Isabelle picked up the rubber hose, staring at the girl. She was short and plump but not fat. She had no tattoos and long golden hair that shimmered like wheat dancing in the breeze. 

Isabelle touched her own head. She felt the sweat beading at her scalp. She felt the markings of the tattoos, where the needle had left the ink beneath her epidermis. Anger flared in her boney knuckles. White hills along the red valleys of her palms quaked. She was white as snow but she felt like melting. She wanted to freeze into the dead of winter and implode like the oldest star all at once. Amidst the blaring of her numb anger was a constant monotone hum of sadness. A hum that patiently filled the ambiance of her skull, the muscle behind the arm of her anger.

She screamed a soundless thing. An empty sound that was full of godliness and godlessness and indifference towards it all. 

The rubber hose in hand, she pulled it back behind her head and raised it to whip the incapacitated Pascal and his full bodied girl.

“Perhaps the story of the le pêcheur,” the fisherman, Saint Denis said quietly, his black eyes staring at Isabelle’s red knuckles, “is like one I used to know.” He cleared his throat softly. “There was a fisherman out at sea and his boat had sprung a leak. In his rush to fix the hole, he knocked his oars into the water, along with his tools. A great big whale took them away. He was stuck. Out on the horizon, he could hardly see the shoreline. A great big black cloud was coming in, a doomful, gloomful thing.”

Isabelle turned and looked down at the saint in the alleyway. She thought she saw just the slightest glimmer of light around his head.

“With no tools and the boat filling up, a storm coming in, le pêcheur, did the one thing he could think of. He knelt in his boat and said, ‘Dear God, I have always believed in you and served you, please save me from this dilemma.’ He kept repeating it and repeating it. A few moments later, he heard a voice disturb him from his prayers. The rain had just started to fall and the water was almost up to his buttocks.

“‘Monsieur, monsieur,’ this voice said, ‘your boat is sinking, do you need help?’ 

Isabelle dropped the rubber hose and walked over to Saint Denis and sat cross legged in front of him.

“Le pêcheur looked over,” the saint said, “and saw a boatman had sailed up beside him and offered to save him. But, le pêcheur said, “bonjour, merci, but I am waiting for God to save me.’ The boatman, perplexed, shrugged his shoulders and sailed away. Again, le pêcheur looked up at the dark cloud, angry clouds. He saw lightning flashing within. He heard the thunder scowl down upon him. Again, le pêcheur prayed, ‘Dear God, I have always believed in you and served you, please save me, I need you more than ever.’ He prayed and prayed.”

Isabelle started to breathe slowly and listened, her eyes closed, as the saint told his story.

“And then le pêcheur heard a second voice, the ferryman from his village had been passing through the storm on a return journey, and he just hardly saw the little boat being swallowed by the dark waters. ‘My good friend, le pêcheur, please come aboard, I can see you need some help.’ But again, deep in the grips of his prayer, le pêcheur refused the service, ‘I thank you, good ferryman, merci, merci, but I am waiting for God to save me.’ The ferryman too shrugged his shoulders and escaped home in the hard rains.”

Pascal snorted and drooled spittle down the naked woman’s breast. Isabelle turned around and saw him shift his tongue from one nipple to the other one.

“The next day,” Saint Denis continued, “le pêcheur did not return to his village. The ferryman went to le pêcheur’s family and told them what he had seen. The ferryman led them out to where the boat had been. All they saw was a fat whale burping near the surface. Le pêcheur went to heaven. Saint Peter accepted him, and when he came to God, le pêcheur said, ‘Dear God, I have always believed in you and served you, why did you not save me?’ The Good Lord scratched his head and laughed. He then said, ‘my good petit pêcheur, I sent you a boatman and a ferryman, did you think I could come myself?’ And the two laughed together.” The alleyway was silent except for the quiet snoring of the two heroin users soaking in the gutter water. 

“Is changing old habits a part of God too?” Isabelle asked, wiping calm tears and black mascara from her eyes.

Saint Denis did the best nod a bodiless priest could muster. “And accepting that some changes that hurt us can be ways to change us for the better.”