I'm cruising up Amsterdam, the sun is brilliant, and I'm hearing "All I Wanna Do" on the radio for the first time. I turn it up. It's one of those rare afternoons when driving in Manhattan is a pleasure.
At the light, I have to turn Sheryl Crow down to hear what the guy in the next car is saying. "Hey," he says, "do you want me to fix that dent?" He indicates the passenger door on our Suburau, crumpled by a teenage driver in Missouri. "I got tools. 40 bucks."
"No thanks," I say. "If the car looks too good, someone will steal it."
"Oh, don't worry. I won't do that good a job."
I still tell that as one of my New York stories; it's got a good blend of wise-ass and hustle. But there's another story that happened a few years later. Different car, different ending.
My wife and I were looking at antiques and stopped first at a place on Fifth Avenue in Brooklyn. After we parked, a guy pulled up and offered to fix the dent on the wheel rim of the Camry. I just kept walking, but my wife hadn't quite heard him and started back toward him. She thought he was pointing out something wrong with our car -- the lights on, or a door left ajar. Sometimes she trusts people too much.
What was it that made me grab her elbow and steer her inside the shop? Maybe it was just the New York thing, the wall you've got to put up to keep out the constant assault of the city. Someone makes you an offer you don't want, asks for money you don't have, you just ignore him. Like it didn't happen, like he's not there at all. Sometimes I trust people too little.
He blew up. I don't remember the names he called me or the threats he made, still sitting in his car. I don't remember what I said back. But I remember being nervous -- and unwilling to back down. I was out on the sidewalk, and glad that the two guys who worked at the shop were both near and large.
It was clear that as long as I stood there, he would keep raving. My impulse then was to turn my back on him, go back in the shop, and ignore him. And then he told me to do just that. "Go on, turn around and go inside." He kept repeating it, commanding it. So of course that kept me out there on the sidewalk arguing with this lunatic car repair guy. Until I'd had enough, and really did turn and walk away.
Afterward, I felt an inchoate rage. I envisioned turning him into the cops for running an illegal business; or coming back to find our car vandalized; or various violent scenarios, fear and its flipside.
It was months before we got the car fixed. I sometimes think of these two dents as inverse New York stories. The sitcom and the cop drama, Yiddish and thuggish, the punch line and the fear of being punched.
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