Hear Us

I pulled up behind a car at a stop sign the other day. The music from the car was rather loud. The bom-bom-boom of the bass was transmitting itself into vibrations in my car's metallic skeleton that resonated with a ziz-ziz-zizt noise from my rear view mirror. As I look behind me in the mirror the whole world seemed to rattle with the beat of the song.

It was a 80's model American car. I think it was a Buick. The windows were heavily tinted. The coloring was something forgettable like two-tone brown. And the tires which stook out two to three inches past the exterior of the vehicle seemed out of place both for their size and because they appeared to be more valuable than the entire rest of the car even with it's earth-shakingly powerful stereo.

Through the wide, dark, boxy windows I could see a human frame. It appeared to be male, with dark-ish skin and curly, shiny hair. This human male seemed as though he may have seen anywhere between 40 and 60 passages of his own birthday. I had the impression he was a human who had had birthdays pass that he could not bring himself to celebrate, dark passages of time, and birthdays where he couldn't help but celebrate because it was a miracle that he had made it through another year.

Praise Jesus.

It wasn't really the loudness of the music emanating from the car that piqued my interest. It was the bumper stickers. For those of you who have never seen bumper stickers they are curt, often trite, occasionally pithy and frequently inflammatory statements of personal belief printed on a piece of vinyl and backed with an automotive-grade adhesive. Belief magnets for your car as it were.

This two-tone car had roughly eight or nine bumper stickers. We didn't sit for long at the stop sign, so I only had time to read two of the gentleman's credos.

Keep honking. I'm RELOADING.

(Hands in the air.)

JESUS is the answer.

(Praise the Lord.)

I wondered as the Buick pulled away and as we played a ten-block game of 'red light green light' never quite catching each other whether he had chosen to put those two bumper stickers next to each other for a reason. I mean, had Jesus given him permission, personally, to shoot at people who use their emergency traffic noise-makers in his presence? I unrolled my windows in the hopes of catching some of the lyrics of his music. No luck.

I began wondering what kind of a gun this individual might have had in his car. Guns are accessories. Based on everything I knew about this particular human he liked his accessories to be over the top. At first, I thought, "shotgun." Shotguns are more bang than most people could ever truly need. The word 'reloading' seemed fitting.

But then I got to thinking. Everything about this car seemed fatalist; the trust in an omnipotent higher power, the suped-up tires, the decked out stereo, the black windows. It was if this guy knew he was never going to own a later model car, it wasn't part of God's plan for him. Maybe he felt it would be his plight, despite being an upright, God-fearing, honking-horn-hating, car-tax-paying citizen to be harassed by the police for driving a Buick that he bought second, third, fourth hand from a friend at church who had tinted the windows years before. So he went all-out on the peripherals.

I pictured a revolver. A revolver with a fabulously-long barrel. A double-barrel, in fact. A two-barrel revolver with an ivory handle and shiny metal rivets connecting the tang to the ivory. I imagined that this revolver had two bullets in it. One in each of the chambers. Two in waiting.

I could see a dark Sunday evening. A man is driving home from volunteering at a soup kitchen or a shelter. He still has on his church clothes. A car begins to follow him. It is dark, he can't make out the make of the car. It is dark, the car cannot read the clearly posted belief system on the back of the Buick. The man becomes nervous. He turns, his pursuers turn. He slows down. They slow down. He speeds up. They speed up, too quickly. He tries to steady his nerves and goes through a yellow light as it turns red. The trail car goes through the light in full red, and . . . blue. He is over run by his pursuers and forced to pull over. Two cops jump out of the car guns drawn peeking out from behind the flung-open doors.

Our man of god calmly places his revolver on his lap.

"PUT YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR."

This is a no win situation.

"I SAID PUT YOUR MOTHERFUCKING NIGGER HANDS IN THE AIR GODDAMN YOU."

The ivory handle looks rich next to the deep dark metal of the barrels. He takes the corner of his purple church suit and polishes a dull spot. The gun is unregistered, an antique. There is pot in the glove compartment. He has an outstanding warrant for speeding. He is going down one way or another tonight. It is just his time. Praise the Lord. He cocks both barrels of the bun with a small but distinct click-click.

"PUT YOUR HANDS IN THE FUCKING AIR."

Bang. Trust Jesus. Jesus is the answer. Put yourself in God's hands. Heaven awaits you in the next life. Jesus died for your sins. He opened the pearly gates. Love the Lord. The Lord is good. Put you hands in the air. Waive them like you just don't care. God is good. Trust in the higher power. You will be free.

After we pulled away from that stop sign, my brand spanking new, bright red, foreign made zippy little hatch back shining in the sunshine I could only read that one word as I got closer and farther away. The big word. It echoed my thoughts.

Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus.

Deliver us from our sins. Deliver us from evil. Forgive us our trespasses and let us not trespass on others. We ask this, oh lord, in the name of the Father, in the name of the Son, in the name of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.