Good Friday—Bobby McGee

Psalm 22

My piano business had gotten to the point of needing a truck. At home, there was a landscape project that was going to entail hauling sand, stone, and brick. I had rented trucks in the past, but that could get expensive. The classifieds were out of my price range. At the store, the clerk was talking about the $50.00 car she was driving. I asked if she knew of a truck like that. She thought her dad might. I gave her my phone number.

Two days later, I was looking at one of the poorest excuses for a truck ever. The grill was missing, only rusted edges remained. It had only one headlight. The engine came from an old Catalina; the transmission was a 3-speed, floor shifter from a Camaro. The wood floor bed was rotted.  The Naugahyde seat was split; an old rug salvaged from the garbage covered it. There were holes in the floorboards, and the extension on the shift lever unscrewed if you weren’t careful shifting into second gear. Neither the radio nor the speedometer worked. The odometer read 188000, but that was the engine that came with the truck, not the one from the Catalina. Aside from that, all the gauges worked; fuel, temperature, oil pressure, and alternator.

The owner guaranteed that if you headed for California tomorrow, it would make the trip. He thought it might even get you back again. How much was I willing to pay?

“$150.00,” I said with as much force as I could muster.

I hoped he would say no. Instead, he said, “I was hoping for $100.00 more, but I’ll tell you what. Are you a betting man?”

“I might be,” I responded. “What are we wagering?”

“Well, I’ll tell you. If we dicker around for awhile, you’re going to pay more than you want and I’m still going to get less. I was thinking that we would flip for it. If I win, I get $250.00. If you win, you pay $150.00. Does that sound fair?”

I really didn’t want to pay $250.00, but there was a chance. “Sure, let’s flip for it. I’ve got a quarter, I’ll let you flip.”

The coin spun in the air, he caught it and turned it over. “You’re a happy man today,” he said as he put my quarter in his pocket. I wrote the check on the hood of my first truck. I wouldn’t know for several days just how happy I was. Twenty-eight years later, the truck is gone, but that engine still runs.

Prayer

Lord, from the cross we must look as disreputable as my old truck. Yet in your care there is life. May we continue by your grace to walk with you in peace. Amen