MY HAIR!
DRAPER’S PAPER ROUTE
MY HAIR!
by Adam Carroll Draper
Do you remember the barn scene in O Brother, Where Art Thou? when they were surrounded in the middle of the night after being betrayed by Cousin Hogwollup? (This was before the Sirens turned Pete into a toad). Other than waking up saying, “My hair!”, the only thing Everett (George Clooney) could bring himself to say in that scene was, “We’re in a tight spot!” Well, after the week I just had with clients going crazy over their bills (or how they were going to get paid by people who owed them), that’s about all I can say, too.
We’re in a tight spot!
One of my clients owns a restaurant. He recently had work done on it, but for some lame reason (like he’s been closed down!), he’s having a problem with cash flow. The contractor who did the work owes several subcontractors for what they did. All these folks have employees who need to get paid. And the banks, who got their share of trillions of dollars (before the funds ran out for all the little guys this week), don’t seem to give a rip about the suggestion that they play nice (I mean, since we bailed them out and all).
A lot of us are feeling like the little Hogwollup (the one who nicked the census man). “Git in, boys; I’m gonna R-U-N-N-O-F-T!”
The client with the restaurant (let’s call him Pete!) was just a little shy of freaked slam the *@#^ out! He had just been served with a suit by a sheriff and was bracing for other such deliveries. This hardly distinguishes him from any number of other American restaurant owners. Where’s the rent? Oh yeah, it’s with the payments for the freezer, and the food, and the phones that aren’t ringing, and the electricity for the lights in a dark building by an empty parking lot.
I don’t know if this is true (because it was reported on a network), but I heard that the death rate models for COVID-19 were revised this week. Now, they are saying that it kills 1 in 1000 people who catch it. I heard that while my client was sitting at home on his couch, waiting for me to get back to him with news of what the lawyers for the folks suing him were saying.
O Brother, Where Art Thou? was set in the depression, if you will recall, which is what called it to my mind this week. Cousin Hogwollup apologized for ratting them out, but he lamented, “We got this here depression going on.” People do desperate things when they are starving.
Remember when Delmar and Everett were in the car they stole (or maybe it was the car they got from Baby Face Nelson)? Delmar is holding a toad in his hand.
“I’m not sure that is Pete,” said Everett.
“Of course, it’s Pete,” Delmar insisted. “Just look at him!”
My client is a Christian. I told him I was going to take my lawyer hat off for a minute and talk to him about the Lord. All I did was remind him that we are here for way more than survival, and that this virus episode is going to pass. We are not going to remember one thing about bills and empty parking lots in heaven. The eternal times will be those when we were “on a mission from God” (sorry for mixing movie metaphors) – those will be moments in glory! The treasure does not end up at the bottom of a lake in Mississippi. What we do for a living is not who we are. Every moment is an opportunity for the Kingdom of God “on earth as it is in heaven” and that mystical encounter happens through us. This is just a moment. How we let love work through us in this moment is the story told in glory. God is love.
When I reminded my client of why we are here, he said all the weight of this mess pulled right up off of him. That was a moment.
The Coronavirus has killed thousands of people. Horror! We can’t begin to know how many deaths would come if we were suddenly reduced to abject poverty in America. It would be worse than the virus. For one, we wouldn’t have the ability to fight viruses. All of this is going on right smack dab in the middle a global power struggle. I don’t know what is really going on (how this pandemic is being used in the game of this world’s thrones) - any more than Delmar and Everett knew what happened to Pete.
When they eventually caught up with him, Delmar said. “We thought you was a toad.”
“They never did turn me into a toad,” said Pete.
“Now, that was our mistake.”
Everett’s “little Wharvey girls” offered an image when they sang to the crowd gathered outside “the Woolsworth.” It think that’s the song I’ll adopt for this moment. “In the highways, in the hedges, in the highways, in the hedges, in the highways, in the hedges I’ll be somewhere workin’ for my Lord!”
If you got anything out of this missive, please give it a thumbs up, comment and/or share it. It helps. I sincerely appreciate that you took the time to read it.