It was just a day…. just another day like any other…like the one today…like a hundred in the weeks, months and years preceding.

   But, in the blink of an eye…the drop of a hat…. the tick of a clock…. everything changed.

   How do they say it?

   “ The world, Life, it’s brutal.

   One minute you’re walking down the street and like that…the fickle Gods who rule our Destiny and Fate select you, point their omniscient finger and slap you down.”

               *                      *                      *                      *

   Just last year, one of my oldest and closest friends from childhood, wasn’t in his office, when I called him in Chicago to shoot the shit; just as we have done on a whim for over the 30 years that I have been living on the West Coast.

   “ Well, he’s been out sick for most of the week,” the receptionist said in a halting voice that made the hairs on my hairs stand up on end. “If you have his home number, I’m sure you can reach him there.”

   With only those two sentences, she spoke volumes…all, which said something, is up.

   When I reached him at home, I could hear in his voice that he was depressed.

   “So Kenny? What’s up? I hear you’ve been out sick. Everything okay?” I asked with genuine concern.

   “ Been feeling low energy for a few weeks and went for a check up to make sure my diabetes wasn’t acting up.” He answered in a dismal tone.

   I knew that the disease ran in his family and had taken his older brother’s life just the year before. I also knew his brother and being a mere 5 or 6 years older than Kenny, I knew that Kenny had gotten keenly aware of staying healthy ever since.

   “ So…? You okay or what, Bro?”

               *                      *                      *                      *

   Suffice it to say, Kenny related that a few spots had been found on his liver and he had to go back in for more tests the next day and Kenny wasn’t happy about it and rightly so.

   When I spoke with him a few days later and I asked how the tests went, he told me they had found tumors on his liver and pancreas and now he was awaiting the results of the ensuing biopsies they had taken.

   In less then a year, Kenny was dead!

   The last time I had talked with him, about a month before his passing, he broke down in deep sobs as he explained how the chemotherapy treatments were kicking his ass. I could hear it in his voice that he knew his end was near.

   I ask you…just what do you say to something like that?

   Although I kept in closer touch with him, over the months after he told me the biopsies came back with cancer of the liver and pancreas, it was equally difficult for me to speak with him.

               *                      *                      *                      *

   Two years earlier, my father, then 72 years old, had experienced double vision during his daily morning tennis game at his condo complex in Phoenix and he was going to the eye doctor the next day.

   His results came back with the news that a tumor had been found in his brain in the vicinity of the optic nerve. A biopsy was taken and the results came back that the tumor was benign and my father was slated for outpatient brain surgery the following week.

   Long story short…. literally…my father’s surgery went off smooth…. but there was a hitch…after removing the benign tumor, beneath it, was discovered a cluster of malignant tumors.

   My father died within two weeks.

   During our last conversation on the phone, for the first time in my life that I had ever heard, my father cried to me as he said his goodbyes.

               *                      *                      *                      *

   So…as I had begun this little tale, it was just another day; unremarkable from any of the hundreds that had elapsed before.

   That was before the fickle hands of the Gods of Fate decided to intervene.

               *                      *                      *                      *

   I took the same commuter train to and from work everyday and while all of the faces of those on the same car I always chose to sit in, had become familiar over the previous rides; I had never had a conversation with any of these familiar faces.

   But, on this particular ride home, all of that was about to change.

               *                      *                      *                      *

   Out of nowhere, there was an explosion…flames erupted…followed by cries, screaming and the staccato of the firing of an automatic weapon and the train had come to a stop.

   I peered as best I could through the smoke, turned my head to see if I could hear what was going on and could hear yelling voices coming from the far end of the car.

   “ Don’t anyone move!” the decidedly angry voice was screaming, “Throw all your cell phones into the aisle and put your heads in your laps! Do It Now!”

   Without thinking, realizing that whoever owned the voice was still at the other end of the car, I knew that if I wanted out of this; the time was now!

