cooperation

[catching up: saturday]

the tiny handbag sitting in the stroller actually sort of looked like a baby's head. it was peach-colored leather, supple and fuzzy. other things in the stroller included about a dozen empty cans (mostly beer, but one sprite and one dr. pepper), a green-covered spiral notebook that looked like it had been soaked in water and dried again, and a ratty yellow towel.

the stroller itself was only slightly dirty, with one wobbly wheel that hadn't bothered the owner of the stroller one bit, since she was bent over from rheumatoid arthritis and limped along slowly anyway.

her name had been mary, and she had left behind these things. the other folks in her camp respectfully left them alone today, since she had just passed away during the night, but tomorrow morning they would take what they could from the stroller. the only other woman in the camp, darlene, had gently removed layer after layer of clothing from mary's body, somberly doling it out to whomever stood in line. she left on only the bottom layer: black tights under long green shorts; a button-down satin shirt with polka dots, stained to a uniform gray.

the two women had not gotten along in life, but darlene was the first to step forward when someone had discovered mary's unmoving body this morning. she had taken control, asking lars to find someone to call the authorities, asking fred to clean mary's campsite and move her things away, so that they wouldn't be confiscated when they came for her body.

about eight people stood around mary, now that she was in her burial clothes and darlene was combing her peppered, matted hair. not much could be done with the hair; she arranged it as neatly as possible around mary's face. gregory stepped forward with bottled water for darlene to wash mary's face and neck and hands. peter, the only one in the camp who had talked to mary very regularly, because she had a tendency towards unpredictable violence, offered a child's barette, red plastic. darlene clipped mary's hair back over her left ear, exposing the long scar down that side of her face.

she did not return mary to her shoes, which were well-worn tennies. they had no holes and two good shoelaces, and they were stashed at the bottom of darlene's sleeping bag.

as the sirens rose in the distance, the group finished their preparations. theo, a gaunt black man who often preached at gantry park and who was blind in both eyes, pulled a small new testament from his pocket and read:

"But someone may ask, How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?

"How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body...

"So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.

"I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: Death has been swallowed up in victory."