246 54 Aside from a few dirty looks—me being a rule breaker and all with my bike on the BART train at rush hour—it was just an other day for most of these peo ple. And yet, was it ever just an other day? All of us deep in the mid dle of some story that can sud denly turn. Some of the peo ple on the train looked sad, some looked con tent, and some ap peared com pletely numb. Fact was, there were good and bad sto ries run ning along all around me, threads all. I re mem bered that last thread Jimmy’d pulled off a seat in one of these trains. Was this the same train? And if so, which seat would it be? I saw a lady doing her makeup in the seat that cor re sponded to the one we would have sat in that sweet year ago. She looked like a clown. Then I searched the bike for that thread and found it fast, re mem ber ing that Jimmy’d tied it right near where he’d painted Chief Jo seph in cheap dime-store paint. That thread’s story was us. That thread’s story is this story. ...