Transcription
Around the Cosmic Campfire by Tony Wright
Chapter 16: The Sign
In 1975, we had been traveling with our Texas band for some time, and had a few vehicles between the group of us to haul our music equipment from gig to gig around America. That was efficient until the band split up. As my partner and I broke out on our own as a duo, we didn't want to give up all of the stage equipment, and so we decided to get a covered trailer that would haul all of our stuff around. It seemed like a good idea, and so we got busy scouring the newspapers in Houston for little industrial trailers to pull behind his parents' old panel station wagon.
Before long, we found one in the price range I could afford. It was around $150 and was painted blue and looked like an old U-Haul trailer and seemed to be the perfect size. If you ran your hand across the side of the body, you could feel the rough textured print underneath that clearly said U-Haul. Oddly enough, with it came the title and ownership papers—a huge bundle all stapled together. There must have been two dozen owners of this old trailer, but I didn't think too much of it. I was just glad it had papers, so I had proof of purchase and ownership, showing I had not stolen it.
In no time, I discovered why it had so many owners. U-Haul didn't sell trailers back then to the general public. Somewhere along the way, the trailer had been stolen. Regardless that a plethora of people had legally laid claim to it and paid for it, it just kept changing hands over and over again. It had apparently been a collective pain in the rump. We had U-Haul people try to pull us over on the interstate to confiscate the trailer. We had all kinds of trouble because of this trailer, and at one point, I regretted ever buying the thing.
At one music gig in El Paso, I was doing a sound check and getting ready to play our first night at the Wharf when the manager came in to get me. "Tony, you need to come out here right away. The police want to talk to you." There were cops outside ready to arrest me for having a stolen trailer, and my knees almost buckled. They had a pro U-Haul company official with them, and they were doing a strip search of the trailer, confident they would find numbers engraved somewhere and company papers hidden in all the hiding places they put them during the manufacturing. Thank goodness they found nothing. Apparently, our original thief was very good at what he did. They let me go, and I started my first night on the job, weakened in the knees, wondering what in the heck would the rest of my life bring with this blinking trailer. We had been stopped again and again, and this was the worst one. I made up my mind: when we hauled it back to Houston, I was going to unload this thing somehow.
Well, we made it back to Houston and immediately started looking around for vehicles more in the genre of a van to haul our things and forget about using a trailer. It really was too hard to maneuver anyways, so good riddance—especially this trailer. We found a really nice Dodge van, and I took out a banknote and bought it. Since my partner was a young 20s post-college student and didn't have any credit, I was happy to discover not too far from his parents' house there was a used vehicle selling lot, and they sold things for people on consignment—like cars, boats, trailers, etc. I'd never heard of that back then, as it was a new sales concept. It seemed perfect for us since we had to hit the road to get ourselves to some other gigs really fast.
In the wonderfulness of our new used van, we didn't have much time to sit around and try to sell this big blue pain in the rump trailer that had been haunting us for some time. When we got to the lot, there was one guy working the place, and he had us unload the trailer into a spot and asked us for the ownership papers and to sign a contract with his business stating what we wanted for the trailer and how to contact us. We told him we wanted a couple hundred for it, and I handed him the papers. Attached to them was a business card. I was really proud of my business card. We had a third partner signing with us at this point, and we had made a new business card with the three of us in black silhouettes playing our instruments on it and our name on it: TW and the Englishman. My partner was born in Houston but had dual nationalities as both of his parents were from England. It was a fitting name for us. I was TW, of course—Tony Wright.
We headed out and hoped it wouldn't take too long to get this thing sold. However long it would take, the company would send a check when it was unloaded. It was only a matter of days, and we were still in Houston when we got the call that the trailer had been sold for the price we wanted, and I even made a few bucks on the deal. I was delighted. It had been purchased by a young man who was Scandinavian. He had recently landed in Houston from Sweden and was on his way to the West Coast and wanted to haul his stuff. It was a done deal. I was delighted, and that was the end of the haunting old blue pain-in-the-neck trailer story. I was happy to never ever hear about the trailer again.
It was fun, easy to travel in the van. One of our gigs in the Midwest was an interesting one. We were traveling with our new bass player, Bill, and made our way to a brand new restaurant, the Iowa River Power Company in Iowa City. It was an old foundry that had been turned into a classy restaurant, and they kept the old factory pipes and other equipment on the ceiling and incorporated it into the decor. It was a beautiful old brick place and right on the river; in fact, where we continually fished for smallmouth bass and catfish in our spare time. We were their very first musical act, and we performed as a trio on their opening night. It was a great place for us to play since we played organic and earthy wooden music, and that was a real crowd pleaser in the university town.
