when the two of us went on a day trip to San Francisco to escape the Sacramento humdrum. We’d planned the outing four or five months in advance, then put it off several times for one reason or another until everything was just right. The designated day started early. At seven a.m., Kyle pulled his blue pickup into the long driveway in front of our house, the morning crisp, the house illuminated by a shafting morning sun. I stepped out to his truck.
        “You ready to do some traveling, cowboy?” I asked.
        “Yeah, I guess,” he said. “Looks like a good day, at least.”
        “That it does,” I concurred, then climbed into the passenger seat and we were off.
        “I’m glad we’re finally doing this,” I said as we rumbled west on I-80.
        “Yeah,” he agreed. “It’s easy to let time go by.”
        Traffic wasn’t bad on I-80, lots of cars but moving okay. We talked along the way and time went by quickly. At the Pleasanton BART stations, there was a long wait to board the parked train, this being the end-of-the-line turnaround.
        “Do you think there’s something wrong?” Kyle asked.
        “Mmm, I don’t know. Maybe just a standard delay. I wouldn’t be worried yet.”
        Finally, the doors clicked, whooshed open, and the throng on the platform streamed inside. We found a cushioned bench and settled in, taking in the inside of a BART train, now a bit shabby, and surrounded by exotic Bay Area people and public service posters. Kyle eyed a dark-skinned man in a turban sitting across the way, leaned toward me and whispered, “Do you think that guy’s an ISIS operative?”
        I looked to Kyle without looking at the man. “Something tells me no.”
        He chuckled.
        The train began to move, slowly at first, then picked up speed, then hurtled along, the route alternately sinking underground into the darkness, then rising to the level of the freeway so cars streamed back and forth next to us, then through another tunnel and stopping at another station. We cruised over Oakland houses, factories and old brick buildings with 1930s signage, streets crisscrossing at awkward angles, more freeways, expressways, the bay off in the distance, the naval yards, another tunnel, ears popping, then a fast stop at an underground station, humanity surging onto the train, then whooshed into the trans-bay tube under tons of ocean water, tunnel lights streaking past, then a stop at the Embarcadero Station, then our get-off point, the Montgomery