A good day

Some years back, I had a job scheduled in Manning.

So on the morning in question, I awoke early enough to shower and fluff, and put on my teal silk dress and black power pumps. I carefully assembled my equipment, got the children ready and drove them to school, and headed out of town in what the kids called “The Blue Chunker,” a perfectly serviceable four-door sedan we’d purchased when an enthusiastic young driver had lost control and crashed into my sporty little 200SX.

Feeling quite organized, professional, and on top of things, I made my way past Conway, enjoying sips of hot coffee on that cool morning.

Which is when I noticed the temperature gauge inching toward the red zone.

So I pulled into the next little country convenience store as steam began to sizzle out from under the hood of my car. I had just enough money with me for lunch, which I used to purchase some antifreeze, assuming I was just low on fluid. Having popped the hood in my teal silk dress and power pumps, a well dressed gentleman with a beeper on his belt stopped me, concerned that I didn’t know what I was doing (I didn’t, so much). He asked the store clerk for a hose and spent some time hosing down the front of my car, so that I wouldn’t 1) boil myself when I took the cap off the radiator and 2) crack my engine by sending cold water running through a hot block. All the while, he was constantly monitoring his very busy beeper; clearly, this was keeping him from something. Eventually, steam stopped belching from the Blue Chunker. He insisted on adding the fluid for me, saying it might dirty my dress, and I was on my way.

All went well until I reached a bridge over Pudding Swamp, when I realized I was red-lining again. Nothing to do but stop the car at that point, but I was a long way from civilization, and several years before cell phones.

The first priority was getting a message to the people waiting for me that I was delayed. So I locked my equipment in the car and headed off, stomping back up the road I’d just driven, my silk dress and power pumps slogging through mud, rocks, and high weeds on the side of the road, briars scratching my shins and calves through my pantyhose.

Presently, a car pulled up beside me, and a very nice female voice asked if I needed help. I gratefully accepted her offer of a ride. She said she didn’t like to see women alone on the road, as it was dangerous. We talked about fishing while she drove me back to a gas station in Lake City, where I hoped I could get help.

The owner of the gas station said he didn’t have towing capacity, nor the ability to fix my car, but that I was welcome to use his phone to call a tow service he knew in Manning, and to call my job to tell them what had happened. At the job, the people indicated they’d wait on me. At the tow service, someone said they’d send a truck to pick me up and then retrieve my car. So I waited with the gas station owner. My nerves settled a little with the genial conversation and a soft drink. I eventually propped my feet up the same as he did, chewing the fat with him and watching people come into his gas station. He didn’t have a lot of business, but he had a lot of neighbors drop in to catch him up on the latest goings-on, and mothers who came with their children to avail themselves of the stash of candy he kept there for them.

After what seemed like forever, Hansel showed up in the tow truck. A clean-cut young man, efficient and cordial, with a camo cap and neatly pressed shirt. He chewed on but refused to light a cigar, because he said he didn’t want the smell to offend me. Hansel said he would drop me off at my job and take my car to the repair shop, and told me to call him for a ride when my job was finished.

Unfortunately, by the time we found the office, and he’d dropped me off, the secretary there told me that other arrangements had been made, because it had taken me so long to get there. I had to borrow her phone to call Hansel to come back to get me. He showed up in his personal vehicle, a red truck with dog boxes in the back, and seemed genuinely dismayed that I lost the work. He kept shaking his head and saying, “That’s just not right!”

He deposited me at the repair shop, where I met a friendly mechanic named Toby. Toby told me the problem wasn’t just fluid, but a water pump, and that he was looking for one. By this point, the events of the day were beginning to overwhelm me. I asked how much it would cost, and when I could get my car back, since I needed to be able to pick up the children from school. Toby gave me an estimate, which amount I did not have in my checking account. I asked if I could write a check, and if he would hold it until I could get the money from my husband. Toby agreed not to deposit the check until I’d called him and said the money was available.

Then he worked through his lunch hour to make sure I could get back home in time to pick up the children.

When he’d finished the repairs and handed me the bill, I saw a charge for the part. Only the part.

No charge for the tow. Hansel felt terrible that I hadn’t gotten to earn the money I came to town to earn.

No charge for the labor, despite that it took Toby several hours, including his lunch hour.

I could not convince either Hansel or Toby to change the bill.

So I left Manning, my silk dress and power pumps fairly mud-splattered and weed encrusted, runners in my pantyhose, a day lost and a couple of hundred dollars poorer, and not having made the money I’d come to earn. And having had one of the single best days of my life. I remember laughing out loud as I drove away, just in some mix of joy and humility at the number of ways my faith in the essential goodness of humanity had been affirmed. It was worth every penny.

My sweet husband had the opportunity this week to help a gentleman whose truck had broken down on his way from Montana to see a daughter in the hospital. What struck me, as he was telling me the story, was that same sense of both joy and humility emanating from him, for the privilege of being able to help. It was worth every penny.

When you cast your bread on the water, there’s just no way to know in advance how, or when, or even if it will come back to you, and it is naïve to pretend that humans aren’t complicated, and sometimes all too willing to behave in predictably selfish ways. Sometimes the good you want to do fails. Sometimes people lie and take advantage of your good intentions. Most times, you’ll never know what ripple effect you have had in the trajectory of someone else’s life.

But if you can resist cynicism, remain open to the possibility of goodness, every so often you’ll stumble into an opportunity in which you feel as though you’re operating in complete harmony with the cosmos. Where the reward is both immediate and profound, a nearly mystical juncture where loving God is not different than loving neighbor, is not different than loving self. Those moments, wherever and however you find them, are astonishing and humbling, and always, always worth every penny.

Fry is a frequent contributor to The Sun News Opinion Blog, at thesunnews.typepad.com/opinionblog.