The Angel of Joshua Tree

There I sat, in a lawn chair outside of a broken down vehicle, 136 miles from home, and in the middle of the desert. It was 104º out and I couldn't wipe the grin off my face. You know that grin of "What else could possibly go wrong? And then you just have to laugh?" 6:34pm on a Friday afternoon in a small desert town known as Joshua Tree… Not the ideal place to break down. I'll back up and tell you how I arrived in this situation.

Anyone who knows me knows that Joshua Tree is always on my mind. It's a place of peace, tranquility, and answers. Well I was in the market for a little of that. Lately I've been feeling a little bit like a victim of circumstances. I've been in that mindset that the earthquake doesn't happen around me but specifically to me. It's been a very big year for me, a lot has changed and I guess I can now admit I'm not so good at change. I've had this question on my mind the last few weeks; "What am I doing?"

Two days ago my long time friend Kelly called me, she told me that she was feeling ennui and needed to go on an adventure. The next thing she said is what sparked my interest; "Do you want to go to Joshua Tree?" Of course this peaked my interest. I thought it out and told myself, "That is where you will find you answers."

I guess you could say I was looking to go on a spiritual journey. I don't know how many of you believe in this sort of thing but if you've ever woken up from a dream that felt so real you couldn't shake it, you've been on a spiritual journey yourself.

On our way to the desert there was so much traffic. I'll admit I was being extremely bitter and negative. When I pulled up next to the cause of the traffic, a broken down car on the free way and a tow truck loading the car up, I whispered to myself, "You jackass, learn how to drive and you won't slow us all down." This is the part of the story I want you to come back to and learn from my mistakes.

So here I am one mile from the entrance to the Joshua Tree park entrance when our car goes haywire. I pulled into a gas station to water down an over heated vehicle. After sitting there a few minutes I noticed a tiny river trailing behind the car. I dropped down to push up position to see the water pouring out of the coolant tank… WOMP WOMP

Kelly started to call local mechanics but like I previously mentioned this was after 6 PM on a Friday in the middle of the desert. We were out of options. The town of Joshua Tree (houses excluded) is about a quarter of a mile long. So obviously we have limited mechanic, tow truck, rental car, and motel options… to put it lightly, we were screwed.

So I guess this is the point in the story that brings us back to where I started…. Sitting in a lawn chair in the desert heat scrolling through my phone to find a friend who likes me enough to drive 136 miles to get me and then 136 miles back. I can feel my wallet decreasing as I think of the money it will take to rent a car when my friends can't make it, I pay for a tow truck to take the car to a local mechanic, parts and labor, the ride back out to the desert to pick up the car up, and of course gas money on the way home. I'm smiling on the outside, on the inside, I'm screaming.

This is the part where everything changed. A black mustang pulled up and rolled the window down. The driver said something to me but I couldn't hear him very well over the rumbling of the car and the simple fact that I was being so jaded and not paying him the time of day. The driver had long hair (like myself) and well, I just did the same thing to him that anyone does to a longhaired guy like me. Because I couldn't hear him very well he pulled over in front of our car and got out. "Great." I thought, "Now I get to deal with this guy on top of everything else." He asked me what the trouble was and I explained that we had already had a mechanic drive over and look at it and we knew what the problem was. Then he asked me "Are you a pretty good judge of character?" (This question would come back to me.) To which I replied, "Yea I am and the mechanic seemed trustworthy." He then asked me if I had triple A. I told him that I didn't and at this point I was still worried about my own situation and ignoring the fact that someone had taken time out of their day to try to help me, cynical me, I assumed he was just bored or nosey. He took a few looks around and examined the situation before saying, "Man this is going to set my whole day back… but I've got you covered." He pulled out his phone and called triple A and told them that he was broken down on the side of the road, he was the one driving the car, and that he was going to have his friends ride back to LA with the car. He hung up the phone and looked at me and said, "Don't worry man you guys just got hooked up."

My jaw was dropped in absolute disbelief. I stuck my hand out to shake his and say "Thank you" when I realized I had not even introduced myself. As I embarrassingly made my first introduction to the man who possibly just saved my life I said, "How can I ever thank you or repay you?" He introduced himself to me and told me his story. As it turns out our protagonist, Tarran, wasn't even from the town of Joshua Tree, he was just passing through. Tarran was supposed to meet a girl on his way to Mexico but she bailed on the trip last minute. That's when he saw us across the street and decided to see if he could lend a hand. This next part is what really pulled at my heart strings… the reason Tarran was on his way to Mexico was because in the trunk of his car he had two motorcycle parts he purchased for a local down there who could neither find or afford those parts to fix his bike. Tarran just decided to buy them and take them down to give, not sell, give the parts to the man out of love for humanity. Here I was ready to curse out a car broken down on the highway earlier that day (refer to my above mistakes) when this saint pulled up out of thin air to show me that good people do still exist and to unknowingly point out the error of my ways.

The tow truck wouldn't arrive for 3 more hours and they insisted that Tarran must be present to prove that the tow was for him and to show his AAA membership. Instead of complaining about us wasting his time, Tarran drove us up the street a mile to a small café for dinner and would you believe he even tried to buy our meal (we insisted otherwise of course). By the time the tow truck arrived we all said our goodbyes and the final thing Tarran said to me was "Hey man, I thought I came down here today to meet a girl, but it turns out I came here today to make a new friend. You don't owe me a thing, just pay it forward."

Tarran, I'm talking to you now, what you don't know about me is that my mother died this last year after a long struggle with cancer. She was a very private lady and so she did not want a funeral, she did not want flowers sent to the house, and she didn't want any kind of memorials. Her last dying wish was that you find someone (a stranger) to do something nice for and actually do it. You flipped my whole script that day brother. You restored my faith in humanity. You asked me if I was a good judge of character and I was so jaded that I thought I was. I misjudged you so terribly and you proved me wrong that day. I was in tears on the way home in the tow truck thinking of the nightmare that you saved me from just by finding a stranger and doing something nice for them. I thank you and I know my mom thanks you too. You are a life long friend.