The moon rose brilliant and white over the highlands east of Grand Junction, Colorado, casting long shadows against juniper, stunt cedar and the chaotic convergence of cottonwood blowdown. Everything was still. Glowing clouds stirred the night sky. Far off in the distance the haunting, shrill call of coyotes echoed down from elsewhere.

Looking toward a silhouetted house, a dark-coated mare watched the last lights of her keeper's home go dim. Closest to her was the boy's room. Nervously the horse pawed the soft red earth and watched as small puffs of dust caught the night air. The softest breeze gently tousled her forelock and teased her ears while her mane did a similar dance with flight. She was completely still, watching the far off horizon. She waited, ears pricked forward. Finally, the sound of distant hooves signaled his arrival. She twitched as a fly landed on her withers. Then to erase the distraction she turned and nipped at her side, her wild hair floating like still life. Bobbing her head, rear legs pivoting, the mare turned away from the house and with her back towards the boy's room, she stood rigid and erect waiting for the first nicker announcing his appearance into the shadows of her moonlight.

The boy lay awake in his bed. Still. Listening. His breath came excited and uneasy as the moon traveled down through the window-pane and spilled a ghostly light across his blanket. He waited. Ready for the sound of knock on glass. Ready for this last exit and his next leap.

The stallion trotted into the clearing and lifted his hooves in an abrupt rear. Nickering to the mare, he blew into her face and then nipped as she raised her head. Agitated, the mare began to pace the confines of the corral as the nervous stallion followed her motions. The pair danced, separated only by the faded three-railed fence. A last descendant of the pure mustang, he'd come down from the benches and the higher grasslands to fetch the mare. Now impatient, his nickers and bobbing motions became increasingly insistent. Bay and painted, with a white blaze that lit his face and a dark black mane, the young stallion swung his head and galloped away.

The mare pitched back and trotted to the other side of the corral. With a final turn of her head back toward the boy's room, she broke into long galloping strides and in a giant leap cleared the fence, following the wild colt up into the shelter of the cottonwoods.

