Mr. Silver Acura had the nerve to cut me off, but it’s after midnight in northern Reading and I know how these lights work, when red turns to orange, and when to breeze under red as its turning green. Baby, I got the edge. I cruise under this light as its turning green, and I man walks out from the cars with his arms up and book it hand.
He’s middle aged, and is dressed like he was out that night for dinner. I slow down, and his stagger to my car tells me he’s been out, but it wasn’t dinner that made his night. He walks to my car, thanks me for stopping, and asks me if I have a minute. I always have a minute for strangers. I pull over, but not without caution, I tell him I’ll talk but won’t get out of my car, my left foot on the break, my right foot resting on the gas, and they are ready to switch dominance in a seconds notice.
Elliott Smith is singing this moment like a soundtrack, he never heard it before, but tells me he loves it and doesn’t want me to turn it down.
He has the first name of a Biblical figure that lost his wife, and the middle name of a poet. He is a play write and a Shakespearean actor, and tonight he’s wondering if his relative is going to make out of lung cancer; tonight he’s saying everything he has done means nothing. Between his disclosures he sometimes pauses and rests his head in his arm, but the silence in the air and the alcohol in his breath (like the conversation I had at lunch) are reminding me that we’re all broken. He admires my youth, and tells me I’m powerful; he tells me he’s spent his entire life trying to be someone like me. He feels like his best days are behind him. His thoughts are disconnected and introspective, and out of the blue he says that maybe Jesus see us all as we are, and I tell him He does, and that He loves us regardless. At that moment I feel a little introspective.
He tells me his lover is waiting for him in that house right over there, and she’s probably upset. She’s the one that planted the plants by the car; the one that he enjoys waking up next to. He thanks me again, and says he’ll probably never see me again. I gave him my card and he says he’s made a friend. I tell him we’ll do coffee sometime, no, I don’t mind that you’re an “old man.” He thanks me, tells me he has my back, and he has the back of whoever else has my back. In a gesture he probably did a hundred times in his plays, he kisses my hand repeatedly, and I tell him to pray tonight, because I’ll be praying for him tonight. As, I'm pulling away I tell him: As long as we're breathing we have hope.
I’m driving slower now. Earlier that night I asked G-d to make himself real to me again. Elliott is singing The Biggest Lie, and I'm realizing sometimes Jesus has to be a drunken playwright in order for me to remember how true it all it is. I take my time and come to complete stops, and life feels a little cinematic; a little surreal.