   I turned to the five people sitting in my row and the row directly behind me.

   “ I’m going to try to get out of here. If anyone wants to join me, we have to do it right this second…before whoever that is giving the orders down there reaches the middle of the car. Is anyone with me?”

   “ Are you crazy?” someone I didn’t know asked.

   “Just how do you expect to get out?” another voice asked, “ The doors are shut and there must be more than just this guy. So how do you…”

   I cut him off and got up in a crouch.

   “ If you want off, follow me. I haven’t got a formal plan, but I do know how to get the doors open…. it’s dark outside…. and…” I looked out the window quickly, “ I know about what neighborhood we’re in…and how to get away from this train and quick. Who’s coming…cause I’m outta here…NOW!”

   When I reached the double-doors closest to us, I was actually surprised to see that all five…. two ladies and three guys, were all standing behind me, in a crouch like me.

   “ Good thinking people. Now stay low and as soon as the doors open up, follow me out, but be careful as there’s going to be about a four-foot drop. As soon as you get your footing, just stay right on my ass and DO NOT look back or stop for anything. That guy down there is going to hear the sound of the doors opening, but I’m hoping he’s going to worry more about the others he already has in control. Regardless, whether him or someone else comes after us, they will be shooting. I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m not planning on finding out…not after 9/11. Hope you’re all ready…cause here we go.”

               *                      *                      *                      *

   Still masked by the smoke billowing through the car, I peered up and could see only the muzzle of the huge barrel of the gun in the guy’s hands. Confident he couldn’t yet see me, I slowly stood up and reached the dangling red ball above the double-doors.

   “ Here we go!”

   I pulled the ball and with a loud whoosh, the doors slid open and in a blink, the six of us were out the doors and listening to the sounds of the gravel rocks crunching under our feet as we all bolted off…away from the car and already…heading down the slope of the embankment the train tracks were set upon on.

   “ budda…buddda…buddda!!!” The sound of the rounds exiting the barrel. “ Ping… ping…ping…” The bullets ricocheting off the gravel and tracks, which were now, rapidly falling behind us.

   “ C’mon people! Someone is following…heard the sound of feet hitting the gravel under the doors. If we’re lucky, whoever it is hasn’t figured out the 50/50 of which direction we took…. but lets keep it quiet just in case.”

   It wasn’t to be.

   “ Budda…budda…budda…” “ Ping…ping…ping….” Someone was firing on us as we ran.

               *                      *                      *                      *

   As we ran, I kept trying to get a glance for a street sign or something familiar to let me know exactly where we were; although in the brief look I had taken before we left our seats, I knew we were about a few miles from downtown San Francisco.

   I was guessing, but we were somewhere in the vicinity of Daly City…. maybe the outskirts of South San Francisco…. which I was actually hoping for. South S.F., was eerily similar to Chicago; in that, many of the residential and business areas had alleys bisecting the city blocks.

   As we kept running, , I stole a quick look at my watch….7:45pm.

   As I then looked around, it made sense. The streets were deserted, but that made it easier to figure out where we were.

   This early in the evening, a weeknight, almost no movement at all on the streets. It was South San Francisco…. the warehousing district; which was good and bad….

   Good, in that there were alleys all around here, not many people to get in the way of errant gunfire and lots of places to hide from someone that…. hopefully…. did not know their way around the area…which I did.

   The bad news was that this area was chock-full of Business Park Cul-de-Sacs…and that meant dead-ends! Lots of those.

               *                      *                      *                      *

   “ C’mon…. we’re going to take a quick breather. I think we might have lost whoever was on our tail. But lets keep real quiet…just in case.”

   I lead all of them under a parked semi-truck that was parked behind a row of others and was right up against the wall of a warehouse. Once all of them were under the semi, I looked from one to the other and motioned with my eyebrows…asking how each one was. One by one, they gave a thumbs up sign.

