There are moments in a life that divide everything into before and after.

This is one of them.

A mountain road with no headlamp. A deserted road in rural Missouri. A blue light at the end of that road that turned out to be the most dangerous kind of relief. And four words overheard through a bar door that changed everything.

"In 1979 I was a Black man alone on a motorcycle, several states from home, on a dark road in rural Missouri. I need you to hold that alongside everything else as I tell you what happened that night."

A stranger's voice on a telephone pulled me back from the edge of that terror. And a family I had never met gave me shelter in a barn in Missouri.

Some people in this story gave me a repaired motorcycle. Some gave me directions. Some gave me a place to sleep.

That man gave me back my breath.

13 episodes. All from memory. This is Two Wheels North.