Jesus Christ is a part of this story, but not in the way you might think. I am not celebrating a birthday today. I am celebrating my ability to be a quiet presence in the pre-dawn hours for my kids while in the presence of my father, who I despise.

When I left Montana in August for my desperate adventure, it was because I had grown to despise an entire town. Their son/brother/father was gone, but his father and family had a pedigree I slowly came to realize warranted the term I had started using: black royalty. How could a “woke” town like Missoula NOT rage at the injustice of what even the COVER story alleged in Sean’s death?

How should a bibliophile putting wheels on his library feel about THE book where the only collection of stories that should matter is housed? Let me put it this way: shuffle played RJD2’s song, The Evening Gospel, and then JUST selected Jim Morrison from American Prayer. This happens to me all the time.

Does Jim Morrison mention Texas in the track I’m listening to right now? Yes, of course. Did the road trip book I wrote examine my obsession with Jim Morrison along the way, including Texas, where Sean’s family lives? Yes, it did. And did my oldest receive the gift of Jim Morrison’s 6 albums from his Mom for Christmas earlier this morning? Uh-huh.

When I met Sean’s family, in Texas, a story from my own spiritual canon came up in conversation, and that story is Watership Down. When I walked into my parents house two days ago, my little girl was watching the latest version of Watership Down for the screen. I sat down and we watched the ending together.

I’ll be leaving soon, for how long I’m not sure, and not being in their presence will be hard. But I need to go. It’s not a library on wheels yet, it’s a transit truck. I DID invest in a nice, big magnet with Sean smiling next to Salma Hayek, along with the address to HERE, so not just a truck, but a mobile billboard asking a question I’ve been asking for way too fucking long.

And Jesus? The father of the man who died homeless in Missoula is a scholar of the Shroud of Turin. Dr. Kenneth Stevenson has written books about it, and they are in my collection, tucked away in one of 45 boxes in a box truck sitting outside in single digit weather. 

I am almost ready to go.