   “ You ladies, can you put your wallets in your pockets and dump those huge purses? You probably couldn’t hear, but that make a ‘thwacking’ noise as they hit against your sides. If we get away, we can always come back to retrieve them.

   Both nodded their heads, took out their wallets and both also pulled out their respective pair of sneakers, slipped them on and stuffed their dress shoes into the purses.

   “ By the way, my names Maxwell. Nice to meet you all and glad you decided to make a run for it. All of you okay, ‘cause we’re gonna get further away in another couple minutes. I know this area and if I can get an exact bearing on our location, we might be able to find our way to a Bart Station, or a bus or the local cop shop.”

   One by one, I could hear their breathing begin to get somewhat normal and figured it was soon time to get further away.

   “ Shouldn’t we call the Police? I’m Barry, by the way and thanks for caring enough to ask if we wanted to come.”

   “ No problem, but lets wait on getting on the phone, since if we need to split quick-like, it might be hard to talk while running, much less focusing on anything other than getting away. Next time we stop, we’ll make the call. Someone does have a phone…yes? I guess mine fell out on the jump.”

   “ I got mine and my name’s Scout…. and yes…my parents were in love with the book…‘To Kill a Mockingbird’. I’m ready when you are. Who do you think those people were and how did you know how to open those doors?”

   “Trick I learned as a kid in Chicago. So…? Everyone ready to get on out of…. Wait…! Shhh! They’re coming this way!”

   No sooner had I said it, when we all heard the sounds of running feet and it was more than one pair. I put my hand in front of my lips and then motioned for all of them to lie as flat as they could.

   “ Behind the tires…between them and the walls…. but crawl there…. you two first, there. Then you three…. there,” I pointed as I whispered, “do it now! But quiet as you can…. quickly…they’re getting close!”

               *                      *                      *                      *

   I watched the fear return to their respective faces, but they just did as I said and no sooner had all gotten between the double-tires and the wall, when the two of our pursuers feet came into the view of all of us.

   “ I’m sure they went this way…least I think it was this way. You see anything?” One of them asked the other.

   No answer, but I could now see the barrels of both of their guns arc from one direction to the other in anticipation of finding us.

   “ Let’s go check down there,” the other finally answered as we heard their feet moving away from our hiding places. “ We cannot go back without either them or their Ids to show Heinrich that they are all dead and not a problem anymore. C’mon, they’re waiting for us. You go this way…I’ll go on the other side and meet you back up the street.”

   Just as they started moving, one of their cell phones started to ring.

   “ Yeah Henrich, it’s Paulie. No…not yet, but we’re pretty sure they’re right around the area we’re in. They couldn’t have gotten any farther than where we are right now. No…not sure, but Canto here, said he thought he counted only three or four of them…yeah…all guys. Don’t worry, we’ll find them, if you’ll let us get back to looking. No, there’s nobody out to see us…it’s dead out here. You sure that’s how you want it?

Hey, you’re the boss…we’ll make ‘em dead soon as we find ‘em. Now can we go?”

   “ You heard?” he asked the other, Canto, “We make ‘em go away. Lets go find ‘em.”

   “ Did Henrich say if he had made the calls yet? He make the demand for the ransom?”

   “ He said what he said,” he answered, “ That’s all he said…find ‘em and put them to bed…. for keeps.”

   We all listened as their footsteps began moving again.

               *                      *                      *                      *

   “ Okay people, that makes it pretty simple. Everyone hear that? There’s no getting found by hem,” I whispered barely audible, “So lets start crawling towards the front of the truck…two at a time. We’ll all squeeze together up there and go from truck to truck. I think I see an opening in the fence down there. If it lets out into the next street or an alley, we can get some distance in the opposite direction of these guys…so long as they keep going the way they’re going. Okay…. lets do it…slow and quiet.”

   So we crawled two at a time, bunched up at the front.