As the two horses crashed into the night, their fading hoof beats silenced the sound of the tapping hand, the sliding glass, and another escape to freedom. Neither the mare nor the boy knew where their flights would lead. Racing into a new dawn rising pink in the east, neither would ever be the same.

~~~

Summertime in Seattle is a glorious indulgence. The sun comes out and a good portion of downtown leaves work and heads outdoors. Rush hour traffic seems postponed until the next rainy day and people like me will do anything to get outside and breathe sweet reaffirmation that the sun does still exist. I have never cared much for the concrete part of urban compromise. All that noise and running around can make a person forget where they come from. Or it can make us forget where we are going.

Fortunately, Seattle is full of open spaces. She has her green belts and parks, her hillsides left to be hillsides and shorelines that aren't piers. Places where a soul can find soul, beauty, and inspiration.

Near the end of summer, freight died the way it always does when the economy pauses for a minute to catch breath. Unscheduled time is a rare luxury. Stood down for the afternoon, I parked the truck in the yard and contemplated a leisurely six hour lunch before hitting my night job at the airport. Six whole hours to myself, a precious gift. What to do? Like everyone else that Friday, I gravitated toward the magic of that precious open space. Stopping first for a burger to go at Dick’s Drive-In, I promised myself I would run an extra few miles later. Life is a series of tradeoffs.

I made my way up to a local park. Finding a bench with my name on it, I settled in. The day was spot on perfect. Not too warm, just a slight breeze to remind us that the wind remained. Slowly consuming my meal, I settled in for a session of people watching. Shirtless tanned people who hoped to be watched and noticed while they themselves watched and noticed those around them. The men sunned themselves and worked on perfect tans while the women played flag football and worked on their bruises. A typical day in gay Seattle.

I expected nothing other than a silent opportunity for observation and speculation. Yet it's been my experience that it’s usually when the unsuspecting aren't expecting that they get something beyond their wildest expectations. When we aren't paying attention is when we should.

He rose up in front of me, coming into view one step at a time, assured and without any sense of the world around him. I didn't move. I couldn't move. Gazing toward where I sat, eating on my park bench, he climbed a small set of stairs, eclipsing the sun and putting me in his shadow. I continued slowly chewing the remains of my double cheeseburger while watching him. If God asked me what I was doing, I'd claim that I was concentrating on his soul. Rather than the shallow truth that I was preoccupied by the fact that the shirtless man approaching me was beyond flawless.

A few inches taller than me, his sun-bleached dirty blond hair was tousled in a way people pay small fortunes to replicate. He beamed youthful wholesomeness, defining the images The Gap and Abercrombie and Fitch plaster all over their walls. This tanned and sculpted young man, through no conscious effort, derailed my every thought.

Embarrassing. Pathetic. But true.

Looking down, I tried to hide the unhealthy evidence that I was a sloth not worthy of sharing an inch of his stage. The wrapper broke the silence as I inconspicuously attempted to wad it up in hopes of hiding the evidence of my gluttony. When I looked at him again, he was standing in front of me, gazing my way. Instinctively I turned to look behind me to locate who he was watching. No one was there. He really was looking at me. I turned back, meeting his eyes.

"Hi." He said it in an average voice. Not too deep or forceful, but not soft either. I hate self-confident people who can approach anyone they like and never fear rejection.

Quickly swallowing the last bite of burger, I responded likewise. "Hi." My voice reminded me of what I sound like after drinking a gallon of milk after running a marathon. Weak. Garbled. Out of breath. Now what?

"Wassup?" He asked.

His eyes darted back and forth. As I watched him, he seemed a bit nervous or high strung. I didn't take it as being shy.

"Nothing much. Just scarfing this down." I offered up the sinful cheeseburger wrapper as proof. His face completely blocked the sun and I squinted to see his reaction. "Do you want to sit down?"

"Thanks." He sat next to me, and I became even more self-conscious. I felt like I'd just invited God to supper and all I had to serve was a Swanson's TV dinner. Worse, I knew I was slouching. Straightening, sucking my gut in, I was ashamed of my own body compared with his. Now I couldn't breathe. My heart raced. But I wasn't sure if it was because of a cheeseburger inspired heart attack, his perfection or my own imperfections.

"I'm Tim. You're...?" I sort of stuttered. Anything to end the silence.

"Will." He offered his hand and I shook it. Again when I met his eyes they darted. Looking away, he fidgeted. Will's backpack was slung over one shoulder. Removing it to get comfortable, every muscle in his stomach tensed. I didn't think I'd ever seen anyone with such a perfect set of abs before. Maybe he was one of those angels of the Lord who appear to warn us the consequences of our actions. Eat too many cheeseburgers and you won't end up like this. Instead you're doomed to a future filled with a purgatory of crunches, fat free everything, and soloflex videos.

Will straightened and looked at me. "You ride?" he asked, pointing to my lace-up cowboy boots.

"Yeah, I ride. My grandma says I could ride before I could walk. Do you?" I posed the question back, hoping he would be impressed enough to carry the conversation. Maybe I could maintain a few minutes of stature before I did or said something dumb assed stupid.

"Uh huh. Well more like used to. My horses are at my mom's in Colorado." He half smiled. "Actually it's been awhile. One of my horses got loose and ran wild for several months with a bunch of other wild horses. It took them forever to find her. Guess when they got her back, no one could hardly ride her anymore. 'Cept me." He grinned. I nodded, catching the hint that he considered himself a match for wild as well.

Will looked down at his legs swinging back and forth under the bench. After a moment he started telling me a good portion of his life story.

