I walked out of the Jefferson County Jail squinting like a possum caught in a flashlight, holding my belongings in a bag, blinking at the sky as if it owed me money. And there was Brandon, grinning.
Brandon was my driver. He was also the leader of my morning Bible study. Both jobs involve getting a man from where he is to where he needs to be, and both go better if somebody brings coffee.
I had not seen the sun in forty-five days. Brandon’s smile was brighter than the sun I had been missing. The sun seemed a little jealous. I could tell by the clouds.
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.
Brandon also bought me a vape and a drink. I am just being honest. This is a captain’s log, not a brochure.
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.
I wrote Brandon a public thank-you in this log. Public thank-yous are like tossing a message in a bottle off the side of the ship. You do not expect a reply. He wrote back.
Greetings Brother, Hey man, I’m glad to see you’re doing well, man I appreciate the very kind words. I do my best to try to keep my smile infectious, and make sure that the way I’m treating others and the way people see me carrying myself goes a long way into people’s being able to heal.
He keeps his smile infectious on purpose. It is not an accident of personality. It is a discipline. I have decided many things in my life. I have carried out about a third of them.
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.
There it is. Even though you’re kinda old. Haha. The single most accurate sentence anyone has ever written about me.
He also mentioned my “larger-than-ever containable personality.” I want that on my tombstone. Here lies JC. Larger than ever containable. The State of Alabama tried.
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 by the time you read this.
If you have a friend like Brandon, call him today. If you do not, maybe God is calling you to be one. Somebody is walking out of a dark place right now, squinting at the sun, hoping to see a friendly face.
“Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye do.”
1 Thessalonians 5:11 (KJV)
— JC
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