Collections - 2. Chapter 2 -- My 42-Buck Adventure

My 42-Buck Adventure

If you’ve got to have a flat tire in New York City, maybe the best place to do it is in a parking garage. Not that the attendant was all that helpful. Friendly, yes. Cheerful, absolutely, especially considering the hour. And he clearly spoke more words of English than I know in whatever Eastern European country’s language his accent hinted at but didn’t confirm because he spoke so little at all.

After I paid the twelve bucks for the parking and tipped him three more because I was several hours later than promised, he led me to where my car had been moved and happily pointed out that my right rear tire was flat. He didn’t even say anything, just raised his eyebrows almost up to the rim of his Greek fisherman’s cap, smiled slightly, then let his eyebrows drop. He looked like one of Santa’s UPS workers.

No problem, I thought, even though it was 10:30 on a drizzly Friday night, and I was a story-and-a-half under a probably fifteen-floor apartment building. I had Triple A and could call them to put on the spare. But for some reason before I walked up the long ramp to the street, I decided to check the spare. Maybe because it was a rented car. Maybe because it was a mid-level cheap rental car. Maybe just to make sure the spare wasn’t flat, too. Certainly, never, to see if it was there. Which it wasn’t.

Instead, there was something that looked like a black soup can. I didn’t look at it too carefully, just noticed it was something about the size of my fist trying to fill the three-dimensional circle where the spare tire should have been.

I needed to call Roadside Service, and the number was helpfully on a window decal. As I was heading toward the ramp – because I knew I wouldn’t get any phone reception in this dungeon – the parking attendant stopped me. “I’ll be right back,” I told him. “I need to call for help.”

He nodded, as if reassuring me that was the right thing to do. He looked to be about my age, 60s, maybe a bit younger, so there was nothing patronizing in his nods. He also didn’t seem to think I was about to leave him with a dead rent-a-car. But as I started toward the ramp again, he tugged my sleeve toward the little office that was more brightly lit than the cellar.

I followed, and he pulled one of the parking receipts off the vertical rack on the wall. The nail of his small forefinger carefully underlined the address of the building we were in. I hadn’t thought of that, as I was soon to realize I hadn’t thought of a lot of things.

I thanked him. It seemed he couldn’t give me the card – because it belonged to someone else – but I did ask him, slowly, if he had something to write on and something to write with. I could have entered the address in my phone notes, but I wasn’t used to regularly doing that. In any case, he didn’t get what I meant, so I used universal sign language and pretended to write on my palm with the clenched forefinger and thumb of my opposite hand. He nodded, quickly pulled a small index card from the trash, and tested a pen on it. After several circles, the pen wrote.

I copied the address. I’d already entered the Roadside Service phone number on my keypad, so the number was ready to be called as soon as I got to a place with some reception. I gave the man his pen back, we both nodded and smiled, and I headed up the ramp.

After I called – and worked through the automated responses – I spoke with an operator. She was extremely sympathetic and asked if I had my paperwork. I didn’t, and it wasn’t even at the bottom of the ramp in the glove compartment. It was safely at the home where I was staying, so it wouldn’t get lost.

“No worries,” the operator said, and she took several other pieces of information to verify my existence. “There… I’ve found you in the computer,” she went on. “We’re good.”

Then she needed the VIN number. I had the car keys in my pocket because I’d paid the attendant and was ready to leave, and the key ring had a plastic tag listing several important pieces of information. But not the VIN number.

“I’ll have to call you back,” I said. “The VIN number’s on the dashboard, and the car’s in a parking garage. I’ll lose reception as soon as I go down there.”

“Okey-doke…. and since we’ve started the paperwork, your phone number’ll be your identification. Just tell me that when you call back.”

“Great. Is there a direct number?”

She gave me one and an extension, and I carefully entered the information in my phone. “One more thing,” she said. “The VIN number’s on the driver’s side front door.”

“Thanks,” I told her and went to get the information. When I called back, a different operator answered. I explained that I was continuing a roadside call, and she said, “I can do that.” She could, too, and we quickly moved past the fact that the car wasn’t experiencing mechanical failure. It just had a flat tire.

