Hold on to Your Seats

Remember the van I was about to rent for my now-defunct trip with Isa? In the negotiations with Mr. Lion Goodman, the owner, we became friendly and when I got to Los Altos I called him for a social visit. We agreed to meet in San Francisco on Friday July 31 at 1 pm. He had a meeting at 2, so that would give us an hour.

The day before, however, I met Mike, my young friend from Santa Rosa, in San Francisco for a day of fun, serendipity and adventure. It was a fabulous day, but by the end I was beat. We must have walked ten hilly miles. To get to San Francisco, I'd taken the Caltrain from Mountain View, the city next to Los Altos, and switched to the BART in Millbrae. On my way back home I was so engrossed in my book that I mis-heard the conductor and, thinking it was the Millbrae stop, jumped off the BART in Daly City. Oh shoot! Well, the next train came along in 15 minutes, so no big deal. Ha. That 15 minutes caused me to miss the Caltrain to Mountain View and the next one was in ONE HOUR. I was so mad at myself! It was after 9 pm, I was so sore and tired and it wasn't easy to make peace with this predicament. Well, at least waiting an hour in Millbrae was better than seedy Daly City. And I had my book. But my mind was jumping to tomorrow, when I'd be meeting Lion Goodman, and I found myself dreading the two-hour-each-way shlep to the city for a one-hour visit. I decided to call him in the morning to cancel.

I got home at 11:30, exhausted. I thought, "I should get the mail" but then didn't want to walk all the way to the mailbox (50 feet). Luckily I overcame that moment of whiney indulgence because in the mail I found a package for me, from Sam. It was a collection of true short stories, compiled from NPR's National Story Project. The moldy, warped and stained condition of the book was a little off-putting. But my trust has no bounds where Sam is concerned.

His note was in the book, sticking out.

So I opened to the spot he'd bookmarked and started reading this firsthand account written by a traveling salesman who, in 1978, picked up a hitch hiker named Ray. Ray seemed down on his luck and in the ensuing days, the salesman bestowed various acts of kindness upon Ray. In turn Ray proved very helpful with the work. On the 4th day, the salesman was rearranging the back of the van when suddenly he heard a loud explosion, followed by the awareness that he was bleeding from his head. He looked up and there was Ray, pointing a gun at him. Three more shots to the head. The salesman had a powerful spiritual experience as he made peace with his impending death. Soon, however, he realized that he wasn't dead, which confounded not only him, but also Ray. "How come you're not dead!!!! You're supposed to be dead! I was trying to kill you! Now what am I going to do???" The salesman suggested "Why don't you take me to the hospital?", which Ray flat-out rejected. "I can't do that! You'll turn me in and I can't go back to prison." Despite the salesman's promises to not turn Ray in, Ray refused. This went on through the night; Ray in conflict about killing the salesman and the salesman trying to not get killed. Finally Ray agreed to take him to the hospital. The salesman agreed to not report him on one condition: that Ray never do anything like this again. Ray agreed. The doctor said the salesman was actually shot twice, both superficially. "You were very lucky." End of story.

Oh My God!!!! With instant, renewed motivation, I knew I had to see Lion Goodman the next day. The following morning I called Sam to find out exactly how he came upon this story. He said he was clearing out the rafters of his new place in Chicago and this book was among a lot of waterlogged, moldy detritus. Later as he was sorting through the junk, he picked up the book, opened it randomly to the middle of some story and let his eyes fall arbitrarily upon a sentence. He was hooked and proceeded to read the whole story. When he read the author's name, he experienced the same flabbergastedness as I did. I'd only mentioned Lion Goodman's name to Sam one time, and that was two months ago.

I decided to drive to Millbrae to catch the BART, instead of taking the Caltrain. My train was at noon and I gave myself plenty of time for traffic and parking. Since Millbrae is the end of the line, the train was sitting there waiting. I boarded and commenced reading my book. The train spent some time under ground and when it surfaced I realized that I'd received a call. It was from Lion. Oh no, I hope he's not canceling! His message said that his meeting was pushed up to 1:30, so if I could get there at 12:30 we'd still have an hour. Otherwise it'll be a short visit. I was so relieved that he wasn't canceling and thought, "That's OK, I can tell this story in 30 minutes." Later I looked at the time and O' Happy Day! I'd gotten to Millbrae so early that the train I took was the 11:35! I strolled into our meeting place at exactly 12:30.

Lion loved the story and we had a nice visit. It's not lost on me that every aspect of Lion's and my infintesimal relationship has had a magical quality: our mutual Goodman-ity, his van playing the pivotal role in keeping me in northern CA (which led to my back-to-back Weird Willits Stories), and now this. Is it all just coincidence?