Salvation in the parking lot.

Parked in the CVS lot, talking to Will on the phone, I noticed a man at my window smiling.  The attraction, as always, was Luci.

"I wish all the girls would look at me like that," he said.  "What a sweetheart, what a gentle personality--I bet she reminds you of your husband."  

I gave him the on-the-phone gesture, so he smiled and went inside.

When he came back, he had more to say.  He told me he is raising his 7-year-old granddaughter all by himself.  "Since she was two," he said.  "I mean nobody's life turns out exactly as they expect.  We all have hard times, probably even you," he said.

The phone was on bluetooth.  Maybe he assumed I was waiting for my phantom husband to return from shopping?  Anyway, Will got to hear the whole thing and I could imagine his face: "Houston, we got a story!" 

Especially when he got to this part:

"Where do you go to church, pretty lady?"

"I don't go to a church," I said.

"That's okay," he said.  "Even Jesus didn't like church."

(I considered saying that if Jesus like church in his lifetime, he'd have a hissy fit if he saw what some churches are doing in 2022, like the MAGA people at Cornerstone chanting the obscene anti-Biden chant.)

"It's not about church," he continued--as he handed me a bulletin for his church.  "It's about standing at the foot of the cross." Here he pulled out a wooden cross from his pocket.  "From the Garden of Gethsemane," he said.

"Turn on the radio right now," he said, "and you can hear my preacher preaching.  He's on from 4 to 5.  It will be a blessing."

Here's where I reminded him I was still on the phone, but before he told me he and Buckner Fanning were friends back in the day.

"Bucky was a good man, but he wasn't a saint.  No man is.  We all put on our trousers exactly the same way."

I was curious where this was going, trouser reference and all, but I took his bulletin and said, again, that I was talking on the phone. 

As he walked away, I rolled up my window.  "You can take all the time you want if you need to get saved," Will said. 

"That's okay," I said. "I got all I needed."