5:30-40 a.m., 9/1/16

The black road, slate-gray sky and deep green trees by the side of the road were split by the onrushing headlights as we walked away from the rain-sodden waterfront in the wake of a sheet-lightning storm. I carried a cardboard box flat against the rain that had abated. Columbine Joe pushed his bike.

“You know I converted Malcolm [a black dude] to Libertarianism. For me, Libertarianism is part and parcel of the Anabaptist creed. I’m no Lutheran. Luther wasn’t my man. Catholicism and the Eastern Orthodox Church made great concessions to paganism, preserved iconography, sanctified transubstantiation! Really? You know I was going to write a novel about a Catholic vampire. I mean, if you had a vampire he’d be Catholic, right? And what he’d really wants is to get a hold of some of Jesus’ blood so he could become a super vampire and take down other vampires…an idea not well received by my Christian friends was that.

“I’m still amazed that I’ve got a black guy thinking libertarian, that taxation is theft, the income tax is slavery and believing in the Non-Aggression Principal! I gather you don’t believe in the Non-Aggression Principal. It is fundamental to Christianity and libertarianism. That doesn’t make things easy, especially when Protestantism becomes secularized. I mean, you’ve got to give it to the hybrid pagan Churches—Catholic and Orthodox—for keeping Islam at bay.

“We need more principled, gun-owning Christian libertarians. This atheist libertarian has been busting my balls about Christianity being anti-science just because he believes in evolution which is a farcical theory that leads to all kinds of irrational leaps. Sir Isaac Newton wrote more on Theology than science. Now the Christian-Scientists, that’s another whole thing—I don’t even know what that woman was thinking when she came up with that.

“I’m a science-fiction fan—big reader—but do not believe in the possibility of faster than light travel or alien life. This is it. The evolutionists believe in alien life only because it is the logical conclusion of their erroneous belief system. Come on, it’s like Bigfoot. Show me a corpse and then I’ll believe. Show me a radio message fro aliens. People make fun of Thomas—the whole doubting Thomas thing—but I’d have to see the holes in Jesus’ hands too. This is it: all life in the universe is on this planet. We’re living the miracle and as Jesus said, the stars do not determine our fate—which brings to mind Christians who follow horoscopes—cognitive dissonance exemplified. This is my turn, Brother—later.”

Off he went along the marsh-side drive as I continued down the boulevard.