Since being on the road we have encountered many people. We have crossed paths with varied types of individuals. Some have blessed us, some cursed us, even folks have spat at us, even as far as to have had shots fired toward us. There have been those that have gentle souls, individuals that stuck out to us above the rest. Ones that we will remember for the rest of our lives. I try my best to model my actions like theirs since. Katherine and I wish for the day we can pay forward all the blessings people have bestowed upon us forward to others, as we try now to pass along what we can.
Not long before we came to the Pacific Northwest, we were stuck in a little town out in the edge of Colorado for a period just over a month. I say stuck, it was more like halted. You see, the night before my birthday in August of last year, we were driving along the interstate slowly as we were passing nightly road crew work. While coming past the construction site where a large machine was auguring a hole out in the ground, there was a loud bang and we took the next exit off the road to stop at the gas station. It was brightly lit and easy to see immediately something round and about the size of a golf ball had made a hole in our window and completely shattered the glass on the drivers rear window, next to our bed. We returned to the work site, flagged down a worker, informed them of the incident, was told we had to wait for the supervisor. So, we sat there for over two hours on the side of the road, waiting on someone to come address the issue. Finally, a young man showed up, gave us an 800 number to call. As we left and continued down the interstate after leaving the construction site, the window began to fall apart into the bed. It was already almost midnight and now we had a HUGE mess to clean. We spent the next several hours sweeping, vacuuming and picking out glass from our bed; affixed a tarp to the window, and tried to get some rest finally around four am. It felt so nice to be in bed after the entire debacle. At 7 am sharp a very loud and obnoxious pounding startled us awake! It was Walmart auto center demanding we leave since we’d been “camping overnight”. Actually, we’d only been parked a few short hours, but we had to move all our luggage to pack up after only a nap. We drove down to the next Walmart, luckily was only two miles away, but had to move the luggage all again from the bed to the front cab seats to sleep again. It was bright out, closer to the main part of the city, louder and harder to sleep, but we managed. The road construction office finally got back with me about getting an estimate, and they could issue a check for reimbursement or have it repaired. After weeks of searching, there wasn't any company that made replacement window units in the state. So, we decided to go with an auto glass repair shop, the initial shop we chose took the specifics of the window frame and hole, then wouldn’t return my calls or answer the road crew’s emails. The second company we tried, got the check, made a window, only to find out the window has a curvature and the glass pane wouldn’t work. Back to square one, no window replacement was going to work, except a specifically made tinted, tempered, curved glass. Which a tempering place would have to do and would be expensive, more expensive than the road crew company approved for the estimate. We already were behind our schedule by several weeks we decided to order the check instead and drove to Grand Junction to do work and wait on the check. Initially we were told one week. A month went by, we had cleaned two houses, passed out over a hundred business cards, placed two ads, cleaned up one back yard and advertised on craigslist. Grand Junction was beautiful. The people were pretty stay-to-themselves, except one, Brodie. I met Brodie at the laundry mat; I didn’t have enough quarters to finish our clothes. I asked him did he have any extra to spare so I could get it completely dry. He asked a few questions about our situation and I told him about the window and the check. Not sure if he initially believed me, but he did give me a twenty and wished us luck, I gave him a hand written business card “Inside and Out: Home Helpers Basic and Deep cleaning, organization, lawn care, moving cleans, vacation rentals and gardening.” It included our number, which at the time was just an internet text number I had to go to the Library to check a couple times a day. Brodie took the card and I thanked him again for the help. We finished our laundry and went on our way. Thinking, like most folks, we wouldn’t be hearing from him again. One afternoon a week or so later, I had a message saying it was Brodie, we had met at the laundry mat and he had some work for us. We graciously accepted and met him the next day. We cleaned his back yard and worked around his home for the next two days. In return, he not only paid us, but also changed our brakes and rotors (after working the night shift and not sleeping). He went above and beyond for us when he really didn't have to. His kids and ours had a blast together, he fed us all and conversed with us like old friends. It was nice, homey and such a change from what we had been used to experiencing, even in Grand Junction, the few short weeks we had been present. I say that, because one night, we were looking for a campsite out on BLM land (public dispersed camping) and we saw many other campers around. We were tired and eager to settle in for the night, it was a gorgeous night. The sky was clear, thousands of stars could be seen, dark mountains in the distance, the bright moon above the sky and the smell of campfires around from other campers. We were driving slowly on this new terrain, scouting an area to park our camper. We found a spot, started to unload our gear and move the luggage, when we noticed spotlighting. Growing up in the south, that’s no unusual thing on camping or hunting land, so we thought nothing of it. After climbing up on top of the camper to look out at the sky and enjoy the view, I noticed the spotlight shining on me. I thought it a mistake at first, but got down to continue setting up camp. I heard a strange “peew” sound and asked Katherine did she hear it, then I heard it again and saw the spotlight right on our van. It was gunshots! The spot-lighters were shooting at us, and not just twice, numerous times! We rushed around in a frenzy throwing all of our belongings carelessly into the back of the van to high-tail-it out of there and fast! The SUV appeared to be a light coloured Toyota 4-Runner. They were headed out in front of us; we tried to catch up but we couldn’t get a look at their tag. They left us and our camper in the dust; wondering why they shot at us in the first place! Grand Junction was a heck of a town. We met a man named Leroy there too, he was another person that helped us out greatly. He told me a story while having our gas tank filled to the top! He said, “I met a man once, he was carrying a briefcase and said he had been robbed and just needed money to catch a bus to X town to get to a relatives, if I could help him he’d be grateful. I gave him a ride, bought him a ticket and told him to pay it forward. Then about five years later, I was in another state on business, I saw this same man, with the same briefcase. I stopped to ask him how he had been and did he remember me. He infact didn’t remember me and told me he had been robbed and if he could just get to X town to be with relatives he’d be fine.” At the time, I didn’t realise why Leroy was telling me the story. I assured him we were good people, just waiting on this check so we could continue with our original plans to move to Washington. We wanted to leave before it started snowing and were waiting in Grand Junction. It didn’t dawn on me until much later he was telling me to always help, no matter what the story is, he gave the man a ride to the bus station, even the second time, but didn’t buy the ticket, only gave him $5 and said goodbye. Leroy told me it didn’t really matter what my story was, but that people were worth helping no matter what. It’s people like Leroy and Brodie that inspired us not to give up on ourselves. It’s those individuals setting the example for us that led our hearts through that time and enabled us to come a little further down the road.
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Authors:James and Katherine are a transgender couple raising two kids. They were southerners when coming to understand themselves as trans. Ultimately it lead to a nearly three year road trip to find home. Now they are re-housed and still focused on outreach in the transgender community! Archives
October 2020
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