jumpingfish

The early morning fog had just risen, although there were places in the reeds on the far side of the lake where a few wisps remained. The water was as still as glass. The forest on the western shore was reflected perfectly on the surface.

A small dog barked somewhere over there — just one small yip followed by a few more that sounded as if the dog had turned away and was barking into the woods. This then grew louder and became frantic. The barking echoed as if the dog had descended into a cavern. 

Then all was quiet. And moments later there was a splash on the far shore. Ripples radiated into the otherwise still water.

The splash and the ripples are unrelated to the silence, right? The dog will be yipping again this evening. Right?

On the Corner

The corner of St. Laurent and Montreal is a happening place. From the point of view of a periodic visitor, it always has been.

Wheelchair-bound folks hang out under the trees in the shade at the corner of the parking lot. They talk. They laugh. The group varies in size. Sometimes they have small dogs in their laps. Sometimes they gather instead by the tables in front of the grocery store. 

Folks in the neighborhood meet and gather for coffee in the morning: men with dapper hats and striped socks and dress pants, women with silver hair and colorful sweaters and sometimes with grandchildren. They smile. They greet each other. “Comment ça va?” “Bien merci, et toi?” They sit with coffee and their donuts and talk with flowing voices and animated gestures.

1.

I drove into town just before the summer sun went down, and by the time it was dark I surrendered to hunger. In spite of the hour, the McDonald’s was full. There was a mother and son in bicycle helmets sitting by the door. There were two giggling sisters calling their mother and asking for a ride home since their bus passes had expired. There was a group of friends on their phones who nominated one to order for them all — or perhaps she was the one with money. There was a loud guy with a speech impediment walking from table to table waving and saying hello and then walking back to his friends.

And then there was this other loud guy who came in with a backpack and a sleeping bag and disheveled clothes. He threw his stuff on the floor and walked to the counter. He shouted at girl waiting there, but she answered calmly. He shouted again, but she smiled and answered calmly again. He threw up his arms, returned to pick up his pack, and cursed loudly without looking at the girl. Then he left, cursing as he went.

“The city has changed a lot,” Fatima said to me when we talked about it.

I suppose it has, although my sample is not necessarily reliable, coming here at most once a year. I supposed it has. She would know better than I.

2.

It was breakfast time.

“Hello!? Hello, are you in there?”

The woman in a red shirt working at Tim Horton’s held a phone to her ear as she knocked on the men’s restroom door. Someone was in there. They were not responding, and she couldn’t open the door. 

She had called the police but was put on hold when she said it was not an emergency. She waited, and she knocked again, repeatedly trying to get the man in there to leave.

“Does it really have to be an emergency to get some help?” she asked someone who was standing in line for coffee. She pounded on the restroom door. “Hello? Are you in there?”

The police eventually came, two officers in two vehicles. They put on black gloves and they came in thru the doors and went into the restroom. The woman in the red shirt returned to her station behind the counter bagging donuts and pouring coffee. The officers eventually came out, leading a tall, skinny man to the sidewalk outside and eventually to the shady spot under the trees where the wheelchair people usually hang out.

Then they put him into one of the vehicles and drove off.

Still on the Corner

In spite of these things, people still come in for donuts and coffee and ice cream cones. They still go out for burgers and fries. They still talk and they still smile. The banging on the restroom door that morning didn’t seem to bother any of them. Nor the cursing guy with the backpack the night before. 

Because people need their coffee. They need their donuts. Their burgers. Their fries. And ice cream cones. Life on the corner goes on, despite it all.

The day before, Jasper had prepared (and narrated) a pork loin  feast

only to be followed up yesterday with a feast (with narration) of salmon protein and pasta carbs to boost Ben and Colin for the triathlon that they are running this Sunday morning.

But that feast yesterday wasn’t sufficient for the day. 

As we sat on the deck and on the hill and on the dock by the water, after the sun went down and the sky turned dark (although as for that, the eastern sky was already beginning to glow with a slight light from the just-full-moon rising from behind the forest), as Venus blazed above the western horizon and Mars looked down from overhead, Jasper came out and serenaded us with Nani’s violin, as he has done for so many years.

I laid back on the dock, which briefly accompanied his song with the rocking and rattling from shifted weight. I looked up at the dome of the night sky and listened to his music as the stars came out one by one. 

I left Paul and Jill’s cabin some time between 9:00 and 10:00.

On the single lane “main road” ahead of me there was a camper kicking up dust. At one point I saw their brake lights when they slowed for a runner on the shoulder, but otherwise I could barely see for all the dust they were kicking up. I backed off.

As I went around a bend a few minutes later, I saw what seemed to be the camper pulled over with its flashers blinking. But as I got closer, I could see two people behind a Lowe’s delivery truck. One was standing, and the other was sitting on the bank of sand on the side of the road. 

I slowed down and rolled down a window.

“You guys ok?”

The first guy said he was trying to fix the lift gate which was collapsed on the gravel behind the truck. He had his phone in one hand and some tools on the back of the truck.

“Do you have phone service?” I asked. “I can call someone when I get to Newberry.”

