damonjustisntfunny.com

Ben and I are both good guys but good guys in different ways. Ben is the kind of guy who will stop in the middle of a dump to help somebody clean up their disturbed lint collection. I’m the kind of guy who can look the most ignorant backwards egotistical obnoxious person in the face and display kindness and affection while maintaining peace and composure. Of course, after the fact, both of us are bitter and sore about it and love to complain about our painful interactions with humanity. Although, to be fair, when someone has absolutely no excuse for being entirely clueless my patience is no where to be found and Ben must reign in my sarcasm with a front end loader. So what it comes down to, in the end, is: I like old people and children, Ben can deal with the middle-aged, and, overall, Ben is simply a better person than I am. I am good person only when it is convenient for me.

Case in point: distressed motorists asking bike touring boys for help.

It went like this:

“Hey! Can you give us a hand? I need a little help.”

Of the two of us, I was the one who actually stopped first, but only because Ben was out of ear shot. I was trailing the appropriate distance behind him in order to maintain a speed below fifty-five miles per hour.

“Certainly,” I said, “what seems to be the matter on this fine day and how might I be of assistance?”

“I locked my keys in my truck; do you have a crowbar?”

Now, it is important that you remember the following: Ben and I are bike touring. We are on bikes. Bicycles. Two little wheels and a frame with a small amount of gear attached to it. We don’t even have separate stems to our shaving razor. Ben is only using one contact lens which he has carefully cut in half. Carrying a crow bar is not happening — we might as well be towing an RV behind us.

I was about to respond, with such an astute comment, but then I saw an array of tiny sticks wedged into the truck’s corner window: I stared at the man in disbelief. Not long enough to become obvious, but long enough for me to allow the surrounding wilderness and wildlife to register the insanity of his question.

Then I said:

“No. No, as a matter of choice: I never carry a crowbar while I am drinking electrolyte mix. So, sorry: no crow bar here. But: I do have a 230 gram bicycle multi-tool.”

I said this because it was the only thing I could think of in the moment and because that is exactly how much the multi-tool weighs. And because I couldn’t let a comic moment like this one pass. A crowbar! Are you kidding me!? No, here, I’ve got something even better: a two-ton jack and a winch! Why don’t the two of you hop in the bed of the truck and I can pull you up Mount Rainier on my bicycle! Fool!

Ben pulled up beside me.

“What seems to be the problem?”

I think he gets stuff like that from his brief and incomplete medical training. I immediately wished we hadn’t stopped because, in my minds eye, I could see this going very wrong very fast. Any moment he was going to offer that we could carry them to the other side of Mount Rainier on our bikes or, even worse, back to Seattle. Any moment and he would offer us to stay and watch over the truck while they took our bikes to the nearest body-shop. Any moment he would engage in some terribly good deed and it would infuriate me to no end.

“Locked my keys in the car. You guys got any tools we could use?”

I was holding the multi-tool, carefully rolling it in my soft hands, and looking at Ben, pleading with him silently to make the right decision, to just say: sorry, there is really nothing we can do to help. But instead, Ben nodded to the multi-tool and I handed it over. I was like a young child witnessing a crime and abetting the criminal.

The man stood at the car door with the multi-tool, turning it over in his hands, looking at the tiny hex wrench and screwdriver while Ben and I propped up our bikes and unhooked our helmets.

“This isn’t going to work,” he said and, gratefully, he handed me back the multi-tool, “got anything we can feed in the window here and pull them keys out with?”

The keys were sitting on the seat of the car, in plain sight, where the third passenger would have sat. His girlfriend stood away from the car, embarrassed by the incompetence of man. I smiled at her.

“Get the extra brake cable,” Ben said.

I took it out and even then I couldn’t believe what I was doing. The keys were a good three feet from either window and we had a three foot piece of brake cable that as about as stiff as spit. But I handed it over anyway. I was functioning outside of my own body, at that point, and incapable of making any more rational decisions. I was silent, motionless, sitting in the eye of the hurricane.

After a moment of waving the limp noodle around aimlessly the idea was given up quickly — thankfully and obviously. But then something much worse happens: a new idea was hatched.

“Maybe we can bend the metal of the side window enough to slide our hand in.”

The events unfolded in my psyche before they manifested themselves in real life. Both Ben and the man grabbed hold of the triangular window and applied considerable force.

I watched myself turn away.

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