an excerpt from “Sketches Done While Listening To The Talking Heads On A Tuesday Afternoon”
Shelly and Lloyd
We used to be busy waiting for Jesus. That is what we were concerning ourselves with. Sure, we went through carwashes with our eyes open. We did a lot of things while we were waiting for Jesus. We played guitars. We talked about our problems and expressed concern. We had finger-snapping contests. Sure, of course, we did that too. We were keeping busy while we were waiting for Jesus, while we were also busy with waiting for Jesus. But Jesus never came, so we found other things to keep us busy. Sometimes, we’d buy dishes or we’d clean windows or we’d put coins in parking meters. Other times we’d just count money by adding and subtracting rows of numbers on a piece of paper. We smoked cigarettes too, even when we weren’t busy waiting. We smoked a lot of cigarettes. Lloyd invented a new kind of mop head. We saw the light. We were lost and then we were found. We spent time walking through the park and also ate chicken fried steak. Keeping busy is not always easy, especially when you are used to being busy with waiting for Jesus, and all of a sudden you are no longer busy with waiting for Jesus. We kept busy though. That is one thing that is for sure. You can be certain of that. Now we are always busy, but we are no longer waiting for Jesus. We are nothing now but busy. That about sums us up.
