Pay It Forward
In the late summer of 2006, I was a novice cyclist. I lived in Middletown, Connecticut, at the time. Early one evening, I headed out for a ride. I made my way west through Middlefield into Meriden, my hometown, and across to the Chamberlain Highway on Meriden’s west side. I intended to ride north through Kensington, then east through Berlin and East Berlin, and back into Middletown by way of Cromwell. Intended.
Less than a half-mile up the Chamberlain Highway, my rear tire went flat. I panicked momentarily. Then I collected my wits and took inventory. I had a spare tube, along with the CO2 cartridge required to inflate it and the CO2 gun to fit over the valve in the new tube, thereby permitting the pressurized CO2 to flow into the new tube. I also had my inexperience.
As a result of that inexperience, I’d neglected to note the hour of my departure, the fact that it would be dark by the time I got home, and to bring my trifocals. I wore only non-prescription sunglasses. Though I managed to get the rear wheel off, I soon realized the dimming light, the dark lenses I wore, and my blurred vision would make the rest of the job dicey.
Sure enough. After I’d managed to get the tire off the rim, the old tube out, and the new tube in, largely by feel, it came time to inflate the new tube. I put the CO2 cartridge into the gun, got the gun over the valve as well as I could, and pulled the trigger: PPPPFFFFTTTTT!!!!
The gun was empty. The tube was still flat.
Swearing loudly (there was no one there to hear) and pulling my phone from the pouch under my saddle, I called my brother, Keith, who lived in Meriden at the time. No answer. I lived alone. I had no one else to call.
It was official. I was stranded.
The Darkest Hour is Just Before …
As I sat in the grass on the side of the road, facing north and wondering what the hell I was going to do, I became aware of brightening lights illuminating the scene from the south. As I looked up, a van pulled to the side of the road. The passenger window slid down. The woman in the driver’s seat said, “Do you need help?”
I got up, approached the van, rested my elbows on the door, and peered in. I said, “I’m stuck here.” I told her the story and where I lived.
“Do you want a ride home? We’re headed home, too, and we live right in East Berlin.”
I looked left into the back seat of the van. Two young boys were strapped in car seats, each playing a video game.
“You don’t even know me,” I said. “You have no reason to believe you can trust me with you or your sons. Doesn’t that strike you as potentially dangerous?”
“You have an honest face. You have a trustworthy voice. And I’m going to call my husband and let him know what I’m doing and where we’re going.”
“Please call him before I get in. If he’s okay with your giving me a ride, please keep him on the line. I’d like him to know you’re safe the entire way, and I’d like to be able to speak with him.”
She did. I threw my bike in the back of her van. I told her my name. She told me her name was Suzanne, and we headed for Middletown, both of us talking with her husband the whole way.
Among Us Will Be Angels
When we arrived at my home, I pulled my bike out of Suzanne’s van and asked her to wait a moment while I ran in to get a business card. Coming back out with the card, I handed it to her and said, “All of my contact information is on here. If there’s ever anything I can do for you or your husband to repay your kindness — anything — please don’t hesitate for a moment to let me know.”
With a gentle smile, Suzanne said only, “Pay it forward.”
Then she, her sons, and their van dissolved into the night like Big Joe and Phantom 309.
