The Blonde in the Always Black or White

The blonde in the always black or white, at least midsize, mostly huge Beemer SUV pulls out in front (of me), turns right, apparently without giving it a thought as

she adjusts the rear view mirror to check her—make-up, teeth, hair, eye-liner, lashes, whatever related to her head.

Then a really big Detroit truck rams, zooms, flies, rips, past (me again) on the left. “Fools to the left of me, jokers to the right and I’m stuck here in the middle with” myself, blood-pressure rising.

We ride our classic chromium and molybdenum (chromoly for short) Reynold’s 531 “steel’s the real deal” tubing, all Campagnolo (Campy for short) equipped Batavuses ( short for Made in Holland) bi-cycles

through the back roads of downtown Phoenix on a slightly chilly Sunday morning in mid-winter while, I’m sure, Blondie and Macho-man snooze universes apart in bed together.

After the pint-sized preacher with the strawberry toupee, not unlike Robert Redford’s dyed locks, preaches his heart out and flat-out nails the texts about the love of Jesus and how much St. Paul loves the Philippians and how he,

soon to be retired, loves us and his wedded partner and how they want to travel until as he says, “None of us gets out of here alive” to much appreciative laughter. It’s his penultimate goodbye message and I’m wondering what he is going to

do for the ultimate. A dog barks on the outside aisle and the signer’s Doberman perks those perfectly pointed ears. We go to Communion.  I watch the lame, the halt, the wounded, crippled, abused, slim, pudgy, down-right obese,

buxomy man turned woman, little kids, buff guys, two queens with identical toups hold hands, two tall gals with really cute butts seen from behind reach and touch each other on those sweet heart shapes with tender taps, then move

to the center aisle, cup their hands in reverence and move forward. “Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight.” I sing harmonic bass to a well-known hymn and stop half way through the last verse because

I’m crying.