In the summer of 1981, I came home from my second year of college to a life I desperately wanted to recognize and befriend. That was it, really. I wanted the friendliness of my life to come back to me. During the Christmas break of that year, the church that had held the entirety of my social life had shattered, and my friends were blown by the winds of that winter and spring into as many different places as there were friends to fly away. Without them, I did not know who I was.
My friends meant, quite simply, the whole of my world. Varsity Crew, the "college and career age" church group, held our futures. We loved each other. We cheered on the church baseball team, and went out to camp together every summer, and spent countless hours in Bible Study and the intense, unending discussions only the young can sustain. And we were all very young. Young, and earnest, and for all of the girls (and some of the guys), eager to find God's Will For Our Lives, and The Right Man (or Woman) to marry.
Naturally, I assumed God's Will for My Life would include someone from that group. Who else did I know? The previous summer, I'd come home from college with a ring. In Tennessee, where the guy was from, this is how it worked. You really really like a girl, you give her your class ring. You decide you love her, she gets a promise ring with an appropriately microscopic diamond in it. You decide to get married, she gets an engagement ring, and then she gets to pick out bridesmaid dresses and find a use for all those index cards she saved from her Marriage and Family college course as she plans the rest of your life together, starting with the perfect wedding. Coming home with KJ's class ring baffled me as much as it flattered me, and one of the best men in the world saved me from my confusion. He could do that because he was a Crime Fighter.
You know the Crime Fighters, right? They are brave and noble and of great purpose. They stand out there in the cruel, cruel world, and they say, "Use the force, Luke," like Obi Wan, and, "I don't know, I'm making this up as I go," and "Bad dates," like Indiana Jones. Crime Fighters might have love interests from time to time, but basically, a Crime Fighter is a loner through and through. In Varsity Crew, there were some guys who were Crime Fighters, and I loved every one of them. I was pretty sure, in fact, that I could be a good Crime Fighter's Wife.
And so, in that first summer, when I came home with a huge class ring from a high school in Knoxville, I told one of the Crime Fighters about the boy who'd given it to me. I told him that I felt - all the time - I felt like I was being smothered in marshmallow creme with this guy. I told him that I had to be careful not to talk to the guy in language he didn't understand. After I had talked and talked, my Crime Fighter decided to stop me. He decided to fight for me.
"Listen," he said. "I don't really want to talk to you about that guy anymore. I can't be a completely dispassionate observer." (Oh really? Why not? The split second's thought flitted in, and roosted contentedly in my heart. Are you God's Will For My Life, Crime Fighter?) "You can't wake up every day for the rest of your life and pretend to be stupider than you are," he said. "You just can't."
I sent back the ring.
I turned my attention to the Crime Fighter. That summer, I was a Crime Fighter's girlfriend. For about two weeks - in August, I think - we were a couple. My sister thought we were made for each other. Varsity Crew wondered if another two of us were about to pair off, and move off in a flurry of lace and tulle, sung into the Young Couples Sunday School group with a wedding song, lighting a new life together with a Unity Candle. And then, all at once, he stopped the whole thing.
We'd been to church together, and he was driving me home. Instead of going to my house, he parked at the edges of the reservoir and turned off the engine. He turned to me, and he took a deep breath, and he did not reach for my hand. And then, in his best Crime Fighter, I'm not joking around, this isn't negotiable voice, he said the words.
"I can't do this."
"What?"
"I can't do this."
"Why not?"
"I just can't."
"I only have three more years of school, and that's not that long. Why can't you wait?" (In someone else's movie, this might have been a question about waiting for sex. In mine, it was a question about all the tulle and lace and the big white Unity Candle.)
"I just can't. I have prayed and prayed about it, and God is not letting me have any peace."
There is no refuting such a statement. That God would be talking directly to my Crime Fighter, I did not question. That the decision had already been made, in close consultation between the Man Who Leads and the Divine Who Directs Him was irrefutable, and I didn't even try.
Instead, with as much bitterness as I felt, I spat out, "Fine."
I could sense him bracing himself, across the front seat, where he sat. Frozen. Completely still.
Without wondering if I were being horrid -- no, hoping I was being horrid, I continued, "I waited this long for someone to hold my hand. I guess I can wait a little longer."
He looked as slapped as I'd hoped. How could he do this to me? How could he be such a good and honest friend, and then start to hold my hand? To hug me just a little bit longer each time? To let everyone else in Varsity Crew know I was a Crime Fighter's girl, and then tell me now that God wouldn't let him be happy about it?
"Take me home."
He did.
And a year later, when I came home from my second year of college, without anyone else's class ring and entering into a new church family, I wondered where my Crime Fighter was now. I wanted him to call me.
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