I was going to write about how I just saw an awesome movie, Memento. Howerver, that story will have to wait for another day.
I was driving home from Jacob’s house in Hyde Park (where I watched said movie) and I was going along 275 to take the reed hartman exit. I saw a broken down car on the left side of the road, and a fellow walking along the right. Putting two and two together, I stopped next to the guy and asked him if he wanted a ride or to make a cell phone call or something. I must confess that, in keeping with my manner of doing things, I did not think at all before doing this. It was shortly after midnight and here I was stopping to pick up some stranger walking along 275, who I assumed had just come from the broken down car, although I could not be sure of this.
He was in his mid 20’s, stocky, and wearing a Tool t-shirt. He looked a little panicked as he looked back at me, stopped for a bit, and before I had time to fully freak out and hit the gas, he said ’sure, I could use a ride.’ At this point I was a little scared; what if this dude was some kind of rapist-murderer? I wanted to ask him ‘you’re not gonna rape me or anything, are you?’ but I figured that might be kind of rude. He asked If I could just drive him to the nearest exit, and I said ’sure,’ since I was getting off at that exit anyhow. He tried unsucessfully to make a call and when I got to the exit I asked where he’d like me to take him exactly, since I didn’t see any point in just dropping him off at the side of the road. He asked if there was a gas station nearby, and i told him the only thing near here was a krogers, so I took him and dropped him off there. I drew him a little map explaining where he was in relation to 275 and I-75, so he could get directions. He said he was from Middletown and he was going to get someone to come pick him up.
I said goodbye and started to drive home, thinking about that dude’s situation. I then wished I would have offered him a ride home. I knew he’d have to make a call and hope someone could come pick him up and then wait 45 minutes for them to arrive, and if they got lost he wouldn’t have a cell phone to get ahold of them or anything. Right as I pulled up to my house, I knew what I had to do, so I drove back to krogers and told the guy I was going to drive him home. He had just gotten off the phone with someone and looked like he was about to cry. He asked if I was sure, and i told him I didn’t feel like going to bed yet anyhow.
After I bought a candy bar (they were 4 for a dollar!) we got in my car and I headed for the freeway. “My name is Mark,” I told him. “What’s your name? What’s your life story? What are you all about?”
“I’ll just start with some recent history,” said Kevin. He was driving home from his girlfriend’s house in Amelia. He had just gotten himself a new job working for Best Buy’s Geek squad, and now his car had died. He was pretty bummed out about it. I asked him to explain what happened with his car, and it sounded to me like perhaps it was a tie rod gone bad. I don’t know a lot about cars, but that’s happened to me before so I offered it up as a possible problem.
I told him what I was all about, and then we talked about video games for a while. He had even heard of my favorite game ever, Kid Chameleon for Sega Genesis. We talked about jobs and about life. I asked him if he was a religious man, and he said he’d just been pondering the same thing himself. He said he was not religious, so much as spiritual. I told him that I was raised religious but on account of a lot of thinking I decided I didn’t believe any of it anymore. That said, I told him, I had observed religious people to be in possesion of a faith that things would generally work out. I told him it was my opinion that this faith is a very important thing. Because, ultimately, things do work out for us. Maybe not the way we plan them to and not the way we’d like and not the way we’d expect, but they work out all right in the end. Worrying about what’s going to happen to you doesn’t do much to make things better or worse, except for to contribute to your stress levels, and nobody really needs that. Hang on to that faith, I told him. I know there’s no evidence that things will always work out OK, and that beleiving “everything will be OK” is as arbitrary as believing in God, the Easter Bunny, or even a world outside of our minds. That doesn’t matter, though. It’s irrelevant whether the belief is true or based on anything other than wishful thinking; If you beleive it, you will be much happier.
I dropped him off, and he thanked me, saying ‘hey, maybe we’ll run into each other again.’ I had to admit that would be pretty sweet. He gave me somewhat sketchy directions on how to get back to I-75, but I didn’t care because I was feeling adventurous. I drove along trenton-franklin road, and the moon peered at me through a cover of fog that rolled in from the corn fields to the left, coming to an abrupt stop at the picket fence between me and the haunting woods on my right. Normally, in such situations, my mind conjures up all kinds of frightening images. “I’m the craziest person out here,” I told myself, and It was true so I wasn’t afraid. After following this meandering road for about 5 miles, I came to “the bridge with some lions” that Kevin told me about. From here it was another two or so miles before I was on I 75, driving the 19 miles south to my exit.
I have never felt so alive as the moment when I got on that freeway. I had just done this guy a great favor, and I’d enjoyed doing so. Nobody ever told a story about that time they watched a movie and then went home to go to bed.