I couldn’t understand his answer, so I got out the the car and walked over and introduced myself. The first guy was Joseph, and the second was Jose. Joseph talked about trying to raise the lift gate so that they wouldn’t have to wait. Jose sat vaguely smiling but otherwise saying nothing.

“The last time this happened,” Joseph said, “they didn’t send anyone until late in the day.”

“Do you have water?” I asked.

“Two bottles.” 

I turned and went to the car and opened my ice chest.

“Here,” I said, handing them a half gallon of water. 

Joseph said that he had cell service and mumbled again about fixing the lift gate. 

“I’m won’t be much use to you,” I said. Then I asked, “What about food? Do you have anything to eat?” 

They didn’t. I was imagining them stuck on the side of this forlorn one-lane road waiting hours for help to arrive. So I went back to the car and pulled out a jar of peanut butter, a bag of cashews, and a box of crackers.

“Here,” I said, setting the food on the back of the truck. “This isn’t much, but it might help … although I’m not sure how you’ll deal with the peanut butter. You’ll figure something out.”

Joseph smiled. “Thanks. We’ll figure something out.”

Joseph and I talked a bit more. Jose continued to sit on the sand. Then I said I needed to get going.

“Good luck, you guys!” 

“Thanks,” Joseph said. “I appreciate you.”

This is a bit out of sequence. Before Michigan on this trip, before Wisconsin, before Minnesota, there was a northward trek across Central Iowa. This story is about that day one week ago.

And my apologies in advance: this one is kind of long in the telling.

— 

1. Low Pressure

It’s Sunday. We are driving north on an empty, two-lane US-63 thru Central Iowa. It’s a gray day, and the wind is blowing from the west. The corn is bent over in waves that sweep across the fields that cover the rolling hills. 

A low tire pressure warning message pops up on the dashboard. We are south of Traer. We decide to check the tires there.

Two minutes later the display changes to an ominous stop-the-car-now message. I pull over at the next intersection, where we can get the car and trailer off the road onto flat pavement instead of a sloped gravel shoulder.

There is a yellow farmhouse across the street and three grey Butler silos on this side. The wind blows my door open. I get out to check the tires. The right rear is almost completely flat, and there is visible damage to the sidewall, and it has a leak. We clearly aren’t going to Traer on it.

2. Trying to Change the Tire

The skies in the west get dark. The wind is fierce. We unpack the car to get the jack. We unpack the car-top carrier to get the spare tire. Within 30 minutes, someone pulls over to see if we are ok. We were fine, we say. A few minutes later, someone else. We say we have a spare and are ok, but thanks. 

The western sky gets black. The wind begins to howl.

The car goes up on the jack easily enough, but I am unable to crank the lug nuts loose. Trudy calls AAA — fortunately we have two bars. They tell her that we’ll have to have the car towed and leave the trailer behind. At this point I kick the tire wrench hard to loosen the nuts which works. Trudy cancels the AAA request.

The bad tire comes off. (It is really, really bad. We’re lucky we didn’t have a blow-out.) I lift the spare tire up only to discover that the lug nuts don’t fit. The fair and industrious Trudy calls AAA again who again tell us we’ll have to leave the trailer behind, but we really have no choice. They file a service request for a truck to come get us.

A half hour passes, and it starts to rain. We rush to repack the car. Another half hour passes. It rains hard. After another 30 minutes, Trudy calls AAA to check on the status of our request. We’re next on the list, they say. We begin to think about the details of me driving with the tow truck and Trudy staying behind in the trailer.

The rain stops, but the wind keeps blowing, and the sky over the hill to our west still looks black.

3. Mike

A truck pulls up beside the trailer. A guy gets out to see if we’re ok. His name is Mike, and he owns a auto salvage yard.

“I came by here earlier and saw you. I felt guilty later about not stopping.” 

Mike’s wife is in the truck, and his teenage daughter is in the back seat. They are on the way to a pool party. He looks at the bad tire and the good tire and the car up on the jack and asks if he can help. We explain the story about the leak and the spare and the lug nuts but explain that AAA says we’re the next on the list.

Mike turns to leave and then looks back at the tires. He walks over to them, bends over and squints.

“You know,” he says. “I have a friend, Dale, who lives a mile down the road. He has a tire machine. I can put your spare tire on the good wheel.”

His offer sounds better than anything out AAA has offered us.

“Really? Sure!” 

He pulls out his flip-phone and explains things to his friend Dale. When he hangs up, he walks over to the car and picks up the flat tire and wheel under his one arm and the spare tire and wheel under the other and  walks over to his truck.

“I’ll be back in five minutes.”

He throws the wheels into the back of his truck and drives off. Trudy calls AAA and cancels our ticket.

Fifteen minutes later Mike, his wife, and his daughter come back with the spare tire ready to go. Within minutes he has it back on our car. (Right. He doesn’t just give us our new spare tire, he puts it onto the car, tightens the lug nuts, and takes the car off the jack.)

What kind of thanks are sufficient for something like this? 

“Thank you so very, very much,” we say. 

“You’re welcome,” he says. “Pay it forward.”

4. Epilog

Four hours after the first warning lit up on our dashboard, we are on the road northward, again. And in spite of the delay, we make it to the campground in time to set up before dark.

We plan to cancel AAA when we get home.