Hoopty Car

He tried repeatedly to bring the image of her smile into his head and keep it there. Sometimes he could do it for long periods, ten, maybe fifteen minutes, and if he could bring his breathing under control, he could feel a very small calm bubble up, and she would talk to him. Her voice saying anything was soothing, her voice saying his name was wonderful. He needed it at the moment.

	He had been driving, looking for a second hand store on Jeff Davis, to maybe buy a better jacket, and some shirts, but when he got there it was closing. It was winter and the sun had already gone down. He pulled over and parked to take a breath. Sitting in his car had a calming effect on his racing mind. The familiarity of it. 
	Sometimes he got a bit overwhelmed by the job, and the school, all of it always teetering on the edge.  He has been borrowing money to go to school, and it was payable immediately if he dropped out.  If he graduated, he could get a job that paid enough to pay the money back. If not, there would be troubles. If the car broke and he couldn’t get to work or school, it would all topple over. He didn’t have the money for a major repair or a new car. It hadn't happened yet but every time the car hesitated, he felt the cold darkness stab into his consciousness.  
	School was always on the edge, He was a C student in search of a degree in engineering.  Barely understanding but refusing to give up.  Fail a couple of classes and years of work is in the dumpster.  Too much uncertainty, anxiety, and at least one more year to go. 
	Meditation calmed him sometimes, but not today. Today he needed to hear her voice. He just got a “D” on a quarterly test, insurance was due and he was almost out of gas  Not good. He looked down at the dash to check the gas guage, and as he looked, the car stopped running.  The dash warning lights came on, and he quickly turned the key off to preserve the weak battery.    
	His mind slipped, and went back to the evil thoughts he had been having, and the evil tension gripped his chest, and the sudden pain caused him to throw his head back into the headrest, he took a deep breath and yelled, "God, I need some help." Both hands gripping the steering wheel. 
	He opened his eyes.  It was still dark, and now that the car wasn't running, it was getting cold. A flash of light across the rearview caused him to look up, and he noticed a car parked behind him. Hard to make out what it was. A car with the hood up and a lady and maybe a boy. But it's dark. Both the lady and the boy were looking dejectedly under the car hood that was propped open by an old broom stick. In turn they poked at something there, under the hood of probably the oldest, hooptiest, most beat up car in the city.  Maybe hooptier (is that a word?) than his car. He couldn't see what they were poking at.  He moved out of habit without thinking about what he was doing.
	He reached into the glove compartment and rummaged past the maps, fuses and lightbulbs for the filthy blue plastic flashlight with the yellowed plastic lens.  He pushed the switch, nothing, then smacked it into his hand and it flickered to life. "Needs batteries," he thought. He pulled down his hat, checked his side mirror, and stepped out into the whip snap crystalline cold street to see if he could help.
	The cold slapped his face and took his breath away, but he kept moving towards the old car.  He paused a few steps away so as not to frighten them, and said, "lousy day for cars huh, need some help?"  
	The boy, who seemed about ten years old, did a fair approximation of the menacing dangerous, “man of the house.”  The woman turned and looked startled and confused.  For a long moment she just looked at him. “It won’t start” she said then, incredulous that telling this stranger her problems would do any good.  He tried a disarming smile and stepped past them quickly hoping they wouldn't notice his red eyes.  
	He poked the yellowing flashlight beam at the battery, the first place to look.  The problem was right there, obvious and actually a little funny. “The gods of ground transportation must be smiling,” he thought. Relief washed over him like warm water when he saw that he could probably fix it.  The negative battery cable was badly mangled and there was no clamp on the end of it.  To connect the cable to the battery, someone had nailed it to the battery post with a roofing nail. Maybe the most desperate auto repair he had ever seen.  He remembered that he actually had a replacement battery clamp in his trunk.  Somewhere.
	"This is going to take about five maybe ten minutes, you might want to go sit in the car hon," he said to her without looking. He turned and forced a smile, she gave a look that was at once, skeptical and hopeful. Her and the boy retreated to the car.  It was very cold.
	It hadn't been this cold in New Orleans in years, and it wouldn't have mattered if these people had even thought to prepare for the weather.  They, like just about everyone else in the city, didn't have a winter coat, hat or gloves. This kind of cold happened rarely and tomorrow it would warm up.  Everyone counted on it.
	He found the new battery terminal clamp, a pair of pliers, and a half inch box wrench in the old metal toolbox, (he carried the toolbox in the trunk, because he believed it was a talisman to appease the gods of ground transportation.) With the pliers he pulled the nail out of the battery post. With his pocket knife he scraped the crud off the end of the battery cable until it was somewhat shiny. He undid the clamp bolts enough to push the newly shiny braid into the clamp and tightened the bolts again. Then he used the half inch wrench to tap the new terminal onto the post and tighten it.  
	He walked around to the drivers window tapped on the frosty glass and motioned for the lady to try to start the car. She looked a bit incredulous, but as the old car roared to life, a warm partial smile moved across her face.  
	The motor noise caused a stirring in the pile of old clothes and blankets on the back seat.  A little girl, and an infant emerged from the pile. A wrenching start shook him.  He didn’t know what to say or think. He smiled at them.  They looked at him without any sign of comprehension. 
	The lady got out of the car and walked over to where he stood not quite sure what to do.  He asked her if she was going to be alright, and she said that she would be fine now that she could get home.  She looked down at her hand and he followed her look. She had some crumpled bills in her hand, the breath caught in his throat, she was going to try to pay him.  "No thanks hon,"  he put his hand on hers gently, but firmly,  and turned away, the tears were already flowing down his cheeks. “Bless you,” they both said at the same time.
	He quickly walked and got back into his car and pulled the door shut.  He said, "thank you god, thanks an awful lot" out loud and started his own car, the 67 Impala roared to life.  He turned on his headlights, (they were shining in odd directions,) and followed the most beat up car still on the road down Jeff Davis Parkway.
	At the first traffic light he stopped and noticed that his hands, were greasy, and bloody, well up the wrists and on his old coat, stains that would be impossible to completely clean out.  It’s not possible to work on an old car without getting your hands dirty, and it’s easy to accidentally cut your fingers a little bit working with scraggly copper braid and a pocket knife in the dark.  The irony of the situation, his filth bloody hands and coat, punched him in the face, he was laughing and tears were flowing.  "Thank you god, Thank you god, thanks an awful lot, I really needed that," he laughed and pounded on the steering wheel.