Verse by Moses Roth

we go to a coffee shop. She’s buying but I just get a Coke.
    She says, taking out a small recorder, “Do you mind if I record this conversation?”
    “Yeah, I kind of do.”
    “Why?”
    “I don’t want to be quoted in your article.”
    “At least for me while I’m writing the article.”
    “No.”
    “Okay.” She pulls out a pen and a pad. I look at the recorder to make sure she didn’t turn it on, but she didn’t. “Okay, what’s the name of your religion?”
    “Uh, it doesn’t really have a name. It’s not really a religion.”
    “So what is it?” She’s writing on her pad, but she has it tipped back so I can’t read it.
    “Just those who believe in me. Did you talk to any of them already?”
    “Some of them.”
    “Who?”
    “I’m sorry, I can’t name my sources.”
    “What did they say?”
    “I won’t discuss their interviews with you any more than I’ll discuss yours with anyone else.” That’s good, I guess. “So why do you think you’re the messiah?”
    I take a sip of pop. “They think I’m the messiah.”
    “You don’t think you’re the messiah?”
    “Uh, no comment.”
    “So ‘no comment’ is your comment? Can I quote you on that?”
    “Don’t people say ‘no comment’ to reporters all the time?”
    “Just a joke.”
    “Oh.” I force a chuckle.
    She says, “So is your ‘no comment’ just you being modest?”
    I shrug.
    She says, “Okay. So why do your followers think you’re the messiah?”
    “You’ll have to ask them. I’m sure you already have.”
    “I know about the announcement you made three years ago.”
    “Okay.”
    “So why did you make that announcement?”
    “That’s just who I was.”
    “But it’s not who you are?”
    “I’m still the same person.”
    “Do you know you haven’t given me a single straight answer?”
    “Yeah, I know.”
    “Well I guess that was a straight answer.”
    I shrug.

Chapter 34
     
    I’m eating Special K at the kitchen counter when the phone rings. “Hello?”
    “Manuel, it’s Garrett. Have you seen the Times ?”
    “No.”
    “You should.”
    I hang up and run to my room and pull on the pants I wore yesterday and put on my shoes without any socks.
    Oh, I hung up on Garrett. Oops.
    I dash out of my room, down the hall and out the front door. I run down the street to the arterial, to the newspaper dispensers. I reach into my pocket for change, but I don’t have any. Damn. Last night I emptied my pockets onto my desk.
    I grit my teeth in frustration, hissing in a breath of cold air and rush back to my house. I don’t have keys. I ring the doorbell, then pound on the door, then ring the bell again a few more times. Finally, I calm down and wait.
    It’s so cold. I bounce up and down, shoving my hands in my pockets and then pull them out and rub my goose bump covered arms.
    Mom answers the door, whining, “What’s going on—?” in that tired, throaty morning voice. I squeeze past her, mumbling about forgetting, and go to my room and find my wallet on my desk, but it doesn’t have any change. I grab my keys off the desk and my coat off the floor and go to my mother’s desk.
    I find two quarters in the front drawer. Mom is whining at me from the kitchen, I don’t listen.
    I rush back outside.
    I jog to the newspaper dispensers, pay, and pull out a paper. I check the cover. Something about North Korea and below the flap none of the stories are about me.
    I flip through the paper. Maybe Garrett was calling about something else. I can’t find anything. I’ll go back to the house and call—
    The cover of the Local News section says
     
    GRANT HIGH’S MESSIAH
     
    in huge letters at the top and shows the picture of me in front of the school that Sheen snapped on the way to the coffee shop. I laugh.
     
    On a Wednesday afternoon Grant High senior Manuel Kadur goes to Calculus like the thirty other kids in his class, but something sets him apart. Not just his striking good looks and the way he carries