Mountain Brook police arrested me at home the first time. I spent one night in the Mountain Brook jail and was released. My second arrest was near the Cahaba Heights Chevron, now Grab and Go. The “go” part took five nights in Mountain Brook jail before my transfer to the Jefferson County Jail.
One of the jailkeepers told me everybody called him O. That was the only name I knew. After those five nights, O took me out to the back patio behind the Mountain Brook Police Station. A police car was parked there. I sat outside for about an hour, unsure where they were taking me. Behind the station were these big electrical units, or what looked like electrical units to me. They seemed to buzz. It felt like sitting on the deck of a large ship, with the engines running and no idea where it was headed.
In the distance, a woman in black was walking from car to car. She kept far enough away that I could never be sure. I thought it might be Linda, who helped me organize gatherings at Olexa’s in Mountain Brook Village. I wondered if she was praying for me. She might have been someone else entirely. I still think about her.
Another officer drove me from Mountain Brook to the Jefferson County Jail. I still did not know why they were transferring me.
On July 17, 2026, after forty-five days in jail, I walked out of the Jefferson County Jail squinting like a possum caught in a flashlight, holding my belongings in a bag and blinking at the sky as if it owed me money.
That was the day I met Brandon. He worked for Montgomery Behavioral Health and was there to drive me there. He would go on to lead my morning Bible study. Both jobs go better if somebody brings coffee.
After all that time inside, Brandon’s smile was brighter than the sun. I had never seen him before.
Our first stop was Kentucky Fried Chicken. After the bologna and the egg I ate shell and all, that first bite did something to me. I believe I heard a choir. It may have been the Colonel himself, singing from glory in a white suit.
Then he drove me to Montgomery Behavioral Health. We laughed the whole way. My face hurt from smiling, which was a new kind of pain that summer, and a welcome one.
Our friendship was built on what I call the 5:30 Club. We got up. We mopped the floor. We made coffee. We smoked. Then we read the Bible together. You will not find that order of worship in any hymnal. But by the time we opened the Word, the floor was clean, the coffee was hot, and our hearts were ready.
It is hard to feel too important with a mop in your hand. Jesus washed feet. We washed floors. Same department, same Boss.
A real friend mops the floor beside you at 5:30 in the morning, day after day, and does not complain about it. Much.
Brandon wrote:
JC, you yourself were an inspiration to me just from the musical taste and your zeal for life… You, my friend, were a great example of someone who can come out of a dark place and take it step-by-step and rise up. I know Jesus isn’t through with you, even though you’re kinda old Haha.
He closed by saying he loved me and that he was subscribed to WeRockTV. So now I have a subscriber with a perfect attendance record at 5:30 a.m. The pressure is considerable. He has seen me without coffee.
Here is what got me. I wrote about Brandon because I saw something extraordinary in his ordinary kindness. All that time, he says, he was looking at me and seeing something too. I did not know. I was mostly focused on not crying into my coffee and keeping the mop moving.
Sometimes we think we are carrying the light, and somebody else has been carrying it for us. Sometimes it is the other way around. That is fellowship. That is grace going in both directions at once, like traffic on a two-lane road where everybody is waving.
Brandon, thank you. For the chicken, the laughs, every 5:30 morning, and the reminder that Jesus is not finished with either one of us. I will try to keep my smile infectious, though mine is more of a mild rash compared to yours. And I accept the part about being kinda old. I will be kinda older soon enough.
— JC
“Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye do.” — 1 Thessalonians 5:11 (KJV)