Why do complete strangers tell me these things? I have never understood these spontaneous confessions. Maybe I am a better listener than I am a talker. Maybe I look like a wise counselor who understands everything, an old best friend, or the mom or dad someone never had. I don’t know the reasons behind his candor and I thought a lot about his motives as he spoke. Did he need money? Was he conning me? Or was it something more sincere? Maybe it was the boots, linking us as "Horse People" as he put it. Maybe he was attracted to me because I wasn't perfect and there wasn't any competition, or because he considered me just passing through. Maybe I will never know why Will spilled his guts, narrating a life I could only imagine.

He was 27 years old and gay. As he continued, I soon learned things that people who'd known him for years probably didn't know.

"See, my mother had me when she was addicted to speed so I never did very good in school. I couldn't concentrate and part of the time one of my stepdads was in prison. When I was eighteen I met this older guy who'd just gotten out of the military. I mean, he wasn't that old. He'd just turned 21. He'd show up outside my window and I'd sneak out. One night I never came back."

Will watched me for a minute gauging my response. I was staring off into space listening when I realized he'd quit his monologue. Meeting his eyes I wondered aloud.

"Your mom must have been pissed."

"No shit. Yeah, she was pissed all right. She didn't want me seeing him no more. But I wanted to and I was gonna, ‘cause I loved him. Or I thought I did. We run off together."

I now found myself wondering about my own motives. I really was interested and compelled by his story. But would I have given a damn were he not so handsome?

Will continued. "Left Grand Junction and then went up toward Salt Lake and finally Spokane. Lived there in Spokane for awhile."

"No way. You lived in Spokane?" I asked.

"Yeah. You know someone there?"

"Hell yes I know someone there. I am from just north of there. This..." I paused, pointing to the urban area around us, "…is an accident. I don't belong here. But for now...well, I spend more time running out of this area than I see my own place."

In hindsight I suppose that our first encounter described conversation without obligation. Eventually we found ourselves on the shores of Lake Washington with the Cascade Mountains shimmering in the distance. The waters in front of us were the deepest blue and herons fished silently as we walked on sawdust covered trails that muffled the sound of our footfalls. Besides Will's voice, the only sounds were the chatter of ducks and the rhythm of waves lapping at the pontoons linking the small islands we walked across.

Will told me about his crazy family. He told me that he felt used by friends, loved for the wrong reasons, and that he was a long way from where he'd started. He told me that he loved the mountains but that for work he needed to be near a city. Without warning he burst into tears, telling me about the lover who he'd just left, and of other hurts, many of them related to drugs. They included stays in hospitals, wild roller coaster involvements, and mourning as friend after friend passed on from overdoses and illnesses resulting from substance abuse. Over four intense hours, this beautiful, perfect man told me everything.

While he simultaneously told me nothing.

Only later did I discover that on that first day we met, the entire time we were together, Will was sky high on crystal meth. And that in his backpack he carried enough controlled substances to land us both in jail for damn near eternity. Somehow, in near complete oblivion, I'd just befriended one of the world’s most beautiful drug dealers. It just doesn't get any better than that.

Or any more perfect.

~ ~ ~

Being a pastor's kid is all about being something you aren't: Perfect. I have often wondered about this inconsistency and on a couple of occasions I tried asking certain church elders about such a troubling doctrine. Subtly encouraged to drop the subject, I quickly learned that posing the idea that the pastor's kids aren't really perfect makes everyone very uncomfortable. It’s almost like questioning the idea that Jesus never sinned. But He was supposedly tempted by everything. No one really wants to give THAT matter any thought either. Still, I imagine that Jesus WAS tempted by loose women, He was tempted to gamble and maybe even race his dad's camels after the game on Friday night. Christians never want to deal with the humanity part of Christ, but if our faith is true, that in my opinion is what makes Jesus so appealing. He understands the lure of trouble.

So there I was, stuck. Sentenced to the role of being a living "What Would Jesus Do?" bracelet for the congregation. WWJD? Just look at me, the PK. The only difference, as I saw it, was that Jesus would somehow say no to sabotaging the tuna casserole at the Luther Day potluck, whereas I could not. At least all that salt gave it taste.

Pastor's Kids are the proof in the pudding of the power of the witness of their fathers. A minister's children reflect that Dad is "right with the Lord." Pastor's kids do not draw during the sermon. They do not make faces during communion. And above all, they will never feel the need to come forward during an altar call; pastor's kids are born saved. Small town PK's have it the worst. When you screw up, the entire community knows. They don't let on that they know, but they know. They watch. They listen. And far worse, they remember. I have spent three decades trying to put this behind me.

My siblings and I did our best to flawlessly fulfill our public role as PK’s. We never swore. We never drank. We never ever did drugs. We were not tempted with sexual desire. And if we ever were, we went horseback riding instead.

When and if we appeared in a sermon, it was always the cutest, quaintest little story to illustrate and reinforce our near perfection. Other children might have their parents called to the Albany Police Department at 2 AM. We were different.

We already knew the Sheriff.

In truth, we swore more. We drank more. We smoked more. And we pursued every other possible tricky situation with abandon. We just didn't get caught by our parents. But deep inside we knew that we really weren't any different from other kids. In fact, most of the time we went far beyond the scope of the atrocities committed by our peers. Our friends looked up to us in wonder because we were so good at covering our trail. Reconciling our imperfect hearts with the expectation of perfection made it a sure bet that later in life we would be a mess. In our confused attempts to understand all this pressure to be perfect, we figured we were definitely going to hell, just like every other kid we knew. It's just that we were going to get there first.

Talk about passion plays. If there is any miracle here, it is that people continue to attend church, believing wholeheartedly in the message from the pulpit. Not because of the example of the pastor's kids, but despite it.

