pay it fucking forward

Okay. Check out this amazing optimism-affirming story:
When Moose was visiting me last month his car got broken into outside my house. It was his last night in town, and he was hoping to leave early the next morning. Instead he went to load the car and found a brick on the driver’s seat, glass everywhere, and his big interior frame backpack filled with his winter clothes missing. Yes, it could have been worse. He’d been on the road for six weeks, and everything he owned was in the car- his computer, his music, everything. They just grabbed the first thing they saw and left the rest. But still. Luckily he had good insurance and only had to pay a hundred dollar deductible, and we got the window fixed that morning. Moose was a good sport about it. He said that he hoped whoever stole the pack needed some warm clothes. He kept the brick, brushed off the glass, and headed for the coast. It seemed like a short chapter in his epic cross-country adventure.
Then, two weeks ago, on the day I was leaving for Albequerque, I saw a handmade sign on a telephone pole near my house, “FOUND: Interior frame back pack near Freemont and Williams. Call…” I was elated! I called the number from my car, and talked to a really nice dude who had come across the pack in a semi-abandoned construction site nearby. I couldn’t believe it. I asked him what drove him to try to seek the owner? Why not keep it? He said that he’d had a lot of stuff stolen himself, and just wanted to help someone out. He asked me to describe the backpack, which of course I couldn’t- I’d never actually seen the thing. I described some of Moose’s clothes (that I remembered from our chilly summer nights together in the Rockies), but none of them were in the pack. He said that it was almost empty- just a sweater left, really. This made me sad. Moose’s favorite flannel shirt, which I always associate with him should have been in there, along with tons of other clothes. But at least the backpack was intact. I told him I’d call Moose and then call him back. Then I flew to New Mexico.
I left Moose an excited message, and he called me back with a description. But I am Willow. And part of being Willow means losing track of important information. By the time I got back to Portland I had lost the good samaritan’s phone number. And of course the sign was gone. Fuck.
Still on the case, I made a sign of my own: “You found my friend’s interior frame backpack. I lost your number. PLEASE call me…” I taped it to the same pole the samaritan’s sign had hung. The next day my little sign was tattered and falling down. I got a hammer and nails and put it up again, saying a little prayer that it would be found. A week and a half went by. Nothing. I went to Denver and called Moose to tell him the bad news. I decided to print out my cell phone records to try to find the number- I planned on calling every unfamilliar Portland number I saw. I felt so bad about flaking on my dear Moosey friend. How could I let the pack slip through my hands?
Then, tonight, just after I walked in the door from Denver, my phone rang. “Hi, this is Coby, I found a backpack a few weeks ago…” !!!!!! Yay! And not only that, but he’d been back to the site a few more times and found a bunch of Moose’s clothes stashed under a porch and scattered in a field. Was the favorite plaid shirt in the mix? You bet. Coby’s girlfriend Claire had seen my little sign, pulled it off the pole, and brought it home. It turns out they live on my block, just a couple houses down. I called Moose to tell him the good news, went to Chevron to buy some beer, and walked over to their house to retrieve the treasure.
Coby and Claire are amazing. They keep chickens in their backyard. They gave me six fresh eggs. I gave them the six pack, and we all had a beer together. Claire has beautiful Art Neuvoe (sp?) tattoos on her arms. Coby has a blond ponytail. They both seem like they might have been goths when they were younger, but aren’t anymore. I told them that they had earned some really great karma wit this whole thing. I mean, they were so persistant about finding the owners. They deserve some love from the Universe, you know? Coby replied that he didn’t believe in karma. There was too much suffering in the world, too much injustice. He said that yeah, what you get comes back to you, but only because people hear about it and you get a reputation- for better or worse. Claire and I disagreed, but the topic soon turned to more worldly things. Coby and Claire are excellent scavengers. Their sweet house is filled with furniture and art found in dumpsters or thrift shops. We all sat on the floor and looked at crystals that Coby had retrieved from broken chandelliers. He was planning on stringing all of them (there must have been over a hundred) from the windows to fill the room with rainbows in the morning light.
And then that was it. I told Coby that I thought his act was even nobler because he didn’t believe it karma. He wasn’t looking for recognition or compensation from the Universe. He was just doing something nice for a stranger. I put the pack on my back and walked the half-block home. Next week I’ll take it to the post office and mail it to Granby, Colorado.
It’s funny. In a couple of weeks Coby and Claire will probably stop thinking about the backpack. They’ll have told the story a few times, discussed the weird bubbly earnest girl who came to their house to collect it. Whatever warm feeling they have from their good deed will probably fade after a while. But Moose and I will tell this story forever. To us it will become legend- part of our shared history, part of his American cross country epic, part of my struggle (especially in this time) to believe in the Goodness. For a faltering optimist, this little story is a fucking beacon. Gives a girl some hope, you know? Me and Moose and Kevin Spacey, now. Paying it forward.