Of Darkness and Life
At my church we celebrate Maundy Thursday with a dinner, communion, and then a service of Tenebrae, which is quiet, somber service of music, readings and steadily increasing darkness. For this is the night Christians remember the night of betrayal, the Last Supper, the waiting at the Garden of Gethsemane, of the disciples falling asleep while jesus waited alone, praying to be spared what he knows will follow.
The Garden of Gethsemnane sits upon a hill overlooking Jerusalem. When the soldiers and Temple Police, (for it was the keepers of purity in the faith who wanted Christ crucified, it was they who gave Judas his silver) came for him he could see their torches heading his way. There are many ways to disperse and slip away from that mountain, Christ could easily have run away. But he sat there and awaited the crown of thorns, and the slow ashpyxiating death by Crucifiction.
We left in silence with the lights low, but as the air was warm and clear, I decided to drive home slowly rather than hop on I-71.
Just as you enter Clintonville there is a garage in what used to be a music store, and many, many years earler a Model T dealership. They have very cool cars in the window, a Superformance Cobra, and Improved Touring B BMW (the same class I used to race in), two Nobles and an Mustang prepared for Competition in the SCCA class American Sedan.
Every other time I had passed the place was closed up tight as a drum. But I saw a garage door open, so stopped and went in to look. The man at the door greeted me, and when I mentioned that I was in the SCCA the conversations changed. I told him that these days I was solely a corner worker. He told me that he raced go karts. I told him that I'd worked some kart races, but not since I'd been there when a man hit the wall on the front straight of Mid Ohio.
"When was that?"
I thought it was in 2000, or 2001.
"How about 1999?" he asked. I told him that sounded right.
"That was me. I didn't wake up for two months."
I remember that day well. I was working phones at Five when the alert came over the net. A shifter kart--- which are really, really fast-- had gone straight into the wall on the front straight. That wall is made of concrete three feet thick. Karts have no driver protection whatsoever, beyond the driver's helmet, and he was traveling at over 100 MPH at impact.
Helmet to concrete, at over 100 MPH.
I remember the sick sound in control's voice when they dispatched the Ambulance. I remember Ernie's eyes grow wide as I unrolled and displayed the Red Flag, stopping the race. We could see the the ambulance and the medical crews working hthough I was too far away for details. They did not life flight the driver, Rather the ambulance drove slowly out the gate, it's flashing light the only hopeful sign. They don't run the lights and siren for the dead.
We broke immediately for lunch. At lunch we sat together talking about it. I didn't know whether to pray that lived or that he died. I haven't worked a Kart event since.
Six years later upon this night of death and desertion I found myself sharing a beer and bench racing with a man who had no right to be alive. We felt joy at finally meeting.