~~~

~ ~ ~

Georgetown.

The rain cascaded from the heavens. Huge sheets of precipitation fell as if funneled by God himself to wash everything away. The droplets created a rhythm, intensifying, then abating, then returning in ferocity. Overhead huge maples shed their leaves as wind rocked the sheets of rain into layers that caught the fluttering reflections from the mercury vapor streetlights.

Surrounded by misery, Georgetown sobs, wailing until silenced by the endless trains that dissect her. Representing the end of the road for so many, it is Puget Sound's notable asterisk. Georgetown is hollow-faced men. It is bony women with concrete faces trading rotted-mouthed blowjobs for a hint of crack. Here, everyone I see is looking for something that might provide transport and comfort.

Will, in all his beauty, didn't seem to be such a stand out. Nor was he a particularly high achiever in the game of failure. Georgetown knew far worse stories and uglier victims. By comparison, he seemed lucky. He'd avoided this dead end much longer than most. Rather than asking why, the dark warehouses staring down on us seemed to ask what took him so long.

A sinking dread settled over me that, no matter what, Will's fate was predetermined. He lived to embrace a darkness that had been and always would be there forever.

Will lay in my lap. Shaking. Drenched. My hair was still wet and so was his. We'd been outside, walking in the rain. Will was talking in rapid-fire microbursts. I shivered as I tried to find a sane meaning in his words.

Out of his mind, unfocused and scared. Evicted from his apartment, the car he'd been living in stolen. I listened as he wept. Betrayed by roommates, his rent money up his and their noses, or injected into veins as a one-way ticket to an artificial escape. Now living in a local sex club, dealing anything and everything and trying to remain part of the living, Will was grasping at sobriety. Clean for a few days, withdrawal brought down wicked havoc on him.

As the Union Pacific Freight trains rolled by, and local crack whores sought refuge under picnic shelters, I stared out the window. My wipers focused the world outside until it blurred with more precipitation. Will was present and accounted for but all he could do was mumble and writhe in agony.

I had a talking to with God. Or tried to. Questions formed and were sent toward wherever God might be. Nothing. Why is it God never answers these questions?

I sometimes feel like I'm God's lowlife informant. Assigned to this thankless duty, witnessing and getting it all down. I keep telling Him I'd rather close my eyes. If I knew how to turn in my credentials, I would. I tell God that I am blind, show him my glasses and beg for Him to get someone else to do the job. I'd much rather see without seeing. Yet, I see. I gaze out and images form on the canvas. So then what?

Most of the souls I have come to know by sight in Georgetown are hard to acknowledge. My gut locks, and my conscience can not compute so many transient lives stuck here while forever bound for somewhere else. I recognize most of the tweaker whores, thin women who scoot into one suburban-based car after another. Cars complete with backward-facing infant seats and navigated by husbands, fathers and boyfriends who leave their comfortable suburbs to buy head from sad addict ladies who also somehow don't see those same empty child seats .