   “ Okay, I’m going across with Scout here. As soon as I see it’s clear, I’ll wave the next two over and you join Scout at that truck across the way there. You all see where I mean?” I see each look and nod, so I grab Scout’s arm and drag her across the parking lot with me and push her down under the parked truck. “Crawl up to the front and wait for us there. If anything happens you two ladies make sure you get under a car or truck and wait it out; since they don’t even know you ladies are even here. You two must get away to get a hold of the cops…. actually, call 911 and if they put you on hold call the operator and ask for the S.F. FBI Office instead. You two have to get away. Okay?”

   I wave the next two across and motion for them to join Scout…. then the last two.

               *                      *                      *                      *

   I was correct. There was an opening in the fence once we got to the other side of the parking lot and it led out into an alley. I hustled all of them out through the fence and down the only way we could go.

   “ Ah shit!!! It’s a dead-end! No choice guys, lets get down there while the alley’s still dark. We can try to quietly move those garbage cans and make a place to hide and try to wait it out long enough…’till it feels safe. I’m sure you all heard. They didn’t see the ladies, so if it looks like we gonna get caught, we make sure the ladies get away. We’ll figure that one out at the end of the alley. They’re not going to look for us forever…. they’ll have to give up looking sometime…I’m sure. Okay, three of us on one side and three on the other…. but lets do it in the same kind of crouch as when we bolted out of the train. Let’s go.

               *                      *                      *                      *

   Making it safe to the end of the alley, we moved a few of the garbage cans and made a kind of small barricade we could all fit behind. But then another problem arose.

   “ Look above people,” I pointed up overhead, “See the lights starting to flicker on? Mercury vapor lamps in there, so we’ve got some time yet…maybe 10-15 minutes. But, once those lights are heated up, this alley’s going be lit like a candle and even behind these cans, it won’t stop our shadows from dancing up the side of these walls here.”

   “What can we do? Oh…and I’m Kelly.”

   “ I’m James.”

   “ I’m Bill. Like Kelly said…what can we do? Anything or we just wait until we get caught? Maybe we can fit the two ladies inside a couple of these cans here…. but I weigh 210; know I’m not fitting in one. Either will Barry; he’s about same as me. Maybe you and James…and the girls.  So? You got any ideas, Max?”

   “ Give me a second, I might have something….just need to figure out how to do it. Give me a minute.” I looked up at the lights, down both sides of the alley and pondered if we had any options. “ We could put the ladies in two of the cans and the three of us can try to make a break for it. At least, if we do get spotted, we can keep the ladies safe.”

   “I don’t know about Kelly,” Scout spoke up, “But I’d feel better staying with the rest of you. Only if there’s no alternative, will I save myself and leave you guys to get taken…to be killed by them. Kelly?”

   “ I’m with Scout. I’ll jump in a can, only if it looks like there’s no way for all of us to escape. That would be too much for my conscience. Really.”

   “ So Maxwell?” Scout turns her attention back to me, “Any more old tricks from your delinquency-days in Chicago? As a kid…I hope?” She forces out a whispered laugh and the rest whisper their laughs as well.

   “ As a matter of fact I do!” I respond to them and look up at the telephone poles and the mercury vapor lights that are already getting too bright to keep us safe much longer. “Thanks for jogging my memory, Scout. But yes I do have the answer…. so long as I can get to the top of all four of these telephone poles….I can put out the lights.

   “ Bill, come with me…. I need a boost. But as soon as I start climbing, you get back behind with everyone else. Okay?”

   “ Let’s do it, Max.”

               *                      *                      *                      *

   Within 8 minutes, I’ve climbed up the two farthest telephone poles on either side of the alley and turned out the mercury vapor lights. All it took was pulling off the protruding light sensors atop the light housings…. they have a photo-electric cell that clicks on once all the ambient light goes out at dark and clicks back on again when the sunlight returns in the morning.

