Night Shift

After much tearing of clothes and gnashing of teeth, I'm actually, finally, going to Northern California for a short vacation. Headed to Fremont and Garberville. Fremont should be familiar to most of you -- it's Bay-area ish. Garberville is in Humboldt County. My cousin there is a "pharmacist",y which I mean she is actually a pharmacist, perhaps the only legitimate one in the area.

This has been an... interesting 24 hours.

First, my departure time. For whatever reason, I thought it would be a good idea to leave Monday evening. My septagenarian aunt can make the trip to Fremont in one day, but I thought I might need two. The initial "plan" (scare quotes appropriate in this case) was to spend the night around Fresno, spend the day in Yosemite, and the head to Fremont for dinner. But just as plague changed the course of human history, it changed the course of this human's story.

I guess you could say
(•_•) / ( •_•)>⌐■-■ / (⌐■_■)
The trip got off to a bumpy start.

So the " "plan" " became "head up I-5 until you get tired. I had to pull over after an hour because I had to field some questions about O. Henry's use of vocabulary in "The Gift of the Magi". The student is in 9th grade honors English -- but it's pretty tough. Solid vocab chops and a healthy appreciation of puns are needed. I'm actually pretty proud of how I was able to explain, and the student was able to understand, how the author uses beggar as a verb, and why it's funny. Explaining jokes is never a surefooted endeavor, but I managed to not shoot myself in the foot, or put said foot in my mouth, and the mother's offer for compensation for remote tutoring effectively that someone else would foot the bill for the hotel tonight. (O Henry? I don't owe him anything!)

So here's where it gets interesting. I got a text around midnight from the brother of that student indicating he needed help on his first calculus assignment. On that auspicious note I pulled off at Gorman and into a closed McDonalds lot to send off some texts.

A guy approached my car and asked, "Hey, can you roll down the window?"

I stared at him for a good second or two, and obliged.

He then tells me a story about how he and his buddy got stranded on their dirtbikes. I'm glad I checked my cynicism for half a second, because he seemed to be asking for more than a couple bucks for gas. He wanted a ride.

His name was Dante. I suppose a more bemused deity might've sent a Cain.

Now, prior to the trip, I did stop by at the library and picked up some audiobooks. Among the offerings was Malcolm Gladwell's Blink. I didn't take it, because I had read it a few years ago. But I suppose the principles he was outlining were operating, because I said yes before I really had processed anything.

He got in, and we started driving toward a dark, dead-end street, to "meet his friend guarding the bikes". I mentally thought, "Okay, this is going to be interesting."

As it turns out, Dante took over watch duty of the bikes. Ricardo and I ended up driving to their car, which, as it turns out, was about ten miles away over rough roads. It was then that I was able to realize why I had trusted Dante enough to give him a ride. If I'm honest, these were factors:

1. seemed clean-cut, middle-class
2. white
3. offered me money for help
4. I was by myself, and so the direct consequences of robbery/murder would be limited to me.

But perhaps the most important one: he actually had on all the protective gear. Either he was who he said he was, or he was a serial killer particularly committed to playing the part. I respect method actors.

I got to know the two guys a bit. They each have a strong internal locus of control. Ricardo had been in a terrible accident in 2009. A drunk driver had nearly killed him. Doctors warned him against pushing his body too hard, but he found that surfing, dirt biking, and rock climbing were better than Percocet. Ricardo was now a civil engineer for a private water company in Ventura. I knew less about Dante's background, but he had been in the army and had used his navigation skills to help them get out. (Ricardo's bike had started breaking down and a trip that had been planned for five hours turned into a fourteen hour ordeal.)

Through it all they had no fears of dying in the desert, either from biking itself or exposure. They had conserved their water, and had topped off their gas tanks. Before Ricardo's bike had started breaking down, they had been taking trails that involved tight turns exposed to 60-foot drops. Ricardo had tried to jury-rig a solution, but found that the bolt in his shifter had practically fused.

He calmly said, "I knew I wasn't going to die. If we had been trapped overnight, I would've dug a hole to help keep warm." They did have their phones, but had held off from calling 911. (The ranger station had closed at 5pm.)

Ricardo had said that another guy who usually joined them had declined to go today, as a mutual friend had died dirt biking the day before.

I happened to have two peaches in a cooler, and gave it to them. They were grateful. They offered me money again, but I just gave them my card. Somehow, I felt it would be good for me to stay in touch with them.

Hours later, I finally checked into a motel, where I had paid twice as much as I had expected, and where I found WiFi problems that compelled me to squat in the lobby at 5 in the morning. I started whining, furious that I was working on student questions, furious that the blase night receptionist was spraying for roaches in the lobby while I worked, and generally tired and pissed.

Then I thought, goddamn it, Ryan. You don't really pay attention to what goes on around you, do you?