Chapter 13 Closer Than They Appear

The clouds look like big shreds of cotton as I’m tearing across town, late again to pick up the twins from kindergarten.

The posted speed limit is really just a suggestion, I think, and Green Day is egging me on, screaming through my speakers, probably louder than even they anticipated; and Billie Joe is asking me if he can get another Amen, so, of course, I oblige.

It’s all a blur, really, the landscape, the cars, the traffic lights, my preoccupation with this or that, but up ahead, well, there he is, and it’s painfully obvious that I’m going to blow right by him because he’s apparently just taking in the scenery.

It’s cooler now and his leather jacket is on again, probably for the first time this season. The tassels on his sleeves are dancing in rhythm with the ones on his saddlebags and he’s leaning with his left hand on his leg, his right hand on the throttle of that low Harley.

And almost as if he knew I was coming, he looks to his left to watch me pass him; he’s just so casual -- easy, really, with that familiar blue bandanna on. He nods at me with a graceful lilt about him, as I break the law, windows down, head banging to get it out of my system because, well, the teacher guards at the school don’t need another excuse to think I'm a punk.

Now, for the record, I’ve heard it said that pigeons bob their head when they walk so that they can bring an image into focus, and this makes sense to me, and helps me as I’m thrashing my own head about in this chaos of my own creation.

But, I digress.

I’m just past him when he does something drastic and he switches lanes, veers right behind me, speeds up and keeps pace with me, and I watch him closely in my rear-view mirror. He’s helmet-less, like I’ve come to expect, and smiling.

I’ve got a few more turns to go, which will lead me off onto country roads, over train tracks, far off the beaten path, and so I assume he won’t follow.

But sure enough, there he is. He’s not tailgating, mind you, he’s just there, taking turns with me, in my wake, unexpectedly, and I’m pleasantly surprised that he’d pursue someone such as me, even after preceding chapters of shameful, sinful behavior.

I finally turn off to the school’s pick up circle -- you know the kind -- where teachers stand with clipboards and look leeringly with distrust at someone such as me, and perhaps you.

In line now behind minivans and SUV’s of all varieties, he’s still behind me, which, for obvious reasons, makes no sense here at the Lafayette Meadows Elementary School, you know, with that big ride of his.

Tate and Levi are in line, waiting for me -- a collision of blonde hair, big backpacks and even bigger smiles; they run to the car as if I’ve been gone for weeks. It's an explosion of life, times two, as they jump into the backseat of my Stratus, still smelling like summer, with the usual frontline reports on all things Kindergarten.

But this image behind me is begging to be brought into focus, and perhaps ever more so in this desperate head bobbing, broken speed limit pace of preoccupations and blurred landscapes. And so, I look at him more closely as he smiles, now in my side mirror, right above those words that say “Objects in mirror are closer than they appear.”

This causes me to lose my breath a little.

I turn the music down so as not to offend collective others, and my imagination gets the better of me as the Jesus of my day slowly passes me; moves in front of me, and I pause in the thought of it all, with my forehead against the steering wheel, hesitant now to tear across this town, a whirlwind of my own design.

I breathe in deeply, and just off in the distance I feel the echo of him as he takes it all in; a Savior who is much closer to me than I thought, One who would savor it all with me if I'd only take the time, far off this beaten path.