Doored

I am seventeen years old, living in Ottawa, the capital of Canada, and working as a tour guide. In my mind I hustle harder than most because the job relies on tips and I learn quickly exactly where to put in the effort to get the cash. I learn to profile groups of tourists, I get good at predicting what they will like but remain nimble in the moment, reading their body language, elongating the stories they are into and moving on from the ones that aren’t connecting. I “go the extra mile” to “make the extra dollar” because I am young and think of myself as poor, and planning to go to school without getting into debt. 

I have been learning to trust myself, I’ve been burned by friends (ah high school). My family suffered a series of health issues that left me, the eldest son, a bit on my own at times. I grew up Roman Catholic in a culture heavy on guilt-shame-and sin, thankfully my whole family has moved on from that theological posture. My favourite high school class is history where we mostly learn about a series of evil men committing vile acts of power.  I’m in the process of growing pretty cynical about the world, about how we hurt each other, how power is often used with belligerence. 

I am a typical middle class white kid in Gatineau. 

Unlike a few co-workers I never eat out. I don’t mean rarely, I mean never. I tend to buy used clothes—in fact, one time when I worked at a big book store and was taking a coffee and smoke break out back someone threw money into my coffee cup believing me to be homeless—to say I was frugal is to put it generously. 

There were precisely two ways I would spend money back then, on my Girlfriend and on my bicycle. The bike was a cheap way to get around, it was my ticket to freedom, I could go anywhere, and I could run red lights. I don’t know if you will remember this but at seventeen most boys feel indestructible, and they can have powerful legs, good stamina, I didn’t appreciate all that for what it was at the time. 

One day I was flying down Colonel By drive, a beautiful long winding urban road along a canal, with very few stoplights, which means that one could really pick up steam. There was a healthy shoulder to the road and so when approaching a red light a bike could keep on rolling, quickly passing many cars that were going to have to wait a few cycles before they could cross the intersection. It was a beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky, I was seventeen and on top of the world. 

I was laughing at the suckers in cars when she opened the rear passenger door to jump out. 

If you are keeping up, that door, the rear passenger side door, was directly in my path. 

Moving full speed, still too far from the light to even have my hands on the brake levers, I smacked into that door before she even got a leg out of the car. 

The bike came to a complete stop, my body did not. 

I flew over the door, I must have done a flip in the air, and I landed on my back. 

Maybe it was the fact of being seventeen, 

maybe it was the adrenaline in the moment, 

maybe it was the premonition of something I would have to work on throughout my adult life, 

but I felt zero pain, only anger. 

I jumped up off the road so fast you would think it was on fire. 

I instantly had a raging speech ready.

I was going to yell at whoever had done this to me, they were going to pay for the bike repairs, they were going to feel bad. 

So, full of hate I spin around to confront whatever dastardly villain of a car-culture person has done this to me.

All of this, mind you, is happening lightning fast, like the light has not even changed yet. 

Then I see her. 

She is standing there, terror in her eyes, tears flowing, blubbering everywhere. I am not sure I have ever seen another person with such instant and total remorse in my life—and I am pastor to whom many offer confessions!

The anger immediately melts away. 

It would be like being mad at the kitten playing with the toilet paper in the ad because you wanted to blow your nose. 

I end up consoling her. 

Maybe that is where I started to be a pastor. 

For sure it is the moment I realized that a lot of the pain people cause each other is not on purpose and while we do not always control what happens in our lives we can control our reactions. 

FYI

There is something called the “dutch reach” it is meant to help drivers avoid mooring people here is how it works:

Here’s how it goes, every single time you step out:

– Reach across with your far hand

– Let your body turn toward the road

– Check your mirror and look over your shoulder

• Crack the door slowly, then step out