On one particular night of one of the last weeks we were there, a waitress came to me and said there was a man who wanted to speak with me. When I went on break, I indeed sought him out and went to have a drink with him. He announced he knew me from somewhere but couldn't place it. I had never seen him in my life, so I knew that wasn't true. I never do forget a face. As we took apart how we could know each other—Robert, his name—and I tracked our last 10 years of our lives, and we couldn't place it. He was about 25 years older than I was and was from Palm Springs, California. He had, however, married a young woman much younger than I who was from Des Moines, my hometown—that was the town I hadn't lived in for a handful of years, but I didn't know her. He had been traveling back and forth from Des Moines to Chicago with her to see her family there, and they had stopped together at this restaurant, but we weren't playing that night. He loved the place so much he came back on his own. And no, we couldn't find any association of how we might know each other.
Finally, he turned around and looked at the stage. Behind the stage was our sign: TW and the Englishman, painted in black on wood, and it was painted to match our business cards, or perhaps the cards were made to match the painted sign. I don't remember. I wasn't sure. But sure enough, he had that light bulb moment. "I have your business card!" he almost shouted as it came to him. "I've had it for a couple of years!" I was stunned. "Well, where did you get it?" "A few years ago, this young guy came to Palm Springs looking for some work. He was from Sweden. He worked for me doing handyman work for a while and ended up owing me some money, and so in an effort to pay off his debt, he left his old blue trailer in my parking lot. I haven't been able to get rid of that cursed thing yet." I could not believe what I was hearing—the one thing I never wanted to hear about again. It was official: the trailer just wouldn't go away. Perhaps the trailer loved me. Perhaps it wanted me to know it was okay, as if I had been worried about it. It just found its way back into my consciousness, and it was one of the oddest things I have ever experienced. I really laughed so hard about it; he must have thought I'd lost my mind.
So, recapping: Robert from Palm Springs had to have stopped at that one restaurant on that one interstate route through a state in which he didn't live and didn't frequent; it being a restaurant we had never played; it before; only one week left before we were finished; and he had to see the sign behind the stage; and he had to see it in his one visit; notice it; remember it from the business card with the name drawing on it on the sign; and that the card had to have been still attached to the paperwork that was left with him and not thrown away; somehow giving the Swede who showed up from Houston a job out of the blue in his business; and finally, he had to stop back in for a second time and by accident when I was actually there to have a conversation with him about it and ask for a conversation. It all played out perfectly to be one of the best "small world" experiences I ever had, and I've had plenty of them. But that's not quite all. Nope, not the end of the story.
Yesterday, which is 40 years later, I got a random email from our old bass player, Bill, who was the artist who helped create that sign and that card with the three figures of us on it in the silhouette, who I haven't talked to for over 30 years and who lives in Mississippi, who got suddenly curious about me and inquired through the massage therapy association as to my contact information—my now profession—then emailed me to say hello. When I answered back, he sent a photo of the restaurant in Iowa City where Robert stopped in. Bill had no idea I was writing a book of short stories and was about to write the story of this old blue trailer and the business card, and yet here it was—a whole collection of synchronicities that are amazingly specific and random. What a magnus magnificent thing to be on the same strand as someone else, and somehow, although none of it makes sense, it all ties together for reasons unknown. I love it when that happens. I never again saw Robert or heard what he did with the cursed little blue trailer, but it was good to know that Bill was still on the wavelength, and hopefully, we will stay in better touch as time goes on.
To say the least, there's no explanation about how any of this could happen. It is so far beyond coincidence. Were we all tuning into what I call the "God station," perhaps? When it happens, it is an incredible amount of fun. Wouldn't it be fun, too, for us to know beyond a doubt how all of the machinery of this life, soul synchronicity equipment, works? My antenna operates beautifully to draw things to me, and why did I draw that blue trailer back in? This I'm still not clear on. Unless seemingly useless things just happen as examples of what is possible—is God shouting, "This is possible! This is possible! Wake up! You can do anything!" If so, I say thank you, and I get it, and I appreciate the information. I carry on to draw in more so I can share more as I hone my skills as a manifesto. Remember that the more we all have, the more we can share to the incredible world that is riding along with me. I say thank you as I appreciate this amazing ride.