yesterday at center city collision i talked with a customer named lindell speed. he's a young african-american guy who drives a grand prix or grand am or one of those grand whatevers. he listens to twista and outkast and has a sony xplod subwoofer in his trunk. he wears a black cap with an embroidered skeleton hand on it giving the "ok" sign and sports a trimed beard and glasses. he's had to come in more than once as problems resulting from a previous wreck surface over time.

we sit around in the office waiting. since i'm the only one at the shop, we have to wait for pat to get back from lunch so i can drive lindell home while pat works on his car. somehow we get to talking about where i live and he asks me, "so it's like mtv cribs?!" he's obviously joking but also curious. we get to talking about house church and he asks if we're "like Jehovah's Witnesses or something?" "ya'll go door to door and stuff?" no not really, i tell him. we talk a bit about how church is the Body, wherever that might be - not just a building or a time of week.

pat gets back with his lunch so get in lindell's car to back it into the garage. this is hard in a two-lane, two-way street right next to a stop light. i take it slow and hold up traffic, lurching and angling into the garage. twista thumps in the trunk. i get out. "you get scared?" i ask him smiling. "you drive like a grandma man!" we all laugh. it's hard backing into a garage on a two way street. you try it.

i take lindell home in my car. as we near his house we see the mail jeep. "man, we got a late-ass mailman!" complains lindell. "mailmen be late in black neighborhoods, they on c.p. time." he proceeds to inform me that c.p. stands for "colored people." we pull up to his house and i drop him off as he gets out he says, "thanks my man." "alright," i say, "we'll look for you around five."