Synopsis of Destiny Rides Shotgun by Duane Eastman
Duane [20], an aspiring traveler, embraces the flow of freakish events that deliver him to Europe in the early 1970s. He meets Scott [23], the adult in the room, and Dave [20], the silent type, in Amsterdam. The events that occur during their journey from Amsterdam to Kabul, Afghanistan are too remarkable to be explained by luck or coincidence.
They trash their rental car in Frankfurt, Germany. They don’t know that the previous owner of the VW sedan they end up buying is from the same car rental company.
As they enter Afghanistan from Iran, they witness a hashish drug bust. The officiating Afghan immigration officer greets the trio and escorts them into his office. He stamps each passport and Duane receives a special stamp for the car. A car brought into Afghanistan has to leave Afghanistan. The immigration officer shocks the trio by lighting up some hash and smoking it with them. He insists they accept a gift—a sizeable chunk of hash. They have to accept the gift under tribal custom but fear a setup. However, the hash is superb, so they keep it.
They hustle to the car and blast out of the decrepit compound. They drive toward Kabul, 1,000km through a treacherous desert. As they top a small rise, they are alarmed to see an army checkpoint. Duane floors it—runs right through the wooden drop-down bar, snapping it in two as they speed on. The guard in the rear-view mirror raises his rifle but is too slow to get a shot off. After several kilometers of no further contact, the trio stop and smoke some of that excellent hash.
They make it to Kandahar, the halfway point, before succumbing to poor diet, stress and too much fun. All are fevered and in poor condition to drive. Duane takes the wheel anyway, but within an hour, he swerves to avoid a woman holding a child and wrecks the car in the Desert of Death. An intervention by a wealthy Afghan merchant saves them from an angry crowd of desert nomads. While the merchant negotiates with the furious crowd, his two servants patch up the car (now called the Flying Wreck), to a "drivable" condition. The merchant settles the matter with money and warns the trio that their lives are in danger, instructing them to leave without delay.
The Afghan merchant establishes the new trajectory for the road trip. Their primary goal now is to sell or dispose of the Flying Wreck and eliminate the stamp from Duane's passport.
Fortuitous events in Kabul lead the trio to become merchants as well, purchasing oriental carpets and Afghan goods for export to the US. They finally part ways with the car by giving it to an Afghan border official. Double crossed, they run at full speed thru no-man's-land to the Pakistan border, arriving in a hail of bullets.
In the book Chapters, young Duane feels that guardian angel interventions, intuitions, good luck, and their timing are not just coincidence. He also considers destiny: the idea of life events being preordained. But there’d have to be a plan. But why did a plan even exist? And why him, and why then?
In the Interludes sections, an older Duane explains his Theory of Dots: the idea of a quantum level connection between a person and other people and events (Dots). He explains a network that transmits human intuition, instincts, and intentions over great distances to initiate serendipitous events such as those in the book. He considers how and why your life intersects with Dots. Does a Dot materialize because of luck or coincidence? Does your karma or vibes attract or repel a Dot? Is it possible to influence the timing, the location, or the type of Dot that you encounter?
Duane's theory has far more potential than connecting Dots alone. His vision includes finding non-invasive alternatives to surgery, establishing communication with other organisms, and reducing environmental harm.
The Theory of Dots represents an eclectic pool of drivers: intuition, sixth sense, gut instincts, intention, and even luck and coincidence. But just in case, destiny rides shotgun.
