I'd seen her before even though she's not the type you'd remember. She is mid 20s and very plain Jane.
Short brown hair, frumpy plain brown pants and matching drab shirt. Skinny, short, faceless features with big round glasses too big for her face. It wasn't her features you'd ever remember. It was her voice.
I ran into her last summer while out riding my motorcycle around the lake. She was sitting on the deck at a cafe with Bible open on the table when I rode up. She was talking to a man on the other side of the deck in his 40s who was riding a brand-new Indian motorcycle who was an Army vet. I quickly learned he wasn't from here, just got divorced, and was living with a guy friend who also rides an Indian, and also an army vet. In that brief conversation, I did feel the tension, like I'd interrupted a conversation. She was trying to solicit his attendance to her new Bible study thing.
But yesterday in the Chinese restaurant across the room, that was her. That voice. Like nails on a chalkboard that never stops talking.
She was sitting with a man definitely in his late 70s or early 80s. He was a big, burly, mountain man with a white beard and no sense that he was wearing his floppy garden hat in the restaurant.
As usual, I was eating slowly. I'm the slowest eater on the planet. Wonton soup, egg rolls, beef and broccoli over rice noodles, and chocolate graham cracker cake. I could only hear a very small fraction of the conversation, but it was Jesus this and Jesus that for one whole hour. It was the only thing they talked about. I don't know how my fork didn't magically fly out of my hand and land on top her head, tines down.
I sighed and stared into the mix of Wasabi, soy sauce, and ginger on my plate hoping the Wasabi would burn my nose, but it didn't. It wasn't offering me any self-control to blow steam out my nose.
There weren't any arguments between them because whenever he said 5 or 6 words, she'd buck up and say Oh No! Then she'd go on another full 10 minutes. He was never right. It was always Oh No!
That voice. That condescending, arrogant tone, laced with fake angelic hierarchy. That empathy and love was the only message in the whole Bible. Jesus so full of love and empathy for everyone, including his enemies.
She tried the same thing on me, but I remember what I said that made her run like a scared 4-year-old. What was she doing with this man 3 or 4 times her age? Oh holy hell. She's doing what she was doing to the guy on the bike.
She's a religious man scammer. Bread crumbing for adoration, as if she had anything to bread crumb with. Virtually no compelling reason to even look at her with any sense of attraction was her trademark. Fake innocence. Bedazzled with fake brilliance like rhinestones on a cow turd.
Her psycho modus operandi? Attracting men using the Bible and a condescending mouth that won't quit. Is that what the 70 and 80 man crowd goes for these days? Well, I'll be damned.
Oh, she tried that with me. To win me over when I'm standing right in front of her in full leathers, riding my own solo, telling her I'm a vet. Didn't matter. I owed her attention, Bible laid open.
What did I do? I started telling the first real-life story that came to mind. How once I was on a ship carrying jet fuel in the middle of a war because we were bombing Iran over oil and religion. How I was the only woman on the ship and hadn't seen land for 6 months. How all I wanted to do was jump ship in key west and go fishing and write like Hemingway.
The biker guy looked up and said, What year was this? Based on his age and patches, I knew he was desert storm. 1990. I looked him dead in the eyes and said this wasn't long after you were out of elementary school. You would've been about 11 years old in 1983. He jumped and exclaimed how do you know how old I am!
I didn't respond. I continued with the story and recalled how for the next two weeks, every night I was at the helm steering the ship across the Atlantic in deep thought with the vast, dark ocean and guided only by the light of the stars. I had a choice to stay in this war or quit. I was trying to imagine what my life could be if I had the nerve to quit going to sea when I loved nothing else more.
I paused. That was the end of the story. She lit up and said Great! Now I feel like I know the whole life history of you! I'm so impressed!
In the previous version of me, my mind saw me dragging her by her thin brown hair across the gravel parking lot and slinging her in front of a passing truck. But, I stood there smiling and said, Oh no. That's just one short little chapter.
It was then I got her to quickly confess that she's never been outside of TN or NC. Traveled all over both states she said. Imagine my grin as I looked at the biker guy and said how about you? Bet you've seen places not like here. He rolled his eyes, nodded, and said he wouldn't talk about it.
OK. I'll let another vet have that one every time.