“Let me connect you with our location director,” she soon said.

That man answered in such a deep voice and a kind of soft Southwest accent that I had to ask him to wait so I could put him on speaker. When I could hear better, I gave him some of my information again, especially “the last eight digits of your VIN number – that’s all we need.” The full number was twice as long.

“Can I use your phone number to verify your location,” he asked next.

“Sure,” I said, and there was a pause. Finally, I heard him mutter, “New York… This thing never works in New York.” Then, louder, he asked, “Can you give me your address?”

I did.

“Is that Brooklyn or Manhattan?” he asked. Evidently, there were duplicates.

“Manhattan.”

“O… K…” Then nothing. “Hmmm,” he said, ultimately. “You’re surrounded by water. You’re in a restricted area. There’s no access.”

“Yes, there is,” I assured him. “I’m on a public city street. Anyone can get here.”

“I see. O..K. New York. Hmmm.” Another pause, then, “Well, anyhow, the computer says you’re not set up for roadside service. But I can arrange something, out-of-pocket.”

“No, thanks,” I told him nicely. “I was about to call Triple A when I noticed the service number on my car and called you instead.”

“Triple A is good. They’ll take care of you. We sometimes use the same vendors.”

As I hung up, I noticed there was another missed call from my brother. I’d been in the city having dinner with him and his wife, I was around the corner from their apartment, and as soon as I discovered the flat, I’d called to tell him what had happened.

“You can stay here,” he’d said.

“Thanks. I think I can get this taken care of.”

But now, it was eleven-thirty on a Friday night, and it didn’t make any sense to try and get this done. I called him back.

“Good,” he replied. “I found some places that’ll fix your tire in the morning. We’ll do it then.”

“Be right up.”

He’d flown back from a conference early that evening, and he and my sister-in-law were leaving on a flight tomorrow afternoon. She’d already gone to sleep, and I knew my brother wanted to as well.

But when I came in, he was looking for a toothbrush and toothpaste for me, more concerned about my hygiene than I was. “I have good teeth and relatively good breath,” I told him. “I’ll be fine.”

So he went to bed, and I went to the guest room, taking a slim E. B. White coffee table book with me – a 100th birthday commemorative edition of an essay he’d written in 1948 called “This Is New York.” He was comparing New York in ‘48 to the seemingly more intimate city it had been in the 20s and 30s, and I was comparing all three times, plus adding memories of the 50s through 80s.

In the morning, I got up before my brother and his wife, unusual because I was still on California time. Despite my brother’s assurances, I called the car rental company, asking for further information. “I’m just curious,” I said, once I established my identity again, “Is there a reason there’s no spare?”

“Yes,” the friendly woman offered. I’ve got to give the company this – it has terrific service reps. “It’s more cost effective. We’ve replaced the spare tires with emergency inflation kits.”

“What are they?”

“There should’ve been one in your car.”

“Where?”

“In the corner of the trunk. It looks like a square black box.”

“I don’t remember it. There was something that looked like a soup can, but I’ll check. Thanks.”

“If you need Roadside Service, we can arrange something for a fee,” she went on, “since you declined it originally.”

“Ah… is that how it works?”

“Yes.”

“Thanks, but I have Triple A. There seemed no point in overlapping.”

“Triple A is good, too.”

Since my brother and his wife were still asleep, I left a note on the dining table, slipped out of the apartment, and went down to the parking garage. The new attendant was fully bilingual.

I explained who I was and what I was doing. He smiled and said the car was just where I left it. Then he walked me over to it.

“It’s a new tire,” he said. “A good one.”

“I thought so, too,” I replied, as I popped the trunk. The black can thing was there, and using the manual in the glove compartment, I determined it was half of the emergency inflation system. The black box compressor was gone.

I explained that to the new attendant and asked if he had a compressor or air hose. I’d asked the guy last night, too, but he didn’t understand.

It wouldn’t have mattered. “No, we don’t,” today’s guy said, adding, “Sorry.”

“That’s all right. I’ve got several other options. And I asked if it was all right if I left the car a while longer.

