“Son, you are supposed to drive on the pavement and not on the curb.”
For as long as we’ve known each other, my best, and very good friend on Johnson Street, has given that gentle admonition to me.
I value his opinion, but alas, I didn’t heed it. Not this time. Not Saturday anyways.
Nay, Saturday was like the children's book Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst, but, Alexander was me.
That’s how it ended up. It didn't start that way, though.
I actually had a very nice lunch with Mama and Aunt Nancy at a restaurant on Plant Avenue in Waycross.
After that, it all went down hill. There was a gathering storm I was unaware of, too, and then I made a series of miscalculations and unforced errors. It made for an exasperating day.
It was also a somber day as I was attending the memorial service for my former co-worker, Rose Aldridge.
When lunch ended, I had about 10 minutes to get to Grace Episcopal Church downtown. There was plenty of time. I was just a few minutes away.
Then, I wasn’t. I turned my trusty ol' Equinox out onto Plant Avenue and Kerblam! And then I noticed the passenger side was much lower than the driver’s side and the whole chassis began to shake and shimmy a la Shakira, but not nearly as attractive.
No, this was ugly. Like, ugly to the bone.
I managed to get the hobbling SUV to the parking lot at Edward Jones.
My right front tire was, as Grandma would say, “flat as a flitter.”
I did what any normal grown man would do. I called Mama. While she couldn’t exactly help me with the tire, she and Aunt Nancy came to be my taxi to the church.
On the way, I called my insurance’s emergency roadside assistance service. My vehicle was indeed on the roadside and to me a flat tire while you are on the way somewhere and dressed up in church attire and need it fixed is an emergency. So, I deducted assistance is what I needed.
Said service asked me to fill out my emergency roadside assistance request on my phone where my fat fingers caused me issues, but I managed to get it done.
I paid proper respects and homage to our precious Rose.
In the meantime, my phone, set to silent, buzzed every 10 minutes to update me on the insurance company’s efforts to get me emergency roadside assistance.
I visited with Rose’s family after the service, and I am that much kin to my Daddy in that I don’t want anyone to go home without being talked to. I looked around. Everyone who could have conveyed me back to my vehicle had already left. The skies began to be dark and mean and screamy and the cumulonimbus clouds carried deep purple bruises. (I’ve secretly always wanted to use the term cumulonimbus clouds in a sentence. Now I have. You are welcome.)
I started down Mary Street and turned on the sidewalk at Plant. Lightning bolts began to snap, crackle and pop around me.
I did what any normal person would do, I ran screaming to the nearest shelter I could find, which was the wagon in front of Callie Kay’s Western Wear. I ducked behind it. I felt like Marshal Matt Dillon except I wasn’t as brave. The phone rang. The emergency roadside assistance people informed me they weren’t coming to my roadside in my emergency with assistance — at least not for “hours.”
“Hours?” I asked. “What exactly do you mean by hours?”
“We can’t give you a time,” she said.
“Forget it,” I said. “I will deal with this emergency by myself. That’s what Deal’s do. We deal with stuff.”
Calls to several wrecker services and two tire places yielded nothing.
A break in the weather let me get to the car wash at Plant and Riverside Avenues before the storm picked up again. I hid under the tin shelter at the car wash while the wind and rain were coming sideways.
I had taken off my church coat. My socks were soaked and my feet squished in my shoes when I walked.
The passing of the storm finally allowed me to get back to the car.
I proceeded to get the jack out and get the tire repair started.
I found the skink that got loose in my car in June, 2023. He was perfectly mummified by the tire tool in the wheel well.
He and I were, well, pitiful.
And then, the very first good thing happened in this sequence. The Fletchers pulled in. I didn’t know them. They didn’t know me. Mr. Fletcher asked me if I needed help.
“Very much,” I said. He had the tire fixed in no time.
I tried to offer them something for their trouble.
The Lord told them to help me, they said.
The Lord is the very best emergency roadside assistance. I know that.
I’m thankful for it as a perfect ending for the terrible, no good, very bad day.
• Jason Deal is News Editor for The Blackshear Times. Reach him at [email protected] ws.