When she started with me about Jesus, I said it's obvious you've never studied psychology or ever had much experience with demons, huh? She quickly retorted that she had a bachelor's degree in psychology right before she valiantly proclaimed her recent admission to a Bible College in NC.
She was speaking on the subject of how God created a perfect world and heaven was our salvation. I said that's where you messed up.
God is the world. God is billions of universes and in everything in it. God is an energy that once you're born into it, you can't ever leave it. Heaven and hell is everywhere, and right here on earth, and you can't ever die or leave it. You don't have that choice. Everything you are, is everything you'll ever be, for eternity. There's no second chances. That's the miracle. Not salvation, but the astronomical fact that you were born into it at all. God is inside of you. God is everything, and everything is God. Everything is one for eternity. You can't even die to escape it if you wanted to.
She bounced up from her seat, snorted, and replied I don't pretend to be perfect like God! I would never profess to know or be more than him! The biker at the other end of the table was silent with eyes wide open.
I said oh, so, God created you in his image but you're not perfect, so he created you imperfect like him? What are you saying? How can you be imperfect if he created you in his own perfect image ? You can't have both. Sounds like a case of misattributed grandiose narcissism to me.
She interrupted and said narcissism, what? There's that degree talking...she didn't know the word.
I went on. Perhaps you're only the energy your attracted to. It's either one or the other. Positive or negative. Last time I checked, you can't be both. Let me check my bike battery. Maybe it mutated into one terminal overnight, but I doubt it.
She pursed her lips and scoffed. She quickly looked at the biker guy and said so like I was saying, we meet on Wednesday nights if you want to join. He stood up and walked towards her, accepting a flyer from her.
I looked straight at him and saw that look in his eyes. A look I'd seen many times before. As a veteran, he knew she was so grounded in her convictions, she could easily be manipulated by simply agreeing with her. He wasn't looking for Bible study. He was looking for an easy date. I put my helmet on and was done with it #1 and it #2. Time to ride.
She quickly closed her Bible and stormed off the deck headed to her car. On her way past me, she turned her head and said I would never talk crazy like you. I'll pray for you.
I snapped back at her with: Nobody asked you for anything and if you think I'm crazy, you've never met crazy until you meet older biker vets who feign interest in your dumb ass. You must think random biker vets recently divorced want to talk to you about God? Are you on drugs? Oops. That hit a nerve. Bingo. Meth head. Why didn't I see it earlier?
With that, she slammed her car door and peeled out of gravel parking lot in her little blue car.
Tonite, the old mountain man in the restaurant sitting with her asked to meet her for dinner again, and she agreed. They both opened their fortune cookies and read them out loud, but neither were very impressed. They didn't eat the cookies. They just threw the broken pieces on the table.
Leaving the restaurant, she passed right by me, but didn't notice me. There were 2 local guys sitting in the booth next to them the whole time. I had waved to one of them earlier and spoken to him at the buffet. They were 2 young gay guys I've seen around town before. They got up to leave and when they passed by me, they waved and very cheerfully said have a nice evening. That was nice of them. I won't forget that.
I don't know what all they had to listen to, but they could tell by the look in my eyes and my glances towards them, I wasn't one of them; like the 2 in the booth next to them. They were wishing she would shut up just like I was.
Out the picture window, I watched the old man and plain Jane stand in the parking lot a long time. She was waiting for some kind of physical contact like a kiss, but a truck pulled up and obstructed my view. A minute later, I saw her little blue car speed off, like she sped away from me before.
I paid my bill, walked to my car, and the old man was still sitting in his truck with the engine running. As I passed by, he was texting someone. I'm certain it wasn't her because I could see her at the light, face forward and lips pursed. Finally. She'd shut up.
Out loud to myself I yelled, If there is a God out there who can hear me, thank you a million times over for letting me just be me. Thank you for not making me your whore!
I save the fortune cookie and wait a few days to open it. You eat the cookie first. Then you read your fortune.
I guess my favorite dish is best served cold. Maybe it's Cole Slaw. Maybe I need to add more vinegar. Cabbage and carrots and sugar, vinegar, and a touch of mayo. I don't know. Maybe I'll try some caraway seeds too.
As long as it's not served with an hour of religious debate, I think it will be perfectly imperfect. That's how I like my Cole Slaw. Messy and perfectly imperfect.
