could hear his call echoing across the busy intersection, his voice crackling through his handheld PA system, sweating through his white robe.

Early on, we hit a choice Observing spot in the inside lane of the four lines of cars waiting at the traffic light. So we turned down the car radio and cracked the back passenger side window to catch any knowledge he might be dropping. Observing is listening, and we were ready to accept some good news. Who doesn’t find a cooling dose of Jesus Christ’s message of love and acceptance refreshing on a hot summer day?

Instead, the sour scent of brimstone invaded the car window, making the oppressive heat that was also permeating seem even more stifling. It didn’t take long to catch his OG OT drift. The topic of that day’s remarks was homosexuality. He wasn’t a fan. But we doubt he’s even tried it.

In subsequent years, we’ve found it’s a topic he returns to often. Or maybe he never leaves it. Perhaps he’s preached against — or even for — other things while out there under the Friday sun, but not that we’ve ever been able to Observe. We’ve given him several opportunities, too; cracking our car window just long enough to confirm the week’s lesson was again homophobia, and subsequently cranking up some nasty blues from KABF’s “Blues House Party” to both drown him out and cleanse the palate. The salacious sounds of Pine Bluff’s rump-shaking Bobby Rush have proven the worthiest counterpoint.

One season, we Observed the preacher attempt to expand his house of worship. He moved from his narrow concrete riser to greener grasses — the big grassy median across University, just west of where his accidental congregation originally gathered by stoplight. More chiggers in the tall grass maybe, but surely easier on the feet than the median. By nature, the delivery of wild-eyed sermons requires a lot of pacing. A lady in her Sunday best, presumably the preacher’s wife, had optimistically set out a half-dozen or so metal folding chairs. She sat in one, listening attentively to his lecture as cars whizzed past at every border.

He’ll have a tent out there next, we mused. After that, perhaps a small clapboard structure — nothing fancy, just a short steeple and an upright piano. But his makeshift place of worship was a bridge too far even for the Little Rock Police Department. The next Friday, we saw a couple of squad cars shut the preacher down, mid-preach. As we turned north on University, we saw him explaining his side of things to stony faces in blue. They were not moved. (But he was.)

After years of dedicated service, we thought that may be the end of the Asher preacher. He’d flown too close to the sun on wings of folding chairs. Holy Ghost power had faced off with the long arm of the law and gotten the bum’s rush. No matter the urgency of the message, no matter its necessity to be heard by the people, the Man had spoken: Medians in major intersections are not the place for them to be delivered.

But for the hubristically named Observer, we’d underestimated the tenacity of a man willing to stand in a major city intersection in the blistering heat, wearing a robe and yelling about God through a CB radio.

Defeated in his campaign to win the west, the Asher preacher simply returned to his lowerprofile thin-strip median on the east side of University Avenue, but with more branding: “JESUS CHURCH ON FRIDAY” a sign on the median warned.

He’d kept other trappings from his failed foray onto bigger acreage, including the wooden pulpit with a trumpet atop. Its brass would gleam in the afternoon sun. We never Observed it being played. With no walls nearby, who could say if they’d come tumbling down or not?

Affixed to the front of his pulpit was another sign: “PASTORS YOU HAVE LET JESUS DOWN.” On this point, we may actually agree. But maybe for different reasons.