A bad day all around January 22, 1985
Today was one of those days where nothing went right,
covering a period that started at about 11 p.m. on Sunday through to about 5
p.m., Monday – although the seeds of all this had been sowed days ago, growing
without my knowledge as the temperature outside dropped.
The alternator light started coming on, not for long, just
long enough for the car to warm up. I kept thinking the battery needed charging
(despite deeper fears of something more serious transpiring.) Maybe this was
just too Freudian in thinking I wanted something nasty to occur.
I have been in a self-destructive mood of late, looking for
an excuse to get out from my job, more still to escape my responsibilities for
my uncle.
So, seeing the flicker of light on my dashboard triggered some
primitive fear deeper than just a mechanical failure.
The truth is, even mechanical failure binds me to my uncle
mor, forcing me to “borrow” more money from his account to make the repair,
adding to my increasing level of guilt – which is already elevated for my
dislike of him from when I was a young kid, and still now as an adult.
Perhaps I should have been warned of the upcoming storm of
bad news when rumors surfaced about a chance of scheduling at work. Some
corporate bosses were planning to show up on my shift (on all shifts, I later
learned), a painful test of endurance (I hate being monitored). At it turned
out, they were to come – not to watch us but to use our facilities for a
project of their own. Nonetheless they would be hovering around the kitchen,
making judgments, perhaps testing me.
I never do well on tests and hate people watching when I
work (the reason I like working the night shift).
My uncle poses problems, too. Home for weekends in anticipation
of his eventual release from the hospital, he’s started his own routines –
refusing to go to the outpatient clinic or take his medicine – which makes me
anxious about coming home from work to find his body floating in the river.
I found myself eating trash food again, a cookie I brought
home for my uncle, part of a donut (something one never eats when watching his
weight).
I even went back to the local bar. Not that I’m drinking too much, but the potential
is there.
After I brought my uncle back to the hospital, I came home
to the prospect of changing the whole apartment around to fit him in it, one
more displeasing aspect of this whole arrangement.
I like my little world just the way it is.
I worked for a few hours, putting up shelves, clearing out
the closets, only to wind up having the small apartment look worse than when I
started.
With retched home behind me and cold weather swooping in
ahead, I went to work. And there they were, four of the most important big
shots in Dunkin Donut corporation, technical advisors that pranced from shop to
shop, coast to coast, checking to make sure the quality remained at an acceptable
level. While they hadn’t come to evaluate my work, I remained conscious of
their ability to point out all my flaws, something I didn’t need at the moment.
The only positive point came when they said they would be gone
in an hour; still, it was an hour too long.
I decided to wait to start work until they were gone, since
I learned my production had been cut due to the fact Wayne L hadn’t ordered the
necessary supplies and I only had to do half of what I usually do.
The big shots liked. By the time they left, it was 2 a.m. and
I was hopeless behind, and I barely finished in time for the morning shift to
open the store for business.
By this time, it was 7 a.m. Daylight. But no warmer. The
temperature in Manhattan (according to the radio) was 2 degrees above zero. It
felt even colder when I went to my car in the Willowbrook Mall parking lot, and
it wouldn’t start.
The battery was quite dead.
After a few minutes, Joe (the night guard) came around with jumping
cables. But they wouldn’t reach from where his car was, so he had to pull
around. He told me to push my car back from the curb – but it was too heavy (a Pinto,
heavy?) That should have warned me. The brake drums were frozen. Someone helped
me push. But the jumping cables broke when I tried to attach them to my
battery. I fixed them, but the jump didn’t take. I thought it was faulty cables.
The battery, as it turned out, was just too dead to take the charge.
Joe said he was cold and wanted to go home.
As a matter of habit, I locked the car door when I got out
to check the cables again. The keys were still inside the car.
After raising the day guard who brought the unlocking
device, I remembered how to break into the car from the other side; I said
nothing.
The car still refused to start.
Paul, the on and off spare baker, arrived; Joe went home. We
went over to the auto store and brought another set of cables.
Paul paid because I had no money (having used up my whole
paycheck to cover the cost of printing the latest issue of my underground
newspaper) and I told him I would pay him back on Friday when I got paid again
(It amazes me how much gets put off to Fridays these days.)
After a long, long time of charging, the car finally started.
Still, the engine struggled to turn over – which should have served as warning
as well. I was too glad at hearing it start to worry about what might happen
next, though I feared what might happen later when I would have to start the
car again to return to work.
I rarely dressed for inclement weather, sneakers, jeans and
a somewhat thick jacket. I did wear thermal underwear, but no sweater.
As I drove home, I thought about the newspaper and how I
needed to put it off until the weekend so I could get some sleep.
Half way down Route 80 the engine light came on. This wasn’t
the wavering light the alternator had given, but a glaring warning, rock solid,
like the time I drove the car two quarts low on oil.
I started to worry that the old machine might blow up under
me. I held my breath, turned off the highway at Madison Avenue in Paterson, and
headed towards Charlie’s Garage on Crooks Avenue.
I would have to leave it, the mechanic told me after a brief
examination of the machine, making note that despite the cold, the car was on
the verge of overheating.
The engine block had frozen. The water I used instead of
anti-freeze couldn’t handle the kinds of temperatures the area currently
experienced.
Two minutes later, I chased down the bus to Passaic and after
a few blocks realized I still had the keys to the car, which sat in front of one
of the garage’s bays. I should have gotten off the bus and gone back. But I was
cold and weary and had a ten block walk ahead of me from where the bus would
drop me off on Main Street to where I lived on Eighth and Passaic. So, I waited
until I got home to call.
The mechanic was peeved and said he could not fix the car
until I brought him the keys. I called work to let them know I would not be in for
the overnight shift, went to sleep, and then when I could feel my fingers and
toes again, headed back up to Main Street for the bus back to Charlie’s garage.
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