Wednesday, March 22, was a fine March day here in Middletown,
Ohio. A good day to get outside. Cold, but sunny.
After work that day I gathered my dog, donned a knit cap,
and jumped in the truck, destined for the Miami River trail. The pup and I go
almost every day. Nothing unusual.
The route I take has a long, steep downhill that ends at a
busy, divided, four-lane highway. There is a traffic light at the intersection.
And yesterday there was a car stalled at the bottom of that hill, in the left
lane. The driver looked cold, and was huddled behind the wheel.
The car’s hazard lights were on, but the flasher on the
right wasn’t working; it looked like the car was waiting to turn left. But it
suddenly became apparent to approaching drivers, me included, that this car
wasn’t turning; it was stuck there.
Left turners coming down the hill to the green light were
expecting to proceed through. But because the car was sitting still, with only
the left flasher, drivers who did not see the problem until they were RIGHT ON
TOP of the car, had to jam their brakes and quickly swerve around into the right
lane and then swerve hard left. It was a bad place to be broken down.
As I approached, I swerved around the big sedan, made my left
turn and then parked 50 yards away, off the shoulder. I didn’t know who was in
the car, but I wouldn’t want to sit there, and I wouldn’t want anyone else to
be sitting there either. I crossed the busy road and walked back to the car. My
dog watched me from the heated comfort of the truck.
The driver looked up as I tapped her window. She opened the
door and I told her at the next green light I would push her car across the
road so she could park out of traffic.
“Thank you!” I didn’t know her. She was a middle-aged, plump
woman who smelled of cigarette smoke. It didn’t matter. She shouldn’t have had to
sit there in danger.
I told her to put her car in neutral. She struggled with
that task then asked if the key had to be in the ignition. I shouted from the
rear of the car, “Yes, put the key in and turn it on!” She did, and because I
was testing the resistance of the car to my impending effort, I felt the
transmission drop into neutral.
All set.
We waited through half a green light, people whizzing by. Me
standing there in my bright blue parka, purple Middletown High School beanie,
black winter track pants, and trail running shoes. Nobody stopped; or waved; or
waited. Nobody even looked at me. It was
odd. The light turned red. And we waited a little more. A line of cars stacked
behind us.
Then, when the light changed to green, I dug in and pushed.
There was a hint of a grade, so after I got the car moving, it was not hard to
keep moving.
What WAS difficult was the stream of drivers that denied us
a few moments to clear the intersection. Drivers passed by in increasingly
larger arcs across the obvious and inevitable path of the crippled car. Even
when we were more than half-way across the intersection, leaving plenty of room
for a driver to turn left behind me and the rolling land barge, a car
dangerously crossed in front of this plainly disabled and man-powered vehicle.
I wished we had collided. It would have been pure negligence
on the dingbat driver’s fault.
Nobody in the six or so cars that turned past made eye
contact with me as I looked at them, pleading out loud for patience or caution.
I could read their faces: “Ah well, a couple of losers in a
crap car. Not my problem.”
The apathy (hostility?) was disturbing. I doubt any of the
passing drivers had room to be judgmental about a broken-down car. Yet they
seemed to have deemed us a mirage — not even there as an obstacle to traffic.
Despite the apathetic interference of the motorists, we got the
car parked out of traffic. I accepted the driver’s real thanks as I walked past
her, hopped back into my truck, and continued to my destination, a little
bitter.
