Peter is such a loser. L-O-S-E-R. Looooooooser! Can’t even stay awake one hour while Jesus is off having a little bit of a breakdown, or an existential crisis, or a moment of completely human negative foreboding. Depends on how you look at it, I guess. Anyway, the point is that Peter can’t even keep his lids up for a stinkin’ hour. Every year the question comes up, “Can you keep watch with me for one hour?” and over at the Great Temple, we are all like “ok, sure” and I am all like “ok, sure” and I sign up for the 4am slot.
Every Good Friday at 4am, I awake with a start and say “Holy Shit! I’m supposed to be at the Great Temple RIGHT NOW!” Loser. Loooooooooser. This morning I filled two travel mugs with coffee, put ice in one so I could chug it, and jumped in the bucket to get to the GT for at least half my time. The fact that there are always two people signed up means that someone always knows that I am late. Someone in addition to Jesus, of course.
It’s a hell of a thing to be late at 4:00 in the morning on your day off of work. But there I sat, late, in the darkened temple. The nice thing was that I was no longer in a rush. If the meaning of life is to enjoy the passage of time, it helps when time is pretty much all you have. Eventually, my time was up but I stuck around a little longer to not short the hour too much and because I was not done with my ritual. The other thing keeping me in my seat was the knowledge that I had a run planned right after, and I was feeling lazy.
Leaving the Great Temple, I felt the stillness of the village welcome me. Loud pipes would not have been welcome, but rubber soles were just fine. It was so early even Starbucks was closed, but I climbed the viaduct anyway and proceeded toward downtown. The only other people around were the cooks getting bacon stockpiled for later in the morning and cops getting their shift done so that they could go eat bacon. In the spirit of the day, I said a little prayer for the cops and the cooks and the hobos on the street. My route made a sloppy cross over the center of town before taking me to the top of the mountain, where my views from the ridge line were both east and west. Various clumps of light in the distance made me wonder what was going on out there. Running beside some condos, I speculated that their views must be fabulous. Then I wondered why I was paying more attention to the condos than the view which I could darn well see for myself.
Descending beside Altamont’s old reservoir (the one y’uns could go back to using if you are tired of using ours), I passed the first home which my Sweet Lady and I shared. There were new houses in the neighborhood, as well as houses I had forgotten were there. Eventually, I found my way back to the viaduct and noted that the traffic was now more thick and the Starbucks was open. Orange light was smudged across the eastern sky, and as I got my Komodo Dragon, I decided it looked like a nice day for a mountain bike ride.
Three hours later, I was in the parking lot getting ready to ride when a shaggy mutt wanted to let me know he was claiming my turf. Although I did avoid being peed on directly, I am ever more strongly in favor of leash laws. Undaunted, I surged forth into the woods prepared to climb to the crest of the northern ridge. This accomplished, I descended through gushing creeks to the valley road so as to climb once again, on the south side this time. A final descent brought me along one of those trails that is so much fun to ride that it is what I imagine surfing must be like. I stopped for a brief chat with some boys from the Valley of Love and Delight who espied my VLD jersey. The trail then forded the same creek thrice in order to get back to the car (along which I had to hustle in order to go back to the Temple.)
Late again. Unshowered. Unshaved. In Chacos. I was worried until I saw that the Dude was wearing Merrills under his cassock and the SubDude had on Keens. This is my kind of town. When those two carried in the cross, I wondered how the SubDude’s T5 was holding up. I also figured it was doing much better than a back that had been whipped with a cat-o-nine tails all night long. (I’m talking about Jesus, not the Republican National Committee, in case you did not get that.)
Second ritual down, I decided not to stick around for the Anglo-Catholic fest that was to follow. 3 plus hours of exercise and no real meal had made me a bit light on my feet. I stopped by SwIngles for a Tombstone and some ginger ale. Having done things in the correct order (run, then eat) I felt entitled to go whole hog. So to speak. Being a vegetarian means no actual hog. Just cheese. But you understood from the start that it was a figure of speech.
So today ends in darkness. For the first disciples, it was the darkness of the impossible having come to pass: Jesus’ death. For me it was the darkness of a family room with the blinds closed against the mid-day sun as I watched the Denzel Washington / John Travolta version of “The Taking of Pelham 123.” Most days, between me and Jesus, I think he wins. This is the one day I’m fairly sure I made out better.