BUS STORY # 114 (White Horse)

I’ve seen the guy sitting across from me once before. I remember we got off at the same stop at University Hospital. We both headed into the UNM campus, but a block in, he took a left and I a right.

Today, we're on the ride back home.

He’s got a Sam Elliott look, with finer features and a slighter build. Gray hair, a fine gray moustache, both full and neatly trimmed. He’s wearing a long-sleeve shirt patterned with small gray and green squares. He’s got on light gray slacks, brown dress shoes. On his head is a black baseball cap with the outline of a horse in white and some blue and white script on the front: White Horse Media. He’s reading a book whose cover is obscured by his hand.

There’s another rider sitting immediately to his right, facing forward. He’s wearing cut-off jeans, a black sleeveless sweatshirt, and a blue bandanna headband. He’s dreadlocked, and his skin is multicultural. He leans forward and says, “I was wondering about your hat. Are you in the media business?”

The first rider tells him White Horse Media is a Christian organization. The white horse comes from Revelations, and has to do with the Second Coming.

(Later, I will google “White Horse Media” and learn this is a fundamentalist Christian “media ministry” out of Fresno, California. The name does indeed come from one of the better known lines from Revelations, “ . . .behold, a white horse . . . ” For 15 bucks plus shipping, I can order myself one of those caps in either firm fit or soft. I think my co-rider was wearing the soft.)

The second rider makes a couple more inquiries, trying to draw the first rider out on the subject of his beliefs. Then he sits back a bit and says, “Well, I was raised a Catholic, but . . . ”

My ears perk up. Usually, when someone opens a discussion of his or her religious beliefs with “I was raised Catholic but,” the listener is in for an interesting ride.

He does not disappoint. He spins out a wonderful confabulation of fractured Catholicism, Neo-Buddhism, New Age gnosticism, UFO lore, and sub-atomic particle theory, all packed into one creatively rolled spiritual spliff.

Throughout, the first rider sits with an attentive, thoughtful expression, and doesn’t say more than a couple of words. The second rider wraps up his discourse standing in the unlikely pulpit of the rear exit stairwell while the driver waits for him to actually exit. He finally does, and the first rider wishes him good luck.

When the back doors close, he shifts his face to mine. I see the faintest trace of an amused smile before he looks back down at his book and resumes his reading.