It’s 9 AM, Easter Sunday. At the gate of the Star Auto Rebuilders & Parts junkyard at 61st and State three dogs sprawl on a ratty blue sofa, poking at a piece of rancid meat. Stuff spills out of the yard onto the sidewalk–a kitchen sink, an old tricycle, pieces of rope, hubcaps. A man knocks on the window of a rusted old Chevy in front of the yard, and the two men sleeping inside wake up.
“There ain’t no cigarettes here.”
A metal wall that stretches along State from 61st almost to 63rd obscures most of the yard. It’s covered with slogans, mostly in yellow and white paint: We BUY cars. Come Here for Auto Parts. “We Believe” God, in blue paint with a cross painted underneath. A small wooden cross hangs on a door in the wall. Above it, in bright red paint, is Rev. Barclay, Pastor. Under it is “We BUY all $.” Barclay’s gray wood and paperboard podium sits in the front of the yard year-round, propped up against the metal wall. On Sundays it moves into the driveway outside the yard.
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By 10 AM several of the men who’ve been hanging around the yard have swept and washed down the area around Barclay’s podium and have set out 20 chairs. “They usually have it ready when I get here,” Barclay says, “but everybody’s probably putting on their Easter best.”
“I can’t hear you!”
“God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and our God, we thank you for this beautiful Easter morning,” says Barclay from the podium. “God has permitted us to be gathered once again on this consecrated spot. Forgive us for being tardy this morning, for starting late. You said that where two or three are gathered in your name, thou art there. It’s not just in the church. God’s in our hearts, God’s in our homes, God’s in our junkyards. Wherever we go, God is there. We thank you for the open door. We thank you for allowing us almost four years to be outside here. Even in the snow.”
