God Drives a Tow Truck (8 page)

Finally the cab driver slipped back in his seat.

“I’m sorry for the delay. Where are you headed?”
I handed him the slip of paper with the hotel address.

“Do you know where this is?”

He smiled, and nodded, closing his door, which creaked like a dungeon gate.

“I appreciate you waiting while I made the call. See, I just broke up with my girlfriend. Well she broke up with me. AAAIIIIEEEEE!!”

This sudden outburst was even stranger than typed letters could begin to convey. He had been talking in a perfectly normal tone and then suddenly the sound exploded out of him, making me forget the tortuous itching for a second. What the heck was that!?!

But he continued talking as though nothing unusual had happened. I clutched the door handle and looked around. There was no oncoming Mack truck or meteor streaking into his windshield. He seemed completely unaware that he had uttered the inexplicable, heart stopping shriek

“She dumped me after two years, no reason, no explanation, no AAIEEEAWKKKKK!!!!!, but I am trying to get through it.”

I cowered in my seat. How did one respond to a madman? I had never taken a taxi before. Is this what all taxi drivers were like?

“I am so sorry,” I said, “I am sure that is very hard for you.”

He glanced in his mirror at me. “Aaaiwwwwawwww!” he cried, jerking his head. This ejaculation was a little quieter than the preceding ones, but no less strange. I looked around me. We seemed to have left the interstate and were in a residential area, a decrepit neighborhood with overgrown lawns and boarded windows. I knew I was booked in a nice hotel, where the national certification exam would be held. This did not seem like the quickest route there. With growing unease, I realized I was being kidnapped.

I clutched my Bible and breathed a silent prayer.

“If you are real God, then now might be a good time to do something.”

I tried to formulate a plan. Talk to him. Keep him calm. Show compassion.

“I was so kind and good to her, aaaaieeeeeawk!, and look where it got me,” he continued.

“There are many wonderful people in the world,” I said, “I am sure she was not worth it if she would treat your kindness that way.”

He glanced again in the mirror and slowed at a ramshackle house, then pulled into the cracked and broken driveway. Weeds surrounded a rusted old washing machine on the front lawn.

“Do you mind if I just run in the house for a second?”

What does one say to a kidnapper?

“No, of course not,” I said, wishing that those frontal lobe neurons
had
connected before this misbegotten adventure.

With another “AAAAIIEEEEWALK!!!!” and shake of his head, he scurried out of the cab and into the house. I sat there wondering what to do. If I got out and ran, I would be in a strange city with no clue where I was, and the neighborhood we were in was sure to swallow me in violence. This was in the pre-cell phone days, so I had no way of contacting anyone. If I remained there, I was pretty sure I was going to be cut into little pieces and stored in his freezer.

Surprisingly, I felt sorry for him, almost as much as for me. It dawned on me that the strange eruptions of sound were unconscious, and a disability of some sort. I would take my chances with him, I decided and silently prayed that somehow I would come out of this alive. I remained in the cab, trying not to cry. Lord help me. Please help me.

I didn’t have long to ponder the implications of asking for help from a deity I denied. The cab driver emerged from the house carrying a sack. What was in the sack? Oh dear, I was frightened!

“Thanks,” he said, “I need to drop these off and it is right by the hotel I am taking you to. AAAieeeewew!” He started the cab and we drove on. I am still alive, I thought. This has got to be a good sign.

“What kinds of things do you love to do when not driving a cab?” I asked. Keep him talking, keep him talking!

“I love to garden. Aaaaieeewwwweeeeee!”

“So does my mom,” I said, “I can’t grow anything. Everything I touch dies.”

“You have to water it and watch it every day. You have to check for weeds or they choke it- aiieeewweeeeewie- and you have to love it. Plants sense that.”

“Yes,” I said, “My mom would agree with you. I guess I don’t talk to my plants enough. You seem to be a sensitive person. I am sure someone someday will see that and appreciate it.”

“My girlfriend didn’t seem to. Aaaeeeeiaw.”

“But someone will,” I said, “There are many fish in the sea. You shouldn’t settle for anyone that doesn’t value you for who you are.”

He peered at me again, and said, “You are right. I always seem to feel I need to apologize for loving my daisies and my roses. Most people don’t like that in a man.”

“Oh I admire a man that can grow flowers! It is so important to be who you were meant to be.”

“She used to make fun of me.”

“Well she wasn’t very nice then.”

“No,” he said, “I guess she wasn’t.”

I realized I hadn’t heard his strange explosions of sounds in a few minutes.

“Here we are!” he said, “Thank you. I have enjoyed talking with you.”

“Well you are a nice man- don’t let anyone make you feel otherwise. What do I owe you?”

My hand was on the handle as I was about to escape to a freedom I had not loved so desperately as I had in those terrifying moments in the cab. I stepped out into the fresh air, the glorious blue sunshine.

“No charge,” he said smiling at me.

With that, he waved and drove away.