   Back with the others, catching my breath after scaling up one and then the next telephone pole, I look up at the two remaining that are right above us on either side of the alley.

   “ C’mon Bill, let’s do these last two. But all of you, once I get the first one done, you all move to the other side of the alley…away from the shadow effect and quietly pull the cans in front of you. If you hear those guys coming, make a cat sound to let me know and then hide…. maybe I can dive on top of them…so we can get the guns. But really, lets hope not. Okay Bill, let go.”

   “ You’re pretty funny Maxwell,” Scout whispers, “How in the Hell did…?”

   “ Tell you when we’re all safe.”

               *                      *                      *                      *

   About ten more minutes later, just before the last one was making its last flicker before it clicked on to full brilliance, I snagged the protruding gray plastic sensor and tossed it down to Bill’s waiting hands…then shimmied back down with the others.

   “ Well, this is about as safe as we’re going to get her, so lets just get comfortable and hope they keep going the other way. I figure, it’s already been about 30 minutes since we bolted the train, so my guess is another half-hour and maybe…just maybe, they’ll just give it up. Unless one of you has a better idea?”

   They look to one another; all nod their heads and then back to me.

   “ Looks like we stay here and wait it out, Maxwell,” says Scout, “So, while we wait, how did you know how to do that?”

               *                      *                      *                      *

   I’ve got to tell you, growing up in Chicago in the 60s, was a Hell of a lot of fun! Computers were 20 years away, color TV was the latest craze, movies cost 25 cents, an 8-course Steak dinner in a nice restaurant downtown cost $2.49, gasoline was 29 cents a gallon and a brand-new Corvette…off the showroom floor was less than $5 Grand.

   On weekends, guys with cars would get all of us to chip in 50 cents apiece and five of us would cruise up to Wisconsin and get drunk in the bars which you only had to 18 to get served. Christ! You could fill up most cars for about 5-6 bucks! A bag of serious Jamaican bud cost $25 an ounce and LSD was 2 bucks.

   Oh yeah…. can’t leave out ‘Free-Love’…no AIDS for 20 more years and the worst you could get were either the crabs of the Clap…. and you could fix one with a $2.00 bottle of mite killer or a $10 dollar doctor’s visit, a penicillin shot and 3 days later…. more ‘Free Love’.

   You guys have no idea whatsoever, just what a glorious, free and unbelievable time we had! It was all so new…so liberating and…did I say great??!!

               *                      *                      *                      *

   Well, one of the groups of guys I hung around with called themselves the ‘Rowdy Boys.’ That’s exactly what we did…. got drunk and high and simply got rowdy.

   We would make dummies out of old clothes pinned together and stuffed with newspaper, tie a rope around the waist and heave it up over a streetlight. When a car drove close enough, we’d let the rope go and the dummy would plop onto the hood of the car. Naturally the guy got out in a panic and when he did, in summer & spring…. We’d pelt him with eggs…in winter…snowballs…just to get a chase.

   Also, in the winter, when the streets were about a couple inches deep in snow, we’d go ‘skitching’ to get a chase. That was when you grabbed onto the rear bumper of the car and skied down the road. Literally, in winter, I would skitch from my apartment about two miles to hang with the Rowdy Boys in their neighborhood. It was the main mode of transport in the winter, if you were too young to drive.

   But it was ‘The Chase’ that was the best fun of all!!!

   One of the guys in the gang, Pat Murphy, lived in the last house on his block and another two of the guys lived in the first and second houses of the same block. Now, every block in Chicago had an alley like this one dividing them up…. and alleys were our domain!

   So, we literally took over the alley that was behind Pat’s house on one end and Billy D’s and Johhny Nikel’s on the other end.

   First, just like I just did, we climbed up every telephone pole in the alley and made it completely pitch-black.