Likewise, I know the drunk native American woman in her wheelchair. The anguished one who lives in a broke down van and who more often than not is abandoned by her friends and can't manage to get her chair out of the rain toward shelter. I know the "mayor of Georgetown," a gray, long-bearded vet whose two dogs and bicycle keep a radius close to city hall and Texaco. The local merchants keep him in beer because he is pleasant when drunk but rages when reality gets a little too close.

As I sat in the darkness, I thought back on this long day spent with Will. I’d run into him in the morning. He sat in my truck and we caught up. He was sketching and nervous as hell. I'd never seen him so agitated. I wondered what he was on. I knew the Will on meth; focused, logical, and mostly normal. But now he’d been trying to stay clean and that left him agitated and erratic.

Until, he started discussing his "works." Then he became methodical. In a mood to dump, he laid out his life with a removed, detached acceptance. His voice sounded lifeless. A recital. 'This is what's in my backpack. Do you want to see my riggin's? Here are the clean needles and this is how you heat up the meth and this is how you inject the glass into your veins. I stared at the contents of his pack, taking in this bizarre show-and-tell. Will darted to and fro as he recited "Drug Use 101," "Dealing for Dummies," and the do's and don'ts of "doing."

He looked at me, but I didn't sense any recognition or register any familiarity. Rather, his handsome innocent gaze looked through me as if he were speaking to a wall. Disconnected from his narrative while continuing matter of factly, he spoke as he were he giving a PowerPoint presentation to a room full of suited strangers. His voice, cheerful and upbeat, felt surreal.

"Tim you won't believe my clients. There are people who have MS who can't function anymore. They call me and I give them an injection and they can get up in the morning because of me. And computer programmers who can do 18 hour day after 18 hour day because I am there to provide this..."

He showed me his supply of "rock" and displayed other substances which I couldn't even identify.

"Some of my clients have their own businesses, and you would never know they use 'go fast' or need a 'bump' to make it through the day. Then maybe some weed later, you know, to come down or focus. I mean you have no idea how much they rely on and need me. And I take care of my clients too. I make sure I give them clean needles and syringes. This pager goes off," he said, pointing to the beeper in his palm, "and I am THERE."

Incredulous, I listened to Will's explanations without really understanding. He spoke in a tongue I could not translate. I have never been high. Not a joint, a toot, a hit or inhale do I know. This isn't the way the world is supposed to work. Life is supposed to add up. Good guys are good guys and bad guys wear black. Listening to him, at times I almost thought he believed he was some sort of Florence Nightingale on a humanitarian mission from God. He didn't look like a drug dealer. Did most drug dealers make house calls to their invalid clients?

Completely destitute, and angelic in his sincerity, he wasn't even carrying a weapon. Don't drug dealers always carry a gun? Drive nice cars? Flash wads of cash? Hollywood and the ABC Evening News never portrayed a dealer's life like this. I tried reconciling how Will could define harmless in my eyes yet simultaneously market addiction, death and toxic substances to the masses?

A freight train rolled north on another set of tracks as the last twelve hours compacted into now. Watching Will unable to function as he sobbed in my lap, the term he'd used earlier to describe himself, "chemical friendly," seemed like an oxymoron.

Chemically friendly? I could see the train he rode nearing the end of the line. Derailment and wreckage lay directly ahead if he didn't change course and find another route. Why couldn't he see the obvious? Why didn't reality bite him? Surely he should see that his course couldn't be sustainable. Ejected, homeless, vehicle-less, and living in the equivalent of a bathhouse, the immorality of our earlier conversation was very real. As much as I wanted to, I couldn't overlook his references to drug addicts as clients, what constitutes good customer service and the supply and demand nature of the drug business as anything but crazy.

But the unmistakable truth that doing and dealing drugs is risky never sank in with Will, even after one drug dealing associate was found beheaded after thousands of dollars went missing from Colombian suppliers. Denying any possible comparison, he shrugged off the dealer's death as merely the result of bad business decisions. Will never missed a beat and continued dealing meth with a "business as usual" mentality.

Now under the pouring rain, in what seemed the last inning, the only pause came as Will attempted to get off the meth himself. Then everything went to shit.

Suddenly Will sat up and focused. "What time is it?" he asked. I looked at my watch and noted that it was about 11:30 PM. "Tim can you give me a ride back downtown?...I mean I really appreciate everything but this is when the clubs start hopping and it’s my busy time."

I turned the ignition and gave him one last glance. He was still shaking. He was still homeless. And he was heading right back toward derailment.

"You gonna still try to stay clean?" I asked.

He never answered.

~ ~ ~

In her book, "Traveling Mercies," Anne Lammott writes that most people have two main prayers they send toward heaven when they need God. These petitions are simple, yet straightforward; "Help me, help me, help me!" and "Thank you, thank you, thank you!" I readily accept that these prayers are the essential building blocks toward this uncertain, silent dialogue between man and God.

But I'd like to add one more: "Why? Why? Why?"

I have never perfected giving thanks. I usually forget to say grace until somewhere into the third bite of dessert. As for asking for help, we Lutherans spend most of our life hoping that God won't notice us. Thus, actually seeking His assistance is out of the question. But asking why, endlessly, and in every conceivable fashion is a dialogue where we excel. I suppose this belief is best titled as the sacred doctrine of "How come?"

