One exception was a man I fell into conversation with outside a bike shop. He seemed intelligent, interesting and well-spoken, and it turned out we had worked at the same place at different times. We exchanged emails and later agreed to meet for a Sunday ride, I was thinking for two or three hours, 25-30 miles. When we met he kept talking about a Samish route. There is a Samish Way, Old Samish Way, and North, West and East Samish Way, and also a nice loop around Lake Samish, so I led him up a steep and longish hill-climb heading that way. At the top of the climb he informed me that he meant the Samish Bay tide flats, and insisted we ride down a very steep connector to Fairhaven Pkwy., then on to Chuckanut Drive. He was a bit annoyed with me for dragging him up that hill-climb but I think he forgave me after I showed him how to get on to the Interurban Trail instead of riding the road. However, the ride ended up being about twice as long as I had planned, and then he wanted to have dinner in town afterward. I declined and turned off toward home, telling him I had to get my laundry done before work on Monday. He never did forgive me for that, even though I emailed a time or two suggesting another ride, and I regret that.
Early on in my bicycling life I had a very odd encounter on Chuckanut Drive. I was riding a 28 lb. pink Schwinn in those days, and I loaded it on an early bus for a day-trip to Mount Vernon. I spent a few hours tootling around, window shopping, had a nice brunch, visited the sadly long-gone Scott's Bookstore, and after that there wasn't much left to do except maybe go to the mall. Back at the transit center I found there was almost two hours until the next bus to Bellingham. I wasn't tired and figured I could ride home in less time, so I headed up Hwy.11 toward Chuckanut. As I was chugging up a woodsy climb on a stretch of the road where there was very little shoulder, no houses, parking or pull-out spaces and no cars in sight, I noticed a youngish man walking toward me on the opposite side of the road. He appeared to be holding a small animal, a squirrel or rabbit, that was struggling to get out of his hands. He angled across the road toward me and as he got closer I saw that the waistband of his sweatpants was pushed down and he was masturbating wildly with both hands. Nearing the top of the slope, I stood up on the pedals and pushed hard over the top, while he turned away and disappeared in the bushes across the road. I was never really afraid that he would attack me - he could barely walk normally - but it was very strange that he was out there on an isolated stretch of road.
A few years later I attended a potluck gathering of a bicyclists' group at a community center. Several people were already seated at a picnic table where I found an open place and sat down across from a man of about seventy - I was in my mid-forties then. When I introduced myself, he said "well, my wife left me today." Everyone else at the table turned away and left him to me. He was extremely unattractive, with long, snaggly yellow teeth and Bozo-the-Clown hair. He reminded me of some news stories I'd been reading about a pig-farmer in Canada who had been convicted of the gruesome murders of several women - he looked like the court-room sketches of the accused. But he was sad and seemed to need to talk, and I felt sorry for him. Besides, the pig-farmer was in prison in Canada. We exchanged emails and later agreed to meet for a ten-mile (each way) ride to Hovander Park, where we stopped for a snack break. I had the feeling he hadn't believed I really rode the distances I had told him, and he thought I might have trouble making the ride back. But of course I was fine with a break for a granola bar and fruit juice, and didn't even need a bathroom stop. He had brought a little tub of peanut butter and an apple, which he sliced and spread with p.b. When he was finished eating he licked the jack-knife blade, examined it a moment, then put the whole blade into his mouth while looking full into my eyes.
The night before I had watched a movie called Pan's Labyrinth which features probably the most evil step-father ever invented, a fascist commander who tortures and murders villagers. In one scene when he was interrogating a bound village woman, she manages to cut the ropes binding her hands and attack him with a small kitchen knife, slashing and stabbing his back and finally pushing the knife blade between his teeth into his mouth, then slashing his cheek open from the inside.
Licking peanut butter off the jack-knife was disgusting enough, but when he held the blade in his mouth it recalled this movie scene unnervingly. And besides there was the serial-killing pig-farmer association. But he seemed perfectly calm, and he took the knife out of his mouth and put it away and we rode home. Where I did a Google-search background search. He seemed to be normal enough but I didn't want to see him again anyway.
That wasn't the last time, though. Several weeks later while running errands, I met him with a woman about my age, all three of us on bicycles. He greeted me saying "Well, you see, my wife came back. What did you say your name was?" I replied "That's great, have a nice life. Bye." Toward the end of the summer I got an email from him saying he was planning to make a weekend ride up in the mountains with his wife, and another man, and another man's wife, and did I want to come along too? I replied that I had other plans, and changed my email address not long after.
On the ferry returning from Vancouver Island one summer, I had just settled in to a booth when a silver-haired man sat across from me and asked if I minded having company. I don't mind watching the islands passing by and studying rock formations for a two-hour ride, but I've been trying to be more sociable and open to others, and I couldn't really say no anyway. Back in the 1980's he would have been called a "sensitive new-age guy" - SNAG for short - wearing faded Levi's and Birkenstocks, interested in yoga, transcendental meditation, talking about relationships and feelings, although he seemed to think of them in an analytical way, rather than emotional. He talked non-stop for two hours. I even told him I was comfortable just sitting in silence with someone for twenty minutes at a time, but he didn't last much more than twenty seconds. After a while he suggested walking around a bit, and going to the outside deck to see the views up front. Since passengers can't leave unattended baggage on the ferry I carried a 10 lb. pannier in each hand. As we stood at the rail outside at the front of the boat, I set my bags on the ground between my feet. There was a moment when he glanced down at them and I thought he might impulsively grab my panniers and throw them overboard. He just seemed like he might be one of those possessionless charismatic free-spirit types who would say "now you're free, follow me." But he didn't, and anyway my panniers held nothing but dirty clothes, souvenirs and old tourist brochures, because I am one of those paranoid types who carries her wallet, passport, cellphone and keys in her jersey pockets at all times.
