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that we’ve gained.
    The Preacher was given to such pronouncements, grave and matter-of-fact. It was not always clear what the Preacher’s meaning was, yet you did not doubt that the Preacher knew.
    You will come back to us? Brother?
    Of course I will come back to you, Brother. In my heart I will not depart.
    The collection of $362 was divided between them—Reverend Tindall and the Preacher who was known to the Reverend as Chester Cash.
    In the alley beside the asphalt-sided church the Preacher’s van was parked.
    The van was dark as an undersea creature. Even its windows were dark-tinted. On the roof of the van was a wooden cross painted a luminous white and secured with ropes and on this was written in crimson block letters
     
    T
    H
    E
    CHURCH OF ABIDING HOPE
 
    U
    S
    A
     
    The van was a 2000 Chrysler minivan and its chassis dented and scarified but it appeared to have been recently painted. It had been recently painted in some haste for there were smears of iridescent dark-purple paint on several of the windows like fingerprints.
    From the threshold of the Church of Abiding Hope, you could see the van parked in the alley. But you could not see into the van for the windows were tinted.
    It must have been that the Preacher had no family remaining in Detroit for he had not sought them out and did not seem to wish to speak of them now. When Reverend Tindall asked after the Preacher’s mother, the Preacher glanced downward and replied in a murmur—Weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.
    Reverend Tindall asked after the Preacher’s ten-year-old son who’d accompanied the Preacher to the Church of Abiding Hope the previous spring.
    The Preacher frowned as if trying to recall this son. As if just perceptibly startled by the question.
    Nostradamus has chosen another pathway, it seems. He has gone to live with his mother and her people in the Upper Peninsula.
    A fine boy, Reverend Tindall said. You had said, your son would follow you into your ministry?
    He was but a child then. He has not put aside childish ways. And he dwells now among Philistines—it is his choice.
    The Preacher spoke sadly yet not without a shiver, a twitching of whiskered jaws, as if the memory of a young son’s betrayal were fresh to him, and painful.
    Reverend Tindall seemed about to ask another question about the lost son but then thought better of it. For the Preacher was breathing quickly and stroking his whiskered jaws unsmiling.
    By His light, the Preacher said in a lowered and quavering voice, I walked through darkness.
    Brother, Amen!—Reverend Tindall clamped the Preacher on his shoulder.
    Because the Preacher was a frugal man, and chose to spend his money solely on necessities, he lived in the minivan much of the time when he was
in transit
. In the van he kept clothes, books and documents, a miniature kerosene stove, canned food. It was a part of the Preacher’s ministry to visit small churches across the country and to deliver guest sermons where he was welcomed. Abiding Hope is a family, the Preacher said. We are brothers and sisters in Christ. We are one, inside our skins. Everywhere, we recognize one another.
    As he stood on the threshold of the little asphalt-sided church on Labrosse Street, Detroit, speaking with Reverend Tindall in the early evening of April 12, 2006, the Preacher glanced at the van parked in the alley a few yards away. His deep-socketed eyes encircled the van. Clearly there was something about the van, its very stillness, its iridescent-purple chassis and the surprise of the luminous white cross secured to its roof, that riveted his attention.
    Brother, are you sure you can’t stay the night? Or at least have supper with us?—Reverend Tindall seemed disappointed. His glaucoma-dimmed eyes blinked and blurred.
    The Preacher thanked him kindly. The Preacher had now the keys to his van in his hand. With a wide smile the Preacher explained that he was bound for the West Coast, for