What Happens in Indy

An impromptu social experiment gone well

On May 17th, Lucy and I road tripped three hours to Indianapolis and watched our Chicago Sky take on the Indiana Fever in their WNBA season opener.

As much as I’d love to tell you more about the game—the A+ concession options at Gainbridge Fieldhouse, the butt-whooping 35-point loss, the ruthless Fever fans who tested the limits of my spiritual growth—I’ve come to learn that the reason that brings us to places is rarely the fun part of the story. Rather the fun part is the unexpected pit stop along the way, the places and people you never saw coming. This story is no exception.

After the game, Lucy surprised me with a proposal: “Wanna get some ice cream?”

Twist my arm why don’t ya! We navigated the ten-minute walk to Howdy Homemade Ice Cream, a spot that came recommended by Lucy’s Hoosier friend. We stepped inside its pink and bright blue confines. To our delight, only two teen girls stood in line ahead of us. All four of us studied the display freezer of flavors.

Lucy went with her usual Cookies ‘n Cream (which was disguised in blue dye and rebranded as “Cookie Nom’ster”). After mild indecisiveness, I landed on the salty-sweet, buttery masterpiece that is Cookie Dough. A man dug out our baseball-sized scoops and relayed our order to his 6’5ish colleague at the register. You could tell the two had a mentor-mentee relationship, the tall guy seeking guidance and reassurance from the ice cream scooper as he rung us up. We’d later learn that Howdy Homemade Ice Cream shares this mission: We're on a relentless pursuit to create jobs for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities through the power of our smiles and amazing ice cream.

Lucy and I plopped down at a table outside the shop, a desolate area removed from the buzzing city. Few pedestrians. So quiet you could hear the banter of wind gusts and tree branches. We shoveled into our single scoops like gold miners, pausing only for Lucy to capture the moment on her iPhone:

“That’s cute,” a high-pitched, raspy voice sounded around the corner. “I took a similar picture of my friend twenty years ago.”

This woman was vintage, sporting short gray hair and an embroidered vest decked with humanitarian pins as she carried a single item. Not a smartphone—a rotisserie chicken.

Donya, we’d come to learn, was a proud local of Indianapolis. The friend who Donya had photographed two decades prior (which, in hindsight, is quite remarkable…how did we even take impromptu photos in the 2000s? Did everyone just walk around with a disposable camera and rotisserie chicken in their hands?)—her friend had since been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis.

“I haven’t seen her in a while,” Donya lamented. “I don’t really hang out with friends one-on-one anymore. It’s either a big group thing, or I do stuff on my own.”

Donya placed her rotisserie chicken on a ledge and inquired about our story. We shared our Chicago roots and WNBA fandom, and how we were doctoring our grievances with ice cream after a particularly bad loss to the home team.

“I attended a Fever game on Youth Day,” Donya said. “The tickets were cheap so I just went alone.” I pictured Donya surrounded by thousands of sugar-high kids, screaming the roof off Gainbridge Fieldhouse.

“I love children so it was perfect.” Donya added how she had taught her grandson how to do a behind-the-back pass (which, also in hindsight, is WILD. An 80-year-old throwing a behind-the-back pass without throwing out her back?!). “He told me his other grandma doesn’t play basketball with him,” Donya smirked.

A trio of men ambled down the sidewalk, two in matching purple T-shirts—a 20-something-year-old and a 40-something-year-old—and a man in a brown robe who appeared smushed somewhere between the two generations. In typical Donya fashion, she sparked conversation with the strangers.

“Oh you’re with the Franciscans,” she barked at the men, referring to the Catholic religious order inspired by St. Francis of Assisi.

“You know about that?” The robed man smiled, his dimples converging into his brown, bushy beard as he slowed down and joined our little sidewalk communion.

From there, Father Michael—a Capuchin Franciscan priest—told us about the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage commencing in Indianapolis the next day. A cross-country trek spanning over three thousand miles and concluding in Los Angeles. As participants parade across state lines, someone will hold an Olympic-torch-like shaft, atop of which is a metallic sun-shaped structure. Google tells me this is called a monstrance, and it contains Jesus in the Eucharist (for my Hebrew school grads out there: Eucharist is the presence of Jesus in the appearance of challah and Manischewitz). Along the way, the group of twenty-four “perpetual pilgrims” will stop in host towns where thousands of locals will fangirl over them (think: like a band on tour, except replace raunchy concert venues with dioceses and holy sites).

“I’ll only be on part of the pilgrimage,” Father Michael said. “But Stephen is doing the whole thing.” He pointed to the younger of the two purple-shirted men. A blonde, smiley guy with a defined jawline and an unblemished face. If there was ever a Catholic-themed Ken doll, Stephen would be the prototype.

“So how do you know each other?” Father Michael asked me and Lucy, as he examined Donya, who had sparked conversation with Catholic Ken and his older counterpart. Lucy and I glanced at each other, contemplating how to field the question.

“We just met five minutes ago.” I responded. The three of us laughed, as we understood the magic perspiring in that moment. Three Franciscans, two female lovers, and a Donya had come together. We had very little in common beyond the fact that we all happened to be on Alabama Street at 6:10 PM on Saturday, May 17, 2025.

“How can we follow your pilgrimage? Is there a social media account?” I asked.

Father Michael handed us a “business card” that contained my stepmom’s favorite and least favorite things: Jesus and a QR code. The latter led to the official website of the National Eucharistic Revival (which also has an Instagram account with over 100K followers—Jesus is an influencer!).

“Do you have someone I can pray for while I’m walking?” Father Michael gazed at us, not rushing our silence, as Donya talked the ears off the purple shirts in the background. My eyes landed back on Lucy’s, and that’s when I noticed the tears. Little droplets sparkling around her pupils. Not ugly cry material, but the cusp of a cry reserved for when you’re overcome by something beautiful.

“Hillel.” The word left my mouth before I could overthink the fact that my friend’s husband’s name was the Jewish-equivalent to the name Christian. Was it kosher to ask a Catholic priest to pray for an orthodox Jew? Did I just sin? I filled the half-second void. “He recently began cancer treatment.”

“Do you know what stage it is?” Father Michael’s eyes met mine.

“No,” I did not. And I had no intention of texting my friend—on Shabbat nonetheless—and trying to explain this precise scene to her.

“I will pray for him.” Father Michael’s words floated in the warm breeze. I will pray for him. Lucy and I stared at each other, smiling and teary-eyed, as our empty ice cream cups sat between us. Sweet fullness.

After ten magical minutes, our human Chex Mix dispersed from Alabama Street. Lucy and I drove back to Chicago; Donya (hopefully) refrigerated her rotisserie chicken, and Father Michael and his fellow purple-shirted pilgrims would trek to Joliet, Illinois the next day.

I have come to terms with the fact that this was a classic example of the Uber Driver Effect—a soulful connection with strangers for a finite time that concludes with no expectation of seeing each other ever, ever again. This I have accepted to be true. It’s been over a month since our six paths crossed in Indy, and we’ve already spread hundreds of miles apart, our life’s decision trees diverging further and further away each day. But what hasn’t left me over the course of these six weeks is the hopeful feeling that whatever may divide us on the outside—sports fandom, ice cream flavors, politics, religion, miles, time—these layers will never tear apart the inner fabric that connects us, our humanness.