During difficult times, especially in times of doubt, I often marvel that I believe in anything. After years of institutional religion, we pastor's kids face an unmistakable nagging sense. Raised on hypocrisy, disillusionment and the notion that, like it or not, where the church is concerned, every day is a lesson in disappointment. We know things are never as they seem. Reasonable speculation points to reinforced truth: There is usually more to the stories than what is presented from the pulpit. While the congregation is usually shocked by scandal, the pastor's kids are immune. We quit believing in the sanctity of congregational life long ago.

Ushers have affairs, get caught, and never return. People scream obscenities during church council meetings while debating women's role in the life of the church. Substitute Sunday School teachers, called in at the last minute, are horrified by the thought of teaching a class full of rebellious junior high boys. Postponing mutiny, they discuss sexuality, rather than the Last Supper.

When I reached adulthood, my parents begged me to attend church. I pursued exile. My father wondered aloud if I'd hardened my heart. My mother claimed that I was afraid of the Holy Spirit and spiritual revival. Their friends prayed for me. I came out. They prayed harder.

On the receiving end of pamphlets, books, and all sorts of wonderfully intended carrots to lead me back to the fold, I only found myself further away, looking back at a world that defined little of faith but one which excelled in communal misery. Abandoning Bible college, I climbed in a big rig and went trucking. Seeing the world from the vantage point of an airseat, an 18 speed, and a culture that didn't give much pause for prayer, bible studies and church calendars, I spent year after year trucking all over hell's half acre. I wouldn't see the inside of a church for over a decade. And I didn't miss the view from the pew.

Eventually the sour taste of those familiar small town Lutheran liturgies of my youth faded, replaced by the real time blur of heartless big city lights, homeless people in rest areas, and the ever declining conditions of the trucking industry. Compared to what I saw on a daily basis, the rituals of the church seemed irrelevant and silly. The dance of church council committees and endless sanctuary remodeling warfare meant nothing in this new world. Truck stop prostitutes challenged my faith. Lying dispatchers and revenue hungry speed cops challenged my belief in the golden rule. Body upon gruesome bloody body piled on the guardrails from accident after accident left me empty.

A small town Lutheran parish named Faith never prepared me for life on the big road. Falling in love a few times, I fell upon the bitterness of afterburn. I lived through much more than I knew how to process. Mile after mile everything tested what little that sustained me. I asked "Why?" more times than I didn't.

People in therapy refer to the experience of going through counseling, dealing with life, and trying to resolve the sometimes unresolvable as "work." Those of us who can't afford therapy often pursue the distraction of work to keep our resolve. We become "workaholics."

I was very good at distraction. Give me 18 wheels and I could substitute a pocket full of transcontinental phone numbers for serenity. A lonely gay bar here, a chance dance there, and add in a few idling 400 horse-powered big rigs, and life moved just about as fast as my avoidance of it. I idled in Albuquerque and Phoenix, Salt Lake and Reno. Seeing everything around me, I dealt with none of it.

Trucking was the prison of my escape. I could never get in enough miles or enough distance. Mile after interstate mile. From the alcohol stained tables of a town’s lone gay bar to the dirty coffee counter of a big time Flying J, I ran with the best of them. Running in real time and running in virtual time, time ran out. Only with burnout did I rest. But never long enough to sink roots.

Beat up, disillusioned and not sure who to believe, my awakening occurred when I quit repeating the bottomless question, "Why?" expecting an answer. I didn't chase insanity through drugs, drink, or romance. I'd done it through miles. A lone gear jammer running after endless insatiable miles while endlessly asking God, "why, why, why?" My faith found me not when I was riding toward it, but rather when I was in retreat.

My one sided dialogue with the Big Guy was not much about please and thank you. I didn't speak in tongues or fall to my knees when everything came together. I didn't answer an altar call or listen to the 700 Club. I finally accepted that in spite of all that asking, I had fewer answers than at any other time in my life. When it was all said and done, the whys no longer mattered. I was a complete loss, a wreck. Physically things were messier than they'd ever been . But I'd been given the grace to be at peace with the state of my collapse. Somehow, the still small voice of my faith remained.

I could let go of asking why, and the peaceful response of silence held me in an embrace that brought more comfort than a million Sunday pulpit platitudes. The table cleared, the questions replaced with none of the usual magic answers. Just the "steady as she goes" slow motion of quiet. I was finally ready to hear only when I finally accepted that those who have all the answers have never really heard the question. From the remarkable vista of silence is where the smallest things began to make sense. In the quiet was where I found God.

Once free from the chains of church, finding faith equated to spiritual freedom. I decided it was far easier to admit Jesus was who He said He was when not surrounded by His followers. Eventually I could even hear the word Christian without wanting to throw up. The contradictions of the church didn't have to always equal contradictions of faith. I finally accepted that I could settle into riding toward the light, if I wasn't always involved in fighting that light or getting burned by it.

