Car Trouble

A few days ago I got a flat tire. Fortunately it was right next to my house so there was no risk of being stranded or anything like that. Still, the incident discombobulated me, so that on consecutive days I was late for my chess class and forgot all the boards.

First of all, I had never changed a flat tire before and had no idea what I was doing. I watched a video online that made it look pretty easy - the tire lifted away as easily as a Reeses wrapper. I guess the one they had in the video hadn't been on there for two years.

When I tried to loosen the bolts they wouldn't budge. Even after jogging back home for oil and greasing them up, I still had to visualize doing a dead-lift to get myself to pull hard enough to move them.

Then, once I had all the bolts removed and the car jacked up, the tire still wouldn't come off. I had two strategies for getting it off. One was to pull on it as hard as I could. The other was to stand next to the car looking confused. I was engaged in the second one when an old-ish man , maybe 60, pulled up on his bike.

"Having some trouble there?"

I explained my situation. He nodded sagely.

"Yeah, that'll happen if it's been on there for awhile. Sometimes it works to hit it with something heavy from the back. Got any two-by-fours?"

"No, I don't think so," I said, trying to convey that it was a difficult question, that in fact I worked with two-by-fours so often that I might be plum out (as though I could even recognize one - two whats by four whats?).

Nonetheless, I assured him I'd be okay and thanked him for his help. Then I repeated the jog home in search of something heavy. After a quick search through the garage I settled on a sturdy looking shovel. I was whacking away at my tire with the shovel when the man biked by again, this time carrying a mallet.

He cast a quick glance at my shovel, the way you might accidentally look at a prosthetic limb. The mallet, he explained, had a soft, forgiving head and wouldn't damage the tire. Clearly, he owned many mallets and had chosen this one specifically for the job at hand.

Mallet in hand, he got down on all fours and leaned under the car. One of the few things I knew about changing a tire was that you were not supposed to put your head under the car. The owner's manual had instructed me to put the jack under a notch near the wheel. But whereas I could find the notch near the front tire, the one in back, near my flat, had completely rusted away, so I just eyeballed it in what I thought was roughly the right place.

In other words, I had little faith in the stability of the jack. By now his head was completely under the rear bumper as he whacked the inside of the tire with the mallet. I heard a sound, kerchunk, and sensed the shifting of weight. For a moment I saw it all clearly. The car collapsing on his head, his devastated wife - a heavy woman in a polka-dot dress - the children, well-dressed and dignified, flying in for the funeral. And all my fault.

But the car didn't collapse. The sound had been the wheel coming free of its rusted on bolts. He stood up and gently pulled it off, like in the video. I thanked him again and watched him bike away.

Who is this man, who bikes around the neighborhood offering help to strangers? Is he some sort of superhero - Bikeman? A vigilante out to aid the weak, the confused, and unhandy? If so, I applaud his efforts - his brand of superheroism is badly needed. More than simply doing good, superheroes teach us what doing good means. Flying around in your underwear, fighting crime, defending the weak - these are good things to do.

I feel like I must have missed a day in school very early on, the day on which the teacher explained the basic principles behind everything I would learn from then on:

"We will teach you how to read and write, how to do math, solve complex equations, interpret data, analyze literature - but none of it will matter unless you remember this..."

In a way, it's too bad it was only car trouble. There was so much more I wanted to ask him.

"Thank you, sir, for helping change my tire. Now, what can you tell me about relationships? What is the secret to living a meaningful life? Is there anything to religion? Wait!"