The wipers on my rental car screech at an octave that make my eardrums want to die. In an attempt to cultivate gratitude I try to stay thankful for my momentary ride…but fuck, I am really starting to hate this car.
I hate driving in the dark; the rain even more.
Commuting my oldest son to school out of district for the last two years has begun to take its toll. By the time I make it back home at 7:45 in the morning, I’ve been white knuckling the steering wheel for over an hour—either dodging deer, two-tracking down unplowed back roads, or straining my eyes to see in the dark for a solid hour. Where I’m from, you can guarantee to be blessed with a healthy combo of all three from October to April.
Hence, the rental car.
It was on one of these very morning excursions to school when a large buck leapt from the side of the road like a goddamn reindeer, except for taking flight, his hooves met the pavement in front of me at the exact moment my small Kia met his body.
“I SAW GUTS! I SAW GUTS!” my oldest son managed to scream while hyperventilated from the passenger seat.
Nothing quite like rolling through the drop off line with the front end of your small sedan smashed in and painted in blood to really get your kid’s day going. I usually do my best to karaoke my way through the line with, quite frankly, any Mariah Carey ballad…but that morning just felt too somber.
This morning, my nerves are also particularly shot. All I can say is that raising a preteen boy alone isn’t for the faint of heart. Somedays I’m not sure one of us is going to make it out alive.
I inch closer to the stop sign. I pull a deep breath in as I feel the anxious cessation of stop and go school traffic begin to fuck with my very fragile internal peace.
As I reach the stop sign, the giant Catholic church across the street catches my eye. The windshield wipers screeeeech and bring a massive nativity scene into view.
It’s hard not to roll my eyes. I’ve never seen so many white people on camels.
In that moment, my annoyance turns to humor as I remember spending Christmas with my college boyfriend, Stan, for the first time.
Stan, thankfully, was more of a free-thinker but his mom was a “diehard” Christian.
“It’s all just population control; that’s all religion really is”, Stan said as he took a giant hit off the joint in his hand. A flume of Earth and floral scented smoke hung delicately in the air of our Eastown apartment as he coughed heavily and passed me the joint.
Not fully grasping the totality of what he meant in the moment, and not really caring because I had never been religious, it is now something I’m always grateful to have stuck with me through all these years…and through all the weed.
The day before Christmas eve that year, we made the three hour drive up north to Stan’s parents home, a place I had only been once before.
Sinking into the oversized black leather sofa in his parents living room, I turned behind me to see a delicately arranged nativity scene on the console table pressed to the back of the sofa I sat on.
His mom was busying herself in the kitchen. She had just pulled a loaf of monkey bread out of the oven. I was insanely anorexic back then, so this was just a nightmare of its own accord. I could feel myself sweat as she came towards me with a heaping plate of sticky, sugary bread.
“Why is baby Jesus white?” I nervously ask as my bony hand reached for the plate of diabetes that was being handed to me.
Being as inconspicuous as possible, I gently set the plate on the table behind me and turn my gaze towards Stan’s mom.
Her eyes were blank and confused as they met mine. Fuck. I probably should have at least taken a bite before setting my plate down, I thought.
“Why are they white?” I asked again, hoping that this time grouping all the members of the scene together would clue her in as to what I was talking about.
Nope.
“I guess I’m just not sure I understand what you’re asking, honey. Why wouldn’t they be white?” laughing with the lightheartedness as if I had just made a joke.
That evening she tried to force baptize me in her bathtub.
Years later, we found out she had been having an affair with the family doctor the entire time. How predictable.
I hang a right from the long drive of the middle school back into the lull of morning school traffic, head gently bobbing back and forth to the pattern of stop and go, stop and go, stop and go.
Finally reaching the the four way intersection at the end of the road I turn my head to look to the right. St. Luke’s Pentecostal Church. In the lawn, a display of faded plastic figurines arranged in a nativity scene, their peaches and cream skin illuminated by the battery powered spotlight in front of them.
Jesus Christ.