“Sure thing.”

Back in the apartment, my brother and his wife were up. I reported in and listened to my brother’s plan: “I’ve called the places that fix flats. The one that sounds least flakey is further, but it’s still only twenty-six blocks.”

“You know the city better than I do.”

“Then let’s get the jack out of my car, we’ll take off your tire, and get it fixed.”

Which we started to do. But while my brother was still looking for the supported panel under the car to use his jack, I mentioned that some jacks were car specific. I also tested the lug wrench from his Audi and discovered it didn’t fit the nuts on my rented Hyundai.

“Hmmm,” said my brother, who was having trouble with the jack. But he’s a city guy, which I never was, and knew he was in a garage full of cars. He spotted the parking attendant – a different one from the man I’d met earlier – and asked if there was another Hyundai nearby. There was, less than ten feet away. The owners didn’t want it till 11:00, and it was only 9:15.

The attendant got the keys, my brother lifted the tire cover, and I borrowed the tiny lug wrench. Then my brother continued to fiddle with his uncooperative jack.

“Let me borrow their jack, too,” he suggested.

“Wait,” I said. “It’s one thing to borrow a six-inch wrench for two minutes. It’s another to move things around in their trunk to dig out their jack. Besides, they could want their car early, or it might take longer than we expect to fix the flat. And with them gone, we’d have no way to get the tire back on my car.”

My brother may be a savvy city guy, but he’s also realistic. He knew I had a point. “If we can just get a can of tire inflation aerosol,” I told him, “we can fill the tire. Then I can drive to the repair shop, and you can get on with your trip.”

“You’re not going alone,” he insisted.

“OK.”

But there didn’t seem to be any auto parts stores in the area. So much for E. B. White’s self-sufficient neighborhoods. Meanwhile, there were two young painters standing by. They’d been repainting an adjacent stairway, and I asked if they had an air compressor.

“No,” one of them said. He half-understood English, though his companion didn’t understand it at all. But my brother suddenly started speaking Spanish – as badly as the first guy was speaking English – and they were communicating.

As the guys and my brother talked about auto parts places, the second parking attendant wheeled up a small compressor. I thought a third painter might have had it because I saw him wheel by a dolly stacked with hoses. I quickly inflated the tire as the two painters, my brother, and the attendant inspected. It held.

“Let’s go,” my brother said, “rapidimente.” I paid for the overnight parking and tipped the guy a couple of bucks. Later, my brother said he’d also tipped the man. And he’d tried to tip the painters for the compressor, but they told him the same thing they told me when I tried to give them money – that it wasn’t theirs. We should have tipped the garage attendant more.

My brother retrieved his car from where it was double-parked across the street. He’d told the doorman of that building where we were going and that we’d be right back. Half-hour later, we were, and I followed my brother’s car the twenty-six blocks to what turned out to be a gas station. The guy in charge took one look at the tire – from twenty feet away – said “It’s leaking,” and told another guy to “Fix it.”

My brother called after him, “How much?” I wasn’t concerned about that.

“Ten bucks,” the guy shouted, disappearing.

“He’s got to be wrong,” my brother said. “Only ten bucks?”

The second repair guy came out with a large jack, a small spray bottle of water, and a couple of hand tools. He raised my car maybe two inches, just enough to spin the tire, sprayed water on it until he spotted a nail, said “Nail,” and popped out a three-quarter-inch machine screw with a half-inch head. He tossed it to me and in twenty seconds plugged the hole.

“He didn’t even take off the tire,” my brother marveled.

“I’d forgotten about plugs,” I replied. “It’s been twenty years since I’ve had a flat. Last night, the Triple A guy might’ve gotten me going in ten minutes.”

“After you waited two-hours for him to show up.”

“Maybe.”

My brother and I went inside to pay the guy. It really was ten bucks. My brother said, “Give that other guy a five.” Which I did.

And that’s my 42-buck adventure. 25 for overnight parking. 10 to fix the flat. The rest in tips. E. B. White’s city still exists on kindness and know-how. “This Is New York.”