Our van pulled off the road at “Visalia Drug Testing & More.” Spencer, the executive director of my Christian ministry, had warned me of this step with a meme that superimposed his head over Hulk Hogan’s: “Drug tests? What kind of drugs are we testing?” Spencer’s face was white as cream cheese and his silver hair stood like spray-painted toothpicks atop his oval head. It was all too believable.
Regardless, I had consumed four bottles of blue Gatorade in anticipation of this visit, and my performance overwhelmed. Three plastic cups later and I was fumbling my way out.
Tony the driver and the two ex-cons were leaned up against the van sharing a cigarette as I exited the lab. To say they were smoking is generous. That poor Lucky Strike was being devoured, consumed, and lost deep in the throat of each like they were never getting it back.
“Good pissin’ kid.”
They could think of only one reason for me taking so long, and it didn’t involve the vigor that comes with overhydration. The whole “ex-cons talking strategy in the back” began to make sense. Suffice to say their samples were not their own.
Still, they were impressed and treated this as their only occasion for talking to me all summer. Our communication was of the nonverbal variety, the bobbing of a buzzed head that says, “we know what you’re capable of.”
As I repositioned myself in the van, Natalie entered beside me and grabbed my oxford collar. She pulled me close, and my eyes focused on the red dots that ran like angry fire ants across her face.
“I know things about the soul.” She said it earnestly, even expectantly.
I didn’t reply. My mind reverted to lessons of strangers and dangers with popsicles and lollipops. Besides, I was in the process of finishing my first melancholy postcard that featured a dramatic vista that I had never seen. I planned on sending it to all my friends so they knew I loved them.
(If you’re interested, my best line described the fluid sky and the sequoia trees and the mountain wind as united in a single body of movement, a sign of incarnation: heaven descending into earth. The inspiration was really coming, and we hadn’t even left Fresno yet!)
We stopped for dinner at the Gateway Restaurant and Lodge, the sort of place that still advertises color TV and boasts a sensual theme song on their website that Kenny G would be proud of, a lilting melody smooth as jazz with the line “come on in” repeated eleven times.
Sitting to eat, I remembered my eight-year-old sister who always told her bow-tied and barretted church friends that her brother was going to Hell because he never blessed his food in public. Conviction brought my head down, but I quickly raised it to see Natalie almost bull- rushing my table, the tattoos on her chest stretching and relaxing.
As she drew close, I noticed that her right eye demonstrated certain displeasure with her left, straining in the wrong directing like an obstinate dog. Her feet had the opposite problem. They pushed away from each other, each foot spewing out and nearly creating a 90-degree angle with her torso.
She had apparently seen the head bob and was now looking at me as though I were that unnamed person for whom she had prayed her entire life. It was something like ecstasy and awe. “You’re a Christian too!”
She did not wait for a response. She told her story.
Natalie had never left her hometown. The 28.6 square miles of Visalia, California was the extent of her. She did not move beyond it. At 30 she knew nothing but the role of caretaker to her mother. And so this was Natalie’s first job after losing her former client to a plug and the rest of her family to modern concerns.
But Natalie knew something about the soul and she was ready to share.
“My mom died and the doctor was saying that you’ll know when the soul leaves the body. ‘Cause he was a Christian, you know, and it was okay, you know? And when she died I saw the moment of her salvation, you know? She let go of my hand and received the Spirit. I think we all need to lift our hands, you know, let God into us for a moment.”
Natalie actually said that.
I didn’t say anything. I needed to use the bathroom.