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“So?” he continued, weaving into the traffic in front of us.
“What does it matter what I think? Obviously, I’m not your target audience.”
“Oh, you’re starting to sound like them now.”
“I liked it. I liked the beat. The organ was interesting. It all flowed together.”
“What about what I said?” he asked, looking at me quickly.
“The whole thing about breaking through the industry—I got that.”
“But?”
“But I just don’t know why you had to bring in the stuff about God.”
“You have a problem with me saying I’m God?”
“I don’t have a problem with it. Like you said the other night, you can say what you want to say. I just don’t think it’s necessary.”
“So, you don’t think the black man is God?”
“No. That’s crazy. God made man. Man can’t be God.”
“Spoken like a true Christian.”
“I’m not hiding behind my religion here. I don’t have to do that,” I said. “I’m not some Bible-toting fanatic.”
“I was about to say, I did notice that you didn’t pray over your food the other night.”
“Very funny.” I sighed. This was where my beliefs seemed to constantly come under the microscope with people. Like I told Kayla, they all wanted me to be one-dimensional—my faith, my life. But sometimes I didn’t pray over meals. And I didn’t care. I wasn’t even sure that it mattered. Sometimes I didn’t want to go to church. And a lot of times I made up silly excuses and flat-out lied to my own parents. I didn’t know if that mattered either. I’d never say any of that aloud, but it was true.
“I didn’t mean to put you on the spot,” Dame said, obviously looking to see if I was affected. And if it had been years ago, I might have been. Then I was overly concerned with how my spiritual path looked to other people—is she saved, isn’t she saved.... But as I got older and it got harder, I decided that me loving the Lord had to be enough. I couldn’t pretend I had the Bible all figured out just because my father’s a pastor. He chose that when he got saved after years of running the street. I was still a work in progress and willing to admit it.
“It’s not that. I just don’t want you to think I’m so small-minded that I can’t even consider your idea of man being God,” I said. “I do question things sometimes. But I believe in one Creator and that’s it.”
“Look, I was raised in the church just like every other kid in Tuscaloosa. And I believe in God, but I think, if people are going to say we’re made in His image, they may as well accept the responsibility that they’re Gods, too. Like, your parents, they made you. So you’re a part of each of them. Right?”
“Yes,” I answered, noticing that it was getting dark outside and looked at my watch to see that it was already 8:30 p.m. Time was rolling fast beneath the wheels of that truck. Evan had meetings and he probably wasn’t home yet. But he’d be looking for me soon. I thought to call, but I was enjoying the conversation and company too much.
“So in a sense, if you’re a part of both of them, then you’re them.”
Dame sounded like a poet reading at one of the poetry readings in the Hay Center at Stillman. Listening to him, it was hard to imagine he was a high school dropout. All of this clearly mattered so much to him.
“I can’t say no to any of that,” I said.
“Now, if we connect that to man, then man should just accept that he’s God and stop claiming he should act ‘godly,’ and just be a god. I think it’s some real bullshit when people say they want to act godly, but they’re just men. If you say you’re a god, you have no choice. Your word is your bond. You’re not the God. You’re God’s son. Still a god.”
I looked at Dame and I knew I was grinning. He was so wrapped up in his ideology, he was now tapping on the steering wheel and getting loud.
“What you laughing at?” he asked, just as I burst out in laughter.
“You’re so serious about this,” I said. “You should’ve seen how intent you were.”
“Hell yeah. I’m trying to build,” he said, laughing now, too.
“Well, that’s very Tupac-narian of you.”
“You know ’Pac?”