That night I discovered that if I stood in an unbearably hot shower with the stream of water hitting my tortured bottom, the itching (now replaced by third degree burns) would stop for several hours. I stood in the soothing steam and thought of the strange cab driver. I did not thank God that I had not been harmed. I still gave little thought to God, now that I was safe.

But years later, I remembered the cab driver and that strange episode. And I am so grateful to the God who so longed for me to know Him, that He put me in the lion’s den, and then gave a meal for the lion other than me. I had no idea that I was being preserved, but now I realize I was. So
now
I say, “Thank you Lord, for all the protection I never saw; for steering me to trust in you with something so broken and worn as an old taxi and a shattered man.”

Chapter Eleven

Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself

Hebrews 12: 12-14

¹²
Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees.
¹³
“Make level paths for your feet,”
so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.  
¹⁴
Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.

The last person on earth that one might think could teach me about love would be a child with autism, a child without words. Nonetheless, when I think of how to show God’s forgiveness to others, the hand of an autistic child always grips my heart.

I was a pediatric Occupational Therapist for many years, and had a diverse and often difficult case load. My clients included children with severe cerebral palsy, Down’s syndrome, autism, blindness, learning disability, and Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. I struggled with the nagging and ever-present realization that no matter how much I helped every one of these children, I would never
cure
them. That could only be done by God, and much as I wanted to be God in that respect, I would not have wanted His hours.

Much of my work was rewarding and much was heart breaking. A gifted child with severe Cerebral Palsy, with all its cruel ramifications, once asked me, “I pray to God every day to heal me…But He still has not. Why not?”

I blinked back at him, “I don’t know. But don’t stop praying.”

The boy didn’t ask me why he should keep praying, but he seemed disappointed that I could not give him a better answer. So was I.

In another harrowing incident, one of my few adult clients, a blind woman, suddenly dissociated into a multiple personality I had not even known she had. I coped as best as someone completely ignorant of the issues of multiple personalities
could
cope. Then later, I complained angrily to the referring facility that had never told me about the multiple personality issue.

“Why didn’t you tell me!” I raged.

“I was afraid you wouldn’t accept her as a client. And none of her personalities are dangerous. She has had so much struggle in life…we were hoping the personalities would stay put.”

They would have been correct. I would not have taken her on as a client had I known.

I learned that she had been sexually assaulted repeatedly as a helpless, blind child. She had retreated to a fantasy world of split personalities that could disengage her from the hell of her true life. The referring agency had decided that in the low stress environment of my clinic, it was unlikely the personalities would appear, and it was better not to tell me. Perhaps in the end, they were right, as I did treat her for many months. I came to know, and enjoy,
all
her personalities.

One morning, I was particularly rushed and harried, and as I raced to my clinic, my attitude was hardly ideal for greeting one of my more difficult cases. This child with autism was so severely afflicted that his parents had to install steel bars on his windows. Before that precaution, he had splintered them with his hands and tried to leap out through the broken glass.

The light fixture in his room had been removed, as he had ripped it from the ceiling, and was lucky not to have electrocuted himself with the exposed live wires. If left untended for long, he would take his own feces and smear it on the wall. This was the young man I was slated to work with on that day.

The to-do list in the back of my mind nagged at me as I settled Chris onto the equipment I used to help promote better sensory processing. The hallmark of autism is the person has difficulty processing emotional information as easily as most people do, and therefore, the resulting ability to relate to others is severely compromised. He often cannot tolerate any eye contact, and engages in repetitive, ritualistic patterns -- twirling or spinning or verbal repetitions. Chris had never spoken a word that was an appropriate response, though he had some language. In my clinic, after being on the sensory processing equipment, he had for the first time correctly identified and spoken the proper names for a variety of Sesame Street Characters. This small achievement was the first sign of anything hopeful the parents had seen in many years.

As I worked with Chris, trying to help him position himself on the swinging and balancing equipment, he was unusually uncooperative. Even on his best days, he was a trial to me, but on this day, he must have picked up my wandering attention and growing irritability. He was not having a good day. He fought me and moaned, and flung his body around so that I was constantly getting smacked by his flailing head and arms. I was growing increasingly angry and frustrated. He refused to do what I was asking him to do, and my headache was getting worse by the second.

I gritted a smile on my face, and with less than sincere kindness, continued to calmly reposition him. I had found that language did no good, and our sessions were usually conducted in silence. If I spoke too much, he would become quickly over stimulated, throw himself off the equipment, and have massive, frightening tantrums.

My patience, the little I ever had, was finally frazzled to such a thin thread that I snapped. I called out his name angrily, and gripped his wrist much harder than I should have. I knew I was a jerk at that moment, but it didn’t matter. My face had been smacked really hard too many times by his wrenching movements and the swelling bruises and ineffectual attempts to help him had taken its toll.

Chris suddenly stopped, became completely still and looked at me. Then, he reached out and stroked my cheek softly, gazing at me all the while.

I sat there before him, the anger and frustration I had been feeling, diffused like a pin touched to an overfull balloon. With great self loathing and disgust, I released his wrist. He continued to stroke my cheek and look at me. I am not sure I have ever felt more shame, nor more absolute forgiveness than I did at that moment.