(Tuesday Morning, December 29)
I’m driving over to Andy’s house, sad to be giving up his car. It’s one thing to ride in a 1970 Buick Electra convertible; it is something else all together to commandeer one. Talk about old school. Behind the giant steering wheel, with its loose play and ridiculous turn radius, you can’t decide if you should round up some buddies and go rob a bank or pick up the homecoming queen and drive her around a track.
Today, dressed in a tie, I feel like a character from an old Sinatra movie, on the Vegas Strip, making his way to the Dunes to rough up someone with his brass knuckles.
But, alas, today Andy and I are exchanging cars.
At least that’s what he thinks.
I have waited for this moment all week. Maybe I have waited for this moment my whole life. Some call what is about to happen convergence. Andy calls it the true legacy of exchange. This is the stuff you expect to see only in movies. And now it is happening in my world. How crazy. Before the world began, God showed the angels this whole scene on tape delay, and now it takes place on earth. This is what Andy has waited for all along. He’s been modeling the necessary destination of the very relationship he initiated. He knew that for it to be authentic, someday, in some areas, the student would have to become the teacher. The one being protected would become the protector. This is the life Andy led me into. This is what I have matured into. He’s been working toward this since the day we met! He just didn’t know it would happen like this.
I cannot wait to see the expression on his face.
I have my Oakleys on, the ones with glare-resistant lenses and unbreakable frames. I’ve called ahead, asking him to be outside when I pull up. I’m very, very good, if I do say so myself.
I turn onto his street and spot him off in the distance, standing out front, next to my Mercedes.
Here we go.
I pull up next to the Mercedes, out in the middle of the street. I put the car in park, the engine still running.
He looks at me, confused. “What’s going on?”
We both stare at each other. I say nothing. I just smile and put my right arm on top of the seat. I’m suddenly flooded with a blur of experiences he and I have shared on this amazing ride.
Threatening him at Fenton’s. Driving us up on the hill, blowing smoke rings into the night air. Hearing his voice as the sound track for the scenes below I was starting to see for the first time. Talking me out of my own house, over the phone. Walking me through my first visit to Bo’s. Listening to him describe his business failure. Watching me, in my office, trapping myself. Holding cups of coffee at the marina. Letting go of the wheel, out on the ocean. Confronting my lies after I hurt Lindsey at lunch. Sitting next to him as he bares his soul about his dad. Waking up to him on our doorstep behind shopping bags holding ingredients for his Norwegian streusel.
“Steven?”
I am so excited I can barely say it with a straight face. “Good morning, Andy. Get in.”
He’s taken aback. “What do you mean? Where are we going?”
“We’re going to go see your dad.”
Andy is expressionless.
“You’re going to need these.” I toss him a pair of my Oakleys.
Andy tries to say something to buy time. “Uh, what do you… you mean right now? Because I was going to…”
“Look, I’m pretty sure this car will take us to the places you need to go. But I can’t make you get in.”
“But I thought we were gonna exchange cars today.”
That’s when I give him the answer I’ve rehearsed all week long. “I can’t, Andy. At least not on your terms. So are you getting in, or am I gonna buy you a pound of coffee and send you on your way?”
Ka ching.
He looks at me a long time. Then he looks down, his hands in his pockets, gently kicking at the ground. The exchange is taking place, only now in reverse. Like a boomerang, what Andy threw out as a gift has finally found its way back to him.
Then he looks up at me, almost smiling.
“You’re good. You’re very good. All right, Steven, let’s go see my dad.”
Go figure. Andy is letting me protect him.
Andy reaches in to open the door with the inside handle. He puts on my Oakleys and sits down in the passenger seat. He runs his hands along the seat, and then sits back as far as he can, settling in for a ride down the coast.
He pulls out a cigar and begins to unwrap it. “Do you mind if I smoke?” he asks.
“Yes, I do.” I don’t, really. I’ve just wanted the chance to say that for so long.
I caught him off guard, just as I’d hoped. He answers quickly. “Oh, yes, well, sure. Sorry.” He puts the cigar back into his shirt and continues, “You’re right. I’ve been trying to quit. I really am going to quit.”
And with that the giant Electra convertible rumbles its way out of his neighborhood.
Two prodigals, with vastly different journeys, are together again, finding their way back home.