   Next, were the sewers. In your typical Chicago block-long alley, there would always be 3 sewers….one at each end and one in the middle. So, at the end by Billy and Johhny’s house, we stuck about three or four broomsticks, or other pieces of 3-foot long lumber; so they sould protrude outward, pointing towards the front of the alley.

   The sewer in the middle, we would lift it up and stand it up sideways; so it was half-inside or above street-level and the other half below street-level.

   At the sewer at the other end…adjacent to Pat’s house, we would either stuff more broomsticks facing towards the other two sewers, or we would take a thick piece of twine and tie it off between two big steel garbage cans.

               *                      *                      *                      *

   So here’s how it would play out!

   We’d take one of our many pre-fashioned dummies, at out on the street where the entrance to the alley was, up by Billy D’s and Johnny’s houses, we’d suspend the dummy and just wait.

   So now we wait for a car that we can see only has one person in it, driving. So here comes the car and FWAP; the dummy plops onto the windshield of the car. Out comes the panic stricken driver, who’s looking for the vital signs of the dummy that’s now sprawled out on the street and badda-bing! About 8 of us are pelting the guy with either eggs or snowballs; depending on the time of year.

   “ You little motherfuckers!!!” the driver yells and badda-bing! Another fusillade of that season’s projectiles and off the whole lot of us runs off into the alley.

   The odds are 70/30…the guys now screeching after us… dum-da-dum. ...into our alley!!!

   He hits sewer number #1 and you hear the most god-awful scratching and screeching noise under his car, which, inside the car, sounds like the transmission, is now sitting on the street. The guy gets out to swear at us and…. you guessed it…. Another fusillade of the season’s projectiles!

   The burning of rubber follows and he’s now pissed and doing 40 down the alley and…you guessed it…. sewer number #2 and…Caalaaang!!…. the 50-pound sewer cover is spinning in the air and his bumper had a 4-inch wide notch in it.

   He gets out to yell some more and…. another fusillade!!!

   Now he’s hitting 50 down this narrow alley and…. baa-badda-bing!!!  His car snags the twine and the two steel garbage cans a literally pulled at 50 mph onto either side of the car…and all of us…. we’re all in Pat’s basement, looking out the little windows that have a view right even with the steel cans…. passing the bottle of whatever it is we’re drinking that night and just kick back and listen to the guys screaming how he’s gonna find us and kill us.

               *                      *                      *                      *

   The best finale to this story is that one of the last times we used the dummy-alley-chase repertoire.

   It seems that the cops had gotten so many complaints about us, they started putting out marked and un-marked cars, everywhere, trying to catch us…seeing they knew who we were, but just couldn’t catch us.

   Well, one of the last nights, it was my turn as the front man. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that. Every time we did this, one of us had to take his turn as the guy who stayed out ahead of all the others and swore back at the guy or kept up the fusillades every time he got out of his car….of course, wearing a mask so the cops couldn’t see our faces.

   So it was my night and here comes the car and down plops the dummy and begins the fusillade. The chase was on!!

   It went by the books….just as I had recited.

   So the next day, we’re walking back to Billy D’s house after school and at the little Mom & Pop store at the corner is a very familiar gray four-door Plymouth. As we walk up, we realize it’s the car from last nights dummy-drop.

   Sure as shit, as we get right by it, while continuing on walking, we see the two huge and deep dents in both front doors from the steel garbage cans…. and the lot of us just bust out laughing.

   No sooner have we managed to walk past the car…. we’re all laughing so hard and out of the store come two of the most notorious Plainclothes cops in the neighborhood.

   Let me tell you guys…these two cops were among the most feared out of the 20^th Precinct, Summerdale Station…with a long history of taking their detainees on some excruciating visits to the basement below the station.

   They walked up to the car and as they got in, both looked at their respective doors and just went “Motherfuckers!!”

   We just all turned into the first gangway we passed and stole out of there before they could get the car started to follow us…as we were all sure they knew it was us that did it.

               *                      *                      *                      *

   I looked at my audience and could see they were all doing their best to hold back from busting out in roaring laughter.

