ZAPPED!

I hope your last memorial day was more fun than mine. Freshly employed but still broke after months of frustration in the Suburbs of West Palm Beach, FL, I helped a friend move on to better things and was struck by lightning as a reward.

I spent the morning helping Bo move his things from storage to his new apartment by the sea. It was every bit as nice as it was when I last saw it. It is in a small neighborhood of nice little apartments on Oleander street. The ocean breezes were still blowing and the place was cool inside. Outside, another grapefruit had fallen in the back yard. We got all of his things there in three 1970 VW van trips. Bo was even more amazed than I was by all the things we could stuff into it. There was plenty of space in the first and third runs, and if all of his things had come from storage we could have made it in two trips. I took advantage of my visit to wash my clothes. They have not been so clean since I moved down there and had to use a laundromat. A normal washing machine did much better. It was fun to help him move his things into such a nice place, and even nicer knowing that Lauren is on the way for him. Bo had done very well for himself. Palm Beach proper is a wonderful place and a person can live there without a car. He had to make his easy bike ride to work around three, and I was forced to go back to the land of the lowriders.

My clutch cable failed on the way and I spent the next four hours getting home. All I had was two maxed out credit cards, one expired AAA card and two bank cards that could access all of $40. I got good and dirty inspecting the damage. Without money or friends, the plan was to walk home and bike my way to spare parts and back to the van which could be fixed before dark. Surely, the thing would be stolen or vandalized in the night.

It was a fierce for the three of four mile walk. On the way, I thought of possible hardware fixes. Several came to mind, and my pride swelled at my self reliance. Feeling good about things, I decided to jog. The jog lasted about fifteen minutes under the south Florida sun. About half way there I spied a water fountain and filled up. Five minutes latter it started to rain, and it did not stop until I got home a little after five.

The car shops were, of course, all closed, but I could get some riggings from the Home Depot. I called them last and found out they would be open till six. My earlier experience with steel cables on bicycles and shelves was coming in handy, but I was pinched for time. One of my neighbors was home and I asked him for a ride.

It was a wild ride. He had just put a buzz on of some sort, and was a little upset by my timing. His driving was good enough. A car pulled out in front of him and he was enraged. "That's why I don't carry a gun in the car anymore! I just love to pull him over and pump a cap into that asshole." I told him that I could not help but pull in front of people because the van does not go fast enough. He told me not to pull out in front of him, because he might kill me. "I'll be going 70 MPH down the street, and these assholes will pull out right in front of me. Do they think I'm gonna be able to stop?!" He ranted about what an asshole the land lord is and raved about this and that all the way to the van. It was difficult to avoid pissing him off, but I did. He wrote his number down and told me to call him if I could not make the thing go. I was more determined than ever to make it work.

The repair job was a filthy and terrifying ordeal. I had pulled the van over right before an overpass on a small highway called Australian Ave. The rain was still pouring down, other cars were zooming by at 50 to 70 MPH, and my emergency flashers did not work. The wind from the passing cars rocked the van back and fourth. A little river rolled down the overpass and under my back. After ten minutes of fooling with the emergency lights, I put on the running lights and crawled under to where the broken cable was. I had bought $12 worth of cable hardware and a key chain light, just in case the first few riggs did not work out. I got to work on the first and simplest solution, which indeed would work.

The lightning started to get closer. The passing cars had scared me enough, considering the kinds of buzzes that the drivers might have, but the lightning was even worse. There were plenty of tall objects close by to attract it, and that made me feel safer.

Then the lightning stuck one of the tall objects. It was so close that a blue spark jumped from me to the van through my chest. It made me convulse, and I was relieved to still be conscious. I now realized that those wonderful power line towers were a little too close.

With that, though, I endeavored to keep one hand attached to the van and it's elbow on the ground to make an alternate circuit for such charges. The next close strike was stronger and made my arm jump. I imagined that a strike on the overpass could create a fatal potential difference in the water under my back.

Some time latter the first rig was ready to test. It failed, and I got back under to tighten it up again. After about 200 cars had passed me and a nice big chunk of grime had fallen in my eye, I was ready to try again. It worked this time and I made my way to a parking lot to fix things a little better. The patch held all the way home.

Writing this letter, I imagined replacing that cable if my paycheck was good. The only problem I had with the paycheck was it's smallness, but I have yet to replace that patch or the oil leaks.