With Death Laughing

''I''m an ordained priest and professional donations solicitor. I work downtown where I bang a tambourine and beg for money in the mellifluous singsong voice beloved by children worldwide: help the needy, give to the poor, amen.'' It''s another hot Christmas in San Francisco as Peter Plate''s latest protagonist sits on sticky concrete in his priest robes, avoiding the gaze of trigger-happy cops, and begs from the already struggling and poor. Never earning enough for himself or to send to his employers at Blessed World Evangelical Church, Father, as everyone calls him, shuffles to his [10-a-night hotel at the end of the ''workday'' to an empty fridge, moldy carpet, and nightmares of long-dead family and a long-gone ex wife. His only solace comes from his interactions with Sugar Child, a Prolixin shuffling woman from the halfway house next to the hotel, and the children who never judge him, but cling to him with their hopes and dreams of a better tomorrow. ''Pain is a symphony. There''s the pain that hums. The pain that groans. And the pain that sings. The pain that throbs has rhythm. The pain that sings, you sing with it.'' And sing with it he does as he yearns to help others in ways he can''t even help himself.