Hitching through the rural USA? No matter what you believe, the bible might just save your life.

Once upon a time in the year 2000, I became acquainted with the magical power of the bible to rouse superstitious respect in even the most ill-intentioned denizens of rural America. It is probably not an exaggeration to say that the 'good book' saved my life - even though I was totally a non-believer in the one true god as described in this book. Here is the story of how that happened.

A little background:

Some months after the Battle in Seattle, and well before the Green Scare really got going, I was living out of a backpack in the Pacific Northwest. Most of my meals came from dumpsters, what little money I had came from selling art on the street, and I was generally a stereotypically-unwashed green anarchist.

This old polaroid should give you an idea of how I looked at the time. Sorry for the low-quality ... this was the only pic I could find from that year. (all other post images from pixabay.)

One day, I was approached by a kindly old woman of the sort who regularly attempts to convince wayward street people to find Jesus. She sat down on a park bench next to me and told me that god had specifically told her to tell me to get a bible. "The kind with the red letters in it," she insisted. Having grown up with parents who were evangelical Christian musicians until I was about 13, it didn't seem too strange that this woman claimed to be talking to god. And since bibles are free - and easier to come by than square meals when you're poor - I decided to humor this well-intentioned lady, get one of these books, and stick it in my backpack.

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A couple of weeks later:

Word came through that every tree around an old-growth treesit in which a friend of mine was living had been logged. So a small crew of us made our way down to a Bureau of Land Management office in southern Oregon to protest against this dangerous and legally questionable event. We made the local news, but (as usual) did not make any sort of real difference. After the protest, a few of us carefully made our way into the national forest, brought supplies and letters to the tree-sitter, and got some letters from him to take back to the outside world.

Three of us stayed the night in what was called a stealth camp, which basically consisted of a supply-cache and camouflaged shelter used to offer logistical support to an environmental action like a treesit. I did not know the people I camped with (Bob and Alice, for the purposes of this story) very well at all. But our shared purpose and mutual acquaintances made it easy enough to trust each other. Alice was a seasoned activist and traveler, while Bob was somewhat less experienced than either Alice or I with this sort of thing. We all got along okay.

As having cars parked nearby would have defeated the purpose of stealth camping, we had to hitch out of the forest the next day. It was cold and rainy when we hiked down to the road to start our day's journey. After walking a couple of miles with no luck getting a ride, a pickup truck pulled over to help us on our way.

It was quite a ride.

We were happy to climb into the back of this truck. It was covered, so we were out of the rain, and contained only a couple of fishing poles and tackle boxes, so there was plenty of space for us and our packs.

Our satisfaction became dismay as this truck picked up speed. With Metallica's Master of Puppets at maximum volume, we found ourselves doing better than fifty miles an hour on a winding mountain road which was barely visible through day's steady rain. Then we noticed that the driver and his passenger were chugging beers - putting these down at a rate of about one per two miles - and discarding their empties on the floor or out the window.

What could we do? Essentially trapped in a metal box and unable to communicate due to the overwhelmingly loud noise happening in this box, the best we could manage was to hold on. After several unnerving miles, the truck began to slow down. But not because its driver had decided to operate the vehicle in a more responsible manner.

That's when things got weird.

Our ride slowed just enough to make a turn off the two-lane paved road we had been on. As this was the only road out of the forest, we had no idea where we were being taken. A couple of minutes later, the truck pulled to a stop in a secluded area of forest. Alice and I - having both had to deal with terrible rides before then - steeled ourselves for violence while driver and passenger exited the vehicle and came around to open the pickup bed. Although there were three of us and two of them, they looked big and tough, and Bob seemed oblivious to the situation's gravity. Plus, we were cornered. In other words:

It did not look good.

At this point, a funny idea came to me. I whispered as much to Alice, and she kept her traveller's knife hidden just in case my idea worked.

Our hosts regarded us warily for a moment after opening the back of the truck. The driver, taking the lead, gruffly asked, "are you all environmentalists?" A few loud heartbeats passed.

Alice asked them carefully, "why did you stop?"

"He asked you a question! Are you people en-vi-row-mentalists?" the passenger demanded with slow and deliberate menace.

His manner snapped the scene into focus. I recalled that our protest the day before had made the local news. And that logging was the economic lifeblood of many small towns near our location. It didn't matter that mudslides from clearcut mountainsides were killing all of the salmon. Or that more tax money was spent to facilitate the destruction of these ancient forests than any company made from the timber sales targeted by our protests. These things did not matter at all to the men who had us. To them, environmentalists were the enemy, and they had probably sought us out deliberately in order to cause trouble for us.

Of course, I didn't say any of these things aloud. Nor did I panic, surprisingly enough. Instead, I smiled real big, unflinchingly met the driver's eyes, and said, "no sir, I'm a preacher."

I could see disbelief in their faces, which was better the uncomplicated certainty and anger that had been there before I spoke up.

"You're a what?"

"A preacher. Or minister, you could say," I proceeded confidently. "But that's not usually what I call myself. I just find wayward souls wherever I can and try to bring 'em back to Jesus. Save 'em how ever I can. You'd be amazed at how many troubled kids join up with environmentalist types and have never even heard the Good Word."

At that point, I theatrically pulled my recently-acquired bible from my pack.

This was as far as my idea had gotten. I held the book in front of me like a talisman for a second, but that clearly wasn't going to convince these two that my desperate lie was gospel truth. So I opened the book to a random page with red letters on it - knowing full well that Jesus' words did not promote violence like many of this book's other passages - and started doing my best impersonation of an impassioned small town pastor.

The whole thing freaked our captors out pretty good. They weren't about to let us go on the strength of my brief performance, but they also didn't want to proceed with whatever horrid plans had been made for us now that their god might be watching.

Driver took the initiative, snatched the book from my hands, and said, "All right. If you're really a preacher, then prove it."

"How do you want me to do that?"

"What's the fifth book of the bible?"

"Old or new testament?"

"Both!"

For the next fifteen minutes, these men peppered me with questions in a biblical trivia contest whose stakes were bizarrely high. My feigned smile became genuine as years of childhood Sunday school paid off. When they ran out of questions, I suggested that surely god had brought us together on that day for a reason, and asked if there was anything either of them really needed to talk about and pray on.

They both looked ashamed, then. They got back in the truck, brought us back to the main road, and dropped us off, with a farewell consisting of: "you all just be careful out here."

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Half an hour later, we got a nice long ride to a big small town with an elderly couple in a station wagon. Then we used all of our money to go out for pancakes.

The end.