Thank God I finally listened. Because I am sure He was beginning to wonder if I'd ever shut up.

~~~

The wind blew dry and sterile from the north. Below us, I-90 sparkled and shimmered, reflecting into the waters of the Columbia River. Trucks serenaded the still evening with Jake brakes on the downgrade and drivers grabbing gears on the upgrade. We climbed, paused, climbed some more. Surrounding us like a vast ocean, the desert embraced our small group.

Overhead the sky was surreal. Stars competed for light and then dazzled our eyes as we strained to see them all. Mars and the Milky Way, The Big Dipper and her smaller sister, and finally the moon fell down toward us. Again we paused, caught breath and climbed onward.

The slightest breeze ruffled through the sage, the steppe, and the scrub. Scab lands dusted by fragile prairie grasses echoed the wind like the smallest chimes. Tone and pitch harmonized into a symphony of subtle. Pause. Listen. Inhale. Exhale. Listen some more. Breathe in the 2 AM eternal air. Climb, pause, and then climb ever upward toward a rim of promise.

Ten of us, nine men and one woman, snaked up the canyon in the dark. The river became smaller and the sounds of traffic lessened. The trail was hard to discern. Small rocks gave way and cascaded down behind us. Rattlesnakes, slowed by the nighttime chill, remained still. Only the sky grew larger as everything gave way to scale, perspective and even magic.

Arriving at the top, we were surrounded by large horses. In the darkness their presence brought comfort and serenity. These restless horses, frozen in metallic flight, stampeding recklessly toward the edge of a cliff, brought beauty into the darkness. Their wildness leapt out from where they stood at the crest of the hill. Some reared while others charged forward toward a plunge into an end.

Eventually our breathing slowed and we began walking amongst the frozen metal guardians. No one spoke. The wind sang as it encountered each silhouetted statue. Each horse produced a different pitch and the tones drifted in harmony from the distance of the ledges above and below. The herd was on a rampage, each horse individual but all charging toward the cliff. We stood against the breeze, listening.

Haunting yet brilliant, lifeless yet spiritual, these fifteen sculptured animals compel even those who hurry by to look and wonder at the horses charging toward the cliff. Racing into the winter snow. Pawing at the summer dust. Gazing past spring wildflowers and temporary greens. These are timeless creatures who dance in beauty while galloping toward their demise.

Pausing as renewal lightened the sky, I squinted east as turquoise, orange and crimson colors lit the pre-dawn. Down below, freeway travelers faced hints of a new day. July's dawn rises at three o’clock on the Highline and soon daybreak would swallow the shadows. The moment so powerful wanted for nothing. We stood listening to the wind and for awhile no one moved. Then slowly ten figures began to make their way off the cliff. Looking back as I caught one last glimpse of the horses now framing the dawn, I wondered if Beauty isn't a friend of Sorrow.

No matter how tranquil or spectacular our breathless, spellbound moments, Beauty is always fleeting, merely passing through. Just like us.

~ ~ ~

In early 2001, I began assisting researchers at a major western university with a project focusing on risky sexual behavior among truck drivers. Their research involved extensive interviews in which drivers were questioned as to the extent of their behavior on the road and in what kinds of ways risky behavior manifested itself. How did truckers meet other truckers? Non-truckers? Were these encounters anonymous? Did they always practice safe sex? And how did the drivers define themselves? Gay, straight, or bisexual?

In the trucking industry, gray is far more common than black and white. The profession is full of danger. Hijackings are on the increase. Shippers and receivers practice subtle and non subtle extortion toward drivers. Drivers face a constant cat and mouse game with the law. And they suffer one of the highest on the job mortality rates. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Agency, in 1998 there were more trucking relating deaths on America's highways than in the entire 9/11 World Trade Center and Pentagon related disasters combined. But risk is far more than just a cold summary of death statistics. Professional drivers deal with risk every day. A loosely affiliated gang of unrecognized superheroes, drivers accept an awareness that nothing is settled or guaranteed as part of their jobs. Not fairness. Objectivity. Or life itself.

Yet even unrecognized superheroes have needs. Sometimes these bigger than life Rambos also fight inner battles that overwhelm their defenses. Risk and the dance of human behavior are compelling things to study. Add in the dynamic of closeted sexual lives and sneaky fatal diseases, and researchers are faced with an intricate problem.

After the researchers told me of the challenges of securing the participation of gay drivers, I agreed to assist them in their pursuit. I contacted nearly a hundred of my driver friends. Very few wanted to take part in the interviews. To be honest, few drivers relished the idea of answering probing questions at the phone bank of the local truck stop. Often, the only time drivers could stop, find secure parking and call academic researchers was late at night when the researchers were sawing logs.

Before undertaking the study, the researchers were already armed with international data. They knew that one of the primary routes of HIV infection in many underdeveloped countries was through truck driver sexual contact with prostitutes. In central Asia, Africa and Europe, the disease traveled unencumbered, hosted by drivers who knew little of borders, their HIV status, and even less of safe sex. But in North America, most drivers knew about safer sex. Getting them to consistently practice it was another matter. Especially when everything about their profession was about outfoxing the enemy of risk.

They call it barebacking, a polite term for unprotected anal sex. It was unthinkable in the early nineties. Then came better drugs and AIDS began masquerading as a chronic disease rather than a fatal one. Empowered by the hope of new medications, a new mentality rushed throughout renegade "at risk" populations. Drivers often found themselves doing what was unmentionable and unthinkable a mere few years before. Straight drivers would pay lot lizards extra for unsafe sex. Gay and bi drivers would surmise that if a person "looked" healthy, they probably were. Some HIV positive drivers assumed that if the other participant didn't inquire about their status, they were probably positive as well. No matter what the circumstance, risk in the sleeper was given as much thought as risk on the highway. Always present, but normally minimized.

I had little luck finding friends willing to participate in the study. I begged, promised, and threatened them using every subtle tool of manipulation I could think of, but most declined.

I finally decided to try a less direct approach, looking for volunteers in an Internet chat room for drivers who took part in barebacking. One night in one of the chat rooms I read as a gay driver friend confessed his own recent seroconversion. He'd been HIV negative. He considered himself a "top." Now he was infected. In the midst of that chat session, I was approached by a stranger who sent me an instant message.

"Hey, wh at are y ou doingin thi s roo m?" the stranger asked.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," I responded.

"Bet youdon't k now wh o t his is?" The stranger typed erratically.

"Nope." I couldn't remember chatting with anyone named Bback27.

"I'll g ive y ou a h int. But NO ser mons ok? I don't n eed any sermons." I agreed to his conditions.

"I u sed tolive in a bathhouse." The words appeared on the screen and instantly I knew who I was talking with. It was Will.

"How have you been?" I typed rapidly.

"N ot ve r ygood." The words came short and with spaces between the letters. "I was in th e ho sp italagain. Thingsare rea lly bad Tim."

I sat looking at the screen and wondered what to type.

"Are you on t heroad Tim or a reyou h ere?" he asked.

"I'm in Seattle this weekend. Will, can I do anything to help you?"

Part of me regretted asking the latter. Torn, I wanted to meet up with him and see if he was OK. But a King County Sheriff’s Deputy had warned me about the dangers of hanging out with a drug dealer, especially if he carried controlled substances into my truck.

"Where are you?" I asked.

"At a frien ds. Can I see you?" my fallen angel drug dealer wrote.

I wondered if he was high.

"Yeah, but I can't risk you being in my truck. Tell you what. I am heading to St. Mark’s. I'm going to church tonight. I will meet you there. Do you know where it is?"

"I thin k so. Its upby t he park wh erewe met, rite?"

"Yep. I will be there about 9 pm tonight. Is that OK?"

" I think so. Tim, r u gonna b alone?" There was a pause and he continued typing. "I mean I am real ly b ad now. I think if I see you I am gonna start crying. I don't w ant u'r friends to c me like this."

I thought for a moment. "Yes, I can come alone. I will meet you on the front steps. Is that cool?"

Will responded. "Yeah I will b th ere."

"Hey, I've got to run but I have a question. What are you doing in the bareback room?"

There was another long pause. "Remem ber Tim...u promisd NO SERMONS. I will c u at 9" Then he closed out the connection and was gone.

As I drove to the cathedral that night I recalled another friend who'd described his addiction to meth. "Tim, have you ever seen a hamster in one of those little wheels? Man, that wheel spins and the hamster, son of a bitch, look at him go! He runs faster and faster as the wheel goes faster and it's a vicious circle. Do you ever wonder why the hamster keeps running, even though you know he has to be running himself to death? Ever wonder why he doesn't chill, but instead just goes faster and faster? Do you ever wonder if maybe the hamster just might like it?"

