Some years back Ri, qqand I went on a drive to Southern California. We were using my parents car for they wanted us to drive in a safer, newer car. Unfortunately on this drive back home, late at night, somewhere beyond the streets of Bakersfield, the car overheated in the worst way and we needed to pull over. Sometime around 11p-midnight, on the highway with no paved roads, in mostly darkness. Did we have a cell phone? I can't recall. When you're walking on the edge of a highway trying to find the nearest town when cars can't see you, the speed in which they pass by is frightening. We had one flashlight.
We found a phone (emergency road phone) and called 3A for a tow. We headed back to car carefully and still spooked in the darkness but knowing that there was an all night gas station with a repairman who happened to be working that late. Actually we most likely found this out later when the tow driver reviewed our options.
The tow driver was friendly and drove us to the station. I recall our arrival and catching the glances of three men who didn't seem that happy to receive us. They were older, had lived their lives (perhaps lived several lives) and were to the point that they really didn't want to tackle another job but knowing that we had no other hope, would take a look.
The mechanic- the other two men were just keeping company, had a look of an aged Thor, but one who had given up the super hero business two decades before, and accepted the mortal code of beer and surviving in a tough world. With his sun weathered skin, he took a look at our vehicle and said we were all in for a long night. There was no humor in his voice and he was not looking out for a place where we could all wait, in anything resembling comfort. Instead we gathered outside in the open cold space of the all night gas station.
Funny how you might walk pass someone who you perceive you have no connection to but there always is connection- it just needs to be revealed. Locked in a room without walls to frame us in but instead this lonely space where we found ourselves in, the hours of night brought to me a new friend named Rocky.
We spoke of where we lived, "San Francisco. I hear that's kind of a weird place",where we've been, how we got to where we are in the here and now (nothing fancy, just specific; traveling back home. parents car which they wanted us to use, broke...just working to live), and a bond, discovered in patience and of family. Rocky spoke of a daughter he was missing, who lives with her mother. For a reason that i can not recall, he left that home but was hoping that he could go back. The problem didn't seem to be any obstacle other than Rocky. In some ways it seemed to me, as he prodded our vehicle to function, Rocky was speaking aloud to himself.
The evening continued, Maria went to sleep in the car but i stayed up with Rocky as his sidekick listening and offering my random comments. There was laughter and frustration with the car but seven, eight hours later, Rocky got the vehicle working again. It escapes me what he charged but it was much less than we thought it might be, and probably what it should have been.
We shook hands. Rocky asked us to stop by again, under better circumstances. He smiled and waved goodbye. Unlike when we first showed up, he seemed a bit shy. I was proud to have made a friend in unlikely circumstances. The road frightened us but ultimately led us to a good place and as I reflect tonight, one of the best roads ever traveled (not that I'd want to experience those events again).
Two years later we did stop by (Maria was tired of me saying that we should visit Rocky- so she made sure we did) but Rocky wasn't there. The men who were, laughed and said he left. Gone to be with his daughter.
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