The Apple

Debra M. Schneider

“It gonna rain, it gonna rain. The earth is afire and God send a rain...”

The dirty man swayed and sang to himself. Dry brown leaves littered the street, swept up in occasional gusts of cold November wind. The gray Sunday-morning sky held no clouds. He smelled of stale beer. His matted hair clutched a wayward brown leaf, a few small twigs. Wearing a musty, tattered green coat with no buttons, he stood near his bed of cardboard at Third and Main. His shoes were without laces, mismatched—one black, one white. A woman approached wearing a suit of lavender silk. Her gold bracelets jangled on her perfumed wrist, and her high-heeled shoes clicked on the sidewalk as she walked. She clutched a beige purse that had been made from the skin of a viper. On the next block, church bells chimed. The woman glanced at her slim gold watch, and quickened her step. She knew that if she walked past the man, she could get to her pew by the time the service started. But she would have to smell his smell and walk near his dirty bed, and he would probably ask her for money. She clutched her purse tightly to her hip and continued walking. The man’s ear pricked at the sound of her clicking heels. He turned towards her and cocked his head to one side, eyebrows upturned. She felt him eyeing her. She slowed her steps slightly and glanced to her left, considering the longer route. Her heart beat an urgent tempo of unease.

The man sang more loudly now, accompanied by the pealing bells,

and he watched her. “It gonna rain…it gonna rain… You can feel the fire. God send a rain!” He swayed and shuffled his feet, and his shoes flopped loosely. He pushed his hands into the pockets of his coat, and raised his shoulders against the chill wind.

The woman’s heels tapped the cement as she walked. She smelled his sour clothes, and tasted her fear of his darkness and his poverty. He watched her with truth-telling eyes. As he swayed to and fro he said to her, “Spare a quarter, ma’am?” “No,” she lied. The man nodded.

The woman hurried past, and as she moved away from him her fear subsided but her shame grew.

rain…” “It gonna rain,” he sang again, “it gonna rain. Red flames of fire, God send a

The woman stopped. “Wait,” she said. Turning towards him, she reached into her snakeskin purse. “Have this.” She pulled out a red apple. The apple was as round and heavy as the breast of a nursing mother. It had taut crimson skin, with thin amber streaks near its stem. The woman held the apple out to him in her pale manicured hand. The man took it, his brown fingers curving around its weight, street grime in his nails. He sniffed it. Then he held the apple against his filthy cheek and smiled broadly. He had no teeth.

rain.” “It gon’a rain, it gon’a rain,” he sang. “…The earth is a’fire and God send a