I shrugged.

"Well that's what meth is like...this amazing burn and you go faster and faster and yet inside your head things slow down. You ever wonder why I do meth? You ever wonder why I do so much of it? Did you ever think that maybe, just maybe, I might like it? That maybe I love to do it and that I like gritting my teeth and feeling that grit and biting down. Bet you never thought of that, did you Timmy boy, that maybe the hamster likes running around in circles and that maybe those of us who are all cranked up do it not because we have to...but because we want to."

Now as I looked for a place to park, I thought about hamsters, meth, Will, and this newest situation. Tonight Will had found me not because he was looking for my advice, but while cruising in a bareback chat room.

I arrived at St. Mark’s early. That night was the first time in my whole damn life I'd ever been anywhere on time. Sitting on the steps of the cathedral by ten to nine, I watched as the first early worshippers made their way toward the sanctuary.

Compline is the evening prayer service of the Episcopal church; a service of quietness and reflection before rest at the end of the day. It is nothing like a normal Sunday morning liturgy. It is scripture readings and a selection of ancient hymns sung by a choir of a dozen or so white-robed men. No sermon. No offering. No congregational singing. Just several hundred people in a dimly lit sanctuary letting the words and harmony of those hymns wash over them.

I had been attending Compline irregularly since returning to the Seattle area to finish my degree. I found the sanctuary of St. Mark’s to be the last best place to be among people of faith.

Most Sunday evenings a large number of the worshippers are in their teens or early twenties. The pews fill up and young people spill onto the floor, surrounding the altar, or leaning against the wall. Others ring the giant pillars that support the cathedral’s soaring ceiling. To enter the sanctuary is to revisit a silence not known since nap time in kindergarten. Here is where diversity of fellowship meets the diversity of urban living. An occasional whisper or other noise breaks the stillness. A young Goth woman hugging a friend, a man with more piercings than teeth. Seated next to them are the poster children from Abercrombie and Fitch, the Gap, and L. L. Bean. Go figure. In the middle of the city at 9:30 on a Sunday night, so many young people would willingly attend a church service where silence was king and there wasn't an "Amen bro!" to be heard. Here a cowboy could settle into a pew and not be noticed. Or an old woman could find the same refuge as 18 year old club kids.

A friend from Montana once agreed to accompany me to Compline. Surrounded by Christmas lights and the premature darkness of December, we stopped and had ourselves an inspirational pre-service beer at a local tavern. We'd giggled at the naughtiness of the situation. Somehow church seemed to go down a bit easier with a beer. Later as more and more friends began attending church, the beer tradition died out of respect for our fellow worshippers in recovery. Rather than pre-service Budweiser, we devoured milk and cookies after the service.

Tonight, sitting on the steps of St. Mark's, I wondered if Will would show. Rain fell softly. I pushed my felt cowboy hat down and pulled my duster tight. I considered that Will might be high and sketching should he actually appear. Or maybe he'd be trying to quit tweaking meth and pursuing sobriety again. In my mind I could visualize his shaking out of control. Maybe the service might touch his restlessness with a perfect stillness.

Or maybe he was just playing me, only to show up prepared for an evening of dealing to club kids. I didn't even want to consider that the horrible position he'd described himself in might reflect a worst case scenario: A willing pursuit of suicidal encounters with faceless strangers; "gift givers" who dump their seed into "bug chasers" like him and then scurry off into the anonymous night.

Truthfully I didn't really want to acknowledge any of the latter options. Things were bad enough the last time that I'd seen him. What more could be worse than what he was facing then? If he was high, could he even sit through the short half-hour service? Was he in a position to know the peace such an experience gave me?

I considered the ridiculousness of what I was doing here. The arrogance of thinking anything I might say could even begin to meet Will's crisis. I knew little about substance abuse, addiction, or recovery. As I watched the streetlights shimmer on the pavement, I thought about the many times over the last few years I would have done anything to find some sort of escape. A free fall release that would ease my fears, my embarrassment, and the sometimes hopeless feelings that I battled. What I wouldn't have done to find something to get lost in. Something that brought joy, refuge, and pleasure. The problem was, in facing all those temptations, I knew that no matter what vice I pursued, there would always be another side that I would have to emerge from. And that no matter how wonderful the temporary ecstasy might be, the emergence on that other side would be far worse than whatever I faced now.

The rain increased and I pondered how I got to be friends with a drug dealer in the first place. How such a beautiful smiling man could present so much contradiction. How was it our friendship continued despite the fact that so much of what he pursued, I could not understand?

The rain now transformed into downpour, water dripping off the brow of my hat in sheets. I moved, taking shelter under the entrance. I waited. Wondering. Thinking. And once again asking, "Why?"

Stranger after stranger passed and hurried into the quiet shelter of the church. Cars rushed up to the front steps, dropped their passengers, and sped off. I heard umbrellas shaken and the doors of the cathedral opening and closing until eventually the rhythm lessened. Shivering, I scanned the front of the church for Will, but he was nowhere to be found.

Five minutes after the service started, I slipped inside and found a place to crouch on the floor. On either side, young people looked at me, nodded and then closed their eyes. The choir sang in perfection. Looking toward the altar and those massive columns, I shivered and thought of Will’s battles with meth as the words of the officiant reading from first Peter boomed through the cathedral:

Slowly the vision that filled my mind was the statue of the wild running horses. I saw the horses running off the cliff in the twilight and saw them as Will. The innocence of his early youth when he was that young boy on the run from Grand Junction. A boy, yet also a young man, stepping out into a vast future, pursuing new love and naive exploration.

As the service concluded, I realized we are all like those powerful horses running toward a cliff. Beautiful and unique. Solid and smooth from a distance, yet rough up close. Running and charging wildly ahead toward uncertainty. Some of us leading. Some us following. I saw the desert sage in my mind and the colors of a July twilight. I accept the presence of the cliff. Lying straight ahead, marked yet unmarked this is same mortal cliff that everyone faces. Only the details of the individual fall over the edge differ. But the infinite presence of a definite end remains one of humanity’s greatest shared commonality.

The beauty of mortality, that we are all transient, forces our attention. That if any of this means anything, we must note our passage. How the views looked, how the textures felt, the smells and the enormous imagery of everything we touched. Savoring all of it, even the darkness. Because in this present reality, none of us ever comes exactly this way again.

In the twilight, I believe we do look gorgeous as we stampede rapidly ahead, artistic, wild, and strong, and full of free will. In our finest light we may take away the breath of those we pass. We might even accidentally touch the lives and imaginations of future generations. Maybe we will leave a lasting mark. Maybe.

The service ended and after a moment of silence the members of the choir made their way to the front, exiting single file through a dark door. No one stirred. Not one worshipper moved until the last singer disappeared and the sound of the closing door echoed throughout the cathedral. Then, as if on cue, everyone stood and quietly left the building, making our way outside into the rain as one body, until the chill and the reflecting wet night, forced our separation. All of us following our undesignated leaders, the beautiful and the prancing, the solitary and those in groups, but always heading, ever charging, toward that definite infinite end, that unknown, unseen cliff.

I looked around, hoping one last time that I might spy Will. He was nowhere amidst the departing strangers. Standing on the top step, breathing in the night air, I watched as the worshippers dispersed. Soon enough I remained alone, waiting in the rain. I said a silent prayer for Will and then, bundling up my coat, I began walking toward the darkness.

I didn't know then and I don't know now if Will has already plunged of that cliff at the end of the rampage. I've not heard from him again. But I have a certain resigned sense now. I don't need to ask "Why?" as much as I used to. And I try not to think about when. Rather, as I consider the horses charging off the desert rim, and the friends I ride shotgun with, I try to remember how it looks. What it tastes like. Because, like those horses running off that cliff, we really don't know when the ride will end.

© 2001 Timothy Anderson