“Do you have a strategy for how you approach your life?” asked the server refilling my coffee. The tattoo above his wrist featured deer antlers situated on top of a Boston Red Sox cap. He poured until my cup overflowed, made eye contact with me, and poured one extra gulp’s worth of liquid. My light roast spilled over the sides in multiple streams, each stream doing its best to leave the darkest stain.
Compelled to answer this unserious man by a brutish internal urge to engage in dialogue consistent with the intent and substance of the utterance immediately preceding my expected response, I said, “A big part of my life is spent staring out the window mustering up dreams that are untethered to static belief. No organizing principle or pretense of strategy shall darken my Road to Damascus.”
His hands now on his hips, my server (Mr. Broken Rabbit his name tag read) said, “The Apostle Paul said so many things, so so many.”
My lips hovered above my cup, my head brought low, careful not to add to the puddles obscuring the diner’s unstrategically selected table patterns. At that angle, a sip was impossible, so instead I slurped. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the glint of Mr. Broken Rabbit’s jean zipper, exposed by ill-designed denim. “My main takeaway from the Road to Damascus is the enduring capability of blindness to interrupt and redirect one’s existing desires,” I said.
“Did Paul over-explain the Christ?” asked Mr. Broken Rabbit. He pulled a cloth from his back pocket and tossed it too close to my face, too casually for my comfort.
“A glorious Mystery, ruined by exposition,” I said. “A good thing ruined. Like too much coffee in one cup.”
Mr. Broken Rabbit expertly maneuvered his cloth across the table, collecting a much greater percentage of excess liquid than I would have imagined possible with the flimsy rag. “You can hardly say that Paul ruined the Christ,” he said.
One of Mr. Broken Rabbit’s belt loops teased me into grabbing it, and I slipped a finger through the worn jean material, pulling my server close, causing his hip to bump my cup and re-shower the table with coffee that would never reach my mouth. “If I were Paul, I would’ve stayed in Arabia forever, staring out the window, reveling in the good fortune of unexplainable mental sensory wonders,” I said.
Releasing himself from my grip, Mr. Broken Rabbit said, “You wouldn’t share your revelations?”
“No,” I said. “I would hoard them. As an example to others, that they might keep their own treasures safe, stored up in a bodily heaven. The word became flesh, did it not?”
“You’re a strange one,” said Mr. Broken Rabbit.
“I like you,” I said.
“I like you too,” he said. “So much so that I’m going to forget to bring you the bill.”
“And I’m going to leave my number on this napkin.”
“And we’re going to live happily, as amateur theologians, wandering through minor hill patterns found in forgotten Midwestern counties.”
“Of course we are.”
“Of course, my love.”
“My love, yes.”