It was one of those thick, foggy nights on Route 62 somewhere between Jamestown, NY and Warren, PA when I started feeling restless... uneasy... pensive. Moments later, my headlights beamed upon a young priest through the mist... in black clerical garb... briskly walking... clutching a Bible to his chest... mumbling something to himself as if praying. He never broke his forward gaze to look at me or my truck passing by. He didn't try to flag me down... or even take notice of me at all... so I didn't stop to ask if he needed help. A strange and eerie sight at 2:30 a.m.
I looked for his possible stranded car along the road as I continued my airport luggage delivery journey to the Holiday Inn in Warren. I saw no abandoned vehicles on my route.
The hottie boy clerk at the Holiday Inn signed my delivery papers... we chatted for a couple of minutes... and then I began reversing the miles back home to Buffalo.
My headlights picked up movement a few hundred yards ahead... in the same general area of Route 62. I slowed down, thinking it was a deer crossing the road. As I got closer, through the fog I could see it was the mysterious priest standing motionless on the double lines right in the middle of the road. Still clutching his Bible... still mumbling something.
I stopped... rolled down my window... and asked, "Is everything ok?"
"Yes, fine. Thank you," he said quickly and began walking... still in the middle of the road... away from me.
I put my truck in reverse and caught up to him again. "You're gonna get killed out here! Visibility is poor with the fog... it's dark... you're wearing all black clothes except for that tiny little white collar... and you're out here in the middle of the frickin' highway," I said with concern. "Could you at least do your walking way over on the shoulder of the road so you don't get hit?"
"Whatever, "Big Daddy!" he said sarcastically. "Stop trying to tell me how to run my life! I'll get out of the road if you promise to go and just leave me alone!"
He went to the side of the road and I began driving away... shaking my head over this whole fiasco. I only got a few feet down the road when the priest hurled his Bible at my truck, whacking the back window.
I slammed on the brakes... threw the truck in reverse... and skidded back to where he was standing. Now he was all teary-eyed and breathing hard.
"What the FUCK is the matter with you!?" I said. "And what are you trying to prove out here!? Come to think of it, you can't be any more than 18 years old! You're not old enough to be an ordained priest, yet. What the HELL are you doing!!??"
"BLOW ME!" he snarled and started walking away again.
The debate racing through my mind at this point was a familiar one. Should I just step on the gas and speed miles away from this obviously troubled kid? Or should I push one more time to get involved? You know I chose the latter option. I almost always do.
I caught up to him one last time and said, "Just get in the truck. Let's talk about what's really going on here."
To my surprise, he obeyed.
I stopped the truck on a sideroad a few miles down the highway in Russell, PA and we began to talk.
"I was going to throw myself in front of a car tonight and end it all until you got in the way," he said.
"What could possibly have been so bad to make you want to kill yourself?" I asked.
"I'm gay," he said.
When he saw that I was waiting for him to get to the real horrible revelation that drove him to suicidal plans, he said, "I'm GAY! That's it. End of story."
"I'm gay too," I said. "You don't see ME throwing myself into traffic!"
I pressed on by asking, "So what's with the priest outfit, then?"
"It's my dad's," he answered. "He's a Lutheran minister. He disowned me for being gay. It's these damned minister's clothes that killed me! I love my dad and somewhere underneath his precious image as a minister, I think he still loves me too. He just won't let it out. He hides behind these God damned clothes! He can't love me because he wears them. I was just trying to make a last hard-hitting statement to him when they found me dead in his clothes."
I sort of chuckled a little and said, "Effective! Honestly, you came up with a real creative parable/drama to end it all with! Everything you have said is so true, but come on! It's not worth ending your own life over!"
"I guess I was a lot out of my mind earlier," he said. "My dad and I had just gotten into another terrible argument before I took off."
"So you're gay, huh?" he said. Teasing me now, he said, "You probably liked it when I told you to BLOW ME, right?"
Laughingly I said, "Yeah, that sparked some hot thoughts in my mind! I'm just glad you are feeling better now."
"There aren't too many cars out here at this time of night," he said. "A couple of people raced past me blaring their horns and swearing at me for being in the road. But you're the only one who stopped and asked if I needed help."
He continued his aftermath-pondering by saying, "Gay people are more caring, I think."
I start each day with a little prayer that goes something like this, "God, if I can do some good in the life of another person today... especially my brothers who are gay... bring it on!" I think it's why I cross paths with some unusual and extradorinary opportunities every once in a while. Then again, maybe we all have these opportunities each day but often choose to keep driving by without getting involved?
The faith-blood of many gay sons... many gay guys... has been shed by men in ministerial suits and clerical robes. Their clothes are stained by the hateful barriers they build between gay individuals and God. God sees these blood-soaked religious garments whether or not anyone else does. If I were God, I'd make all gay-hating and oppressing "Reverends" stand before their entire congregations naked... no clothes... no pulpit to hide behind. Maybe in this humiliated state, they would remember they too are mere human beings in no position to be judging anyone else. That might get pretty UGLY, so it's probably a good thing I am not God!
If understood, what a POWERFUL statement this distraught boy's death on Route 62 would have made to his father had he been successful with his suicide plot! GAY BOY DIES IN THE BLOOD-DRENCHED GARMENTS OF PROMINENT LUTHERAN MINISTER AND FATHER! But does it really have to go this far before we allow LOVE for ALL PEOPLE to be the guiding principle in our actions toward other individuals and nations? It is so BEYOND my scope of comprehension how this Lutheran minister... and so many others who claim to be "Christian" have forgotten this BASIC, FOUNDATIONAL tenet of the faith!
Route 62, between Jamestown, NY and Warren, PA used to be a rather dull and uneventful 30 minute drive. Now it is a reminder of a very significant event for me. It's amazing what profound life-altering things can happen in a moment's notice when we are willing to stop and participate in the dramas of another man's life.
Consider joining me in saving our world... one street, highway, and interstate at a time. I believe I am speaking to the right audience when I say this because, "Gay people are more caring, I think."