   At least it had taken everyone’s thoughts off of our pursuers and.…our predicament.

   It wasn’t to last. The sounds of the two familiar voices had returned and were getting closer….

   Peering out between the cans, I could see the two guys with their Uzis or Mac-10s cradled into their chests…. pointing the way….but still scanning the area before the alley.

   “ Well, guys, got no choice now, they don’t know we’re here…but they’re definitely coming our way…we have to try to take them out.” I said slow and solemnly. “Ladies, you two are going to get as small as you can back here and the four of us are going to split up before the get into the alley and try to get behind them. For sure they aren’t close enough yet to see down here, so, we’ll each grab a lid off these cans and let them come all the way back here. As soon as they get past us, we all pounce at one…before they can turn and fire and smack them as hard as you can. They aren’t too big, so, we’ll go big-guy, smaller-guy: Bill and me and Barry and James.

   All we need to do is get them down and get the guns…then we can do anything we want. Regardless, you ladies don’t expose yourselves for any reason. If this goes good and we get the drop on them and get the guns, we’ll walk them out and as soon as we clear the ally, you ladies stick to the right wall and as soon as we get them out of view, you two head out and we’ll catch up with you…. and get on the phone as soon as we either get them to the end of the alley….or if it goes south…after they kill us and leave us for dead. You two stay until one of those options and not before.

   “C’mon guys, before they get closer. Bill…you and me to the other side and you two inch up about ten feet to keep them some distance from the ladies.

               *                      *                      *                      *

   A few minutes later, here they come.

   No sooner have they passed us and in unison, ka-bang!

   Actually it was about 10 ka-bangs times 4…only in the movies can you knock someone cold with one shot in the head…. in most cases. So, after pummeling their heads with about 20 blows of the garbage can lids apiece, we’ve got the guns and these guys are now….out cold like a B-Movie.

   I motion to Scout and Kelly and wave them forward…. stepping gingerly around the two guys and in a blink, the six of us are running again….

   “ Hold on a second,” I run back and rifle the pockets of the guy called Paulie and find his cell phone. I give him a small kick…but they’re both still out cold and then I’m running to catch up with the others who are still running.

               *                      *                      *                      *

   “ C’mon, this way to El Camino Real and our pick of the Bart Station, a passing cab, maybe a bus or the Cop Shop. Let’s pick it up. Kelly, dial 011 and tell them someone set off an explosion on the north-bound Cal-train an hour ago…even though they must know something is up by now and also tell them these two guys are out for the moment in the alley behind…wait a sec.” I look around behind me and see the name of a Drayage Company and give Kelly the name…, which she relays to someone, that’s already listening to the tale of what happened and our escape.

   “They’re sending some cars right now for us and those guys,” she explains as she hangs up the phone. “I told them we’re running towards El Camino from the alley behind the Drayage Company. They asked if we felt alright staying close to the alley so those guys don’t get away…. but said they could have other guns so if they do come around, just keep back and try to watch which way they go…but forget it, here they come now.”

               *                      *                      *                      *

   Safely back at the South San Francisco Cop Shop, we are split up to give our statements and are rejoined in a conference room to wait it out until it was either over or they gave us the nod to let us have friends or family pick us up.

   Bottom line…we were safe…our adventure was over, but we all had made some friends with people that we have been nodding or grunting greetings to twice a day for God knows how long.

   Like I said….when the fickle finger of the Gods of Fate and Destiny….or maybe they’ve got some kind of ethereal dart-board that they use….maybe one of those Lotto number-pickers….or a heavenly Slot-Machine with people’s faces in place of the horseshoes and cherries….who knows?

   But when it’s your time….

   So, when you hit the snooze button on the alarm in the morning, just remember that the secret of life is there is no secret…other than put on your seatbelt and grab a firm hold of your crotch…. and wish for the best.

Fini