The street preacher stood on the corner with a Bible and a microphone and a speaker that was louder than God. The speaker was a portable PA system that ran on a battery and the battery lasted longer than the congregation's patience and the congregation was everybody within a two-block radius who had not asked to be preached to and was being preached to anyway.

The street preacher and I were in the same business. We both stood on corners. We both spoke to people who had not asked to be spoken to. We both believed that what we were saying was important enough to say out loud to strangers. The difference was that the street preacher believed he had a message from God and I believed I had a message about marijuana and the street preacher had a louder speaker. The speaker was the argument. The louder speaker won the corner the way the louder army wins the field. I packed up my guitar and moved one block east and the street preacher did not notice because the street preacher was talking to God and God was a bigger audience than me.

The street preacher preached about salvation and damnation and the difference between them was a decision you were supposed to make right now on this corner at this moment before the light changed. The street preacher had the urgency of a man selling umbrellas in a rainstorm. The rainstorm was eternity and the umbrella was Jesus and the price was free and still most people walked past without stopping because free is the most suspicious price on the Lower East Side.

The street preacher was there every Saturday. Rain or shine. Snow or heat. The street preacher was the most committed performer on the Lower East Side and I say that as a man who played guitar on street corners for fifty years. I missed days. I missed weeks. The street preacher never missed a Saturday. The street preacher was driven by a force that was stronger than weather and stronger than indifference and stronger than the look on people's faces when they crossed the street to avoid hearing about their eternal soul at eleven o'clock on a Saturday morning when they were trying to buy eggs.

I never talked to the street preacher. We occupied adjacent corners for years and we never spoke. The street preacher spoke to God and I spoke to the crowd and God and the crowd were in the same neighborhood but they were not the same audience. We were two men on two corners with two messages and two speakers and the block absorbed both of us the way the ocean absorbs two rivers. The water does not separate. The water mixes. The block heard the guitar and the sermon at the same time and the block did not choose. The block took both.