I have a 90 minute drive to the Tucson airport so I'll usually stay at a hotel the night before if I have an early flight. There are a half-dozen within walking distance to the airport and all of 'em are pretty decent and fairly cheap. It's probably the best small airport in the country.

This night I stayed at the one closest - by a matter of feet - to the airport. I checked in, dropped my shit in the room, went immediately to the bar and after a few sips off my drink, went outside for a smoke.

There was a guy dressed in biker attire - tall, beefy, bearded and menacing with a large knife sheathed on his belt. He was wearing a tie-dyed bandana and pacing back and forth uncomfortably beside the only ash-tray. It was difficult not to make eye contact and avoid conversation as we were the only ones outside. He had been there when I initially pulled up and I was pissed off that he was still there, squatting on my smoking territory.

Drinks go by and every time I go to smoke, he's still out there pacing back and forth, seemingly angrier each time. Occasionally he'd come in, get a drink, slam it and go back out to the ashtray. I made conversation with the khaki pants at the bar and watched basketball, all the while hating this fucking guy for being scary and always in my spot.

I tried to time my smokes with the brief moments he came inside. Finally he caught me outside in a moment of small talk.

"Hey. How's it going?"

Then an avalanche of notes from a shitty day poured out of him. He flew in early that day and was supposed to have a ride but the guy didn't show and then his back up ride was out of town and on and on. It all sounded like all the set-up for asking for money.

I asked him where he was going and he said "Bisbee."

When I told him I was from Bisbee myself he almost came off the bench asking if he could get a ride. I told him I was on my way out. He asked about any other way to get to Bisbee but there really aren't any. There's no bus and a taxi will cost you at least 150 bucks. And hitch-hiking at 9:30 pm would be futile - especially when you look like a deranged, escaped convict with a Bowie knife on your hip.

This news of course made him more dis-heartened and I went back inside to my cocktail. As I continued to get drunk and try to chat with business douches, I felt more and more like a dick for blindly hating this guy who was just stranded and needed a ride to a place I live, a place you can't really get to from there.

And in the course of one drink, went from despising this man's existence into deciding that I would simply trust him to take my car to Bisbee on the condition that he pick me up at the airport when I flew home in a few days. What's the worst that could happen? I didn't much like that car anyway.

I tell him he can take my car if he can pick me back up on Sunday but he says he'll already be gone by then - he's just picking up his van in Bisbee to drive it to California before heading back to Washington. I feel better that I made the offer and now don't have to worry about bad judgement in the morning. He says he found a shuttle to Douglas that will drop him off in Bisbee on the way for cheap but it doesn't leave til 9 in the morning. He's happy to have at least that.

Then I see he's walking to the front desk to get a room and I stop him and tell him he's welcome stay in my room - i have two beds and I have to leave at 5 am anyway.

We got a couple drinks and shots and started talking.

He lived in Bisbee but now lived in Spokane. Somehow Alaska came into the conversation and I asked if he knew Chilkoot Charlies - a bar in Anchorage that my bestest of friends run.

Shit yes, he knew it. "I even bought a Girls Gone Wild video just because they filmed it there."

I looked at him for a second to see if he was fucking with me but it was obvious he wasn't.

"Um...  Yeah. That was me."

And after a beat... "I hosted that video."

All of a sudden he remembered me with "holy shit" and it is the only time I have ever been happy to be associated with that shit-burger franchise.

We went back and sat and drank next to the traveling dullards who I had - hours before found comfort in and now hated - seeing myself on the cusp of becoming one with them.

He gave me his name and number when I dragged ass out of the room in the morning and I'll never have a reason to call but it surely twisted my consciousness on what direction I'm going and who the fuck I could turn into on this road.

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