Coming Home (Part 1/3)

Before I begin, I want to apologize for the length; I'm not going to cut it down any more than this, though, because this is the first bit of writing I've felt good about for some time. Take your time with it if you need to, parts 2 & 3 won't show up for a few days.

There are roughly 684 miles between my spot in upper lot and my parking spot on the road alongside the house across the street from my home. It's a journey I've made at least a dozen times in the past few years; I thought that I knew every last stretch of road I would come across. But as it turned out, God had plans for using that very same road to stretch me.

This story is all true.

***

First and foremost, I have some slightly embarrassing confessions to make. If you try to corner me on any of these in real life, I will deny that they are true. But we'll both know that they're true, because you just read them and I wrote them and we'll feel just like spies or bank robbers or two children who've stumbled upon a great and mysterious faerie land that we want so badly to tell everyone else about. But we won't. Get it?

One, I am a very slow reader. And I'm not talking about the technical, making letters into words and words into sentences part of reading, but the sitting still and focusing on something in front of me for hours on end part of reading. The last book that I read of my own volition was The Ragamuffin Gospel, which I loved. It took me nine months.

Two, I am kinda sorta afraid of the dark. Like not a lot, and not if anybody else is around, but it just takes me a few minutes to get accustomed to being alone in the dark.

Three, I don't actually know how to change a flat tire. I mean, I'm aware that there's this whole jack up the car, use tire iron, put spare on process to it--but I've never actually done it. I don't think it'd be that hard...I mean, they make directions, right? I'm really good at following directions...

OK, I think that's all that's really necessary at the start of all of this. Now we can descend gracefully into a story of coming home.

***

This story actually begins at the start of last week, but I don't really want to tell it from there. So instead, I'll start in the middle.

It was raining. I don't mind rain, I even kinda like it, but I absolutely hate being wet. It'd been raining in Tulsa pretty heavily off and on for a couple of days and the ground had already had its fill of water. Puddles were forming everywhere, and since I was rocking my Chucks, walking from the GC to Saga had never been so difficult. I arrived, ate some breakfast, and prepared myself for what was already shaping up to be a long day.

It was 8.25 when I poured the green Tabasco sauce (my most recent love affair) onto my eggs-and-other-various-breakfasty-things plate, and I still had to load my possessions into my Saturn Ion, clean (fervently) the room, and procure the Holy Grail of finals week (an RA's signature on my dorm check-out sheet) before noon. The morning was pretty stressful, but thanks mostly to the work of DW, my roommate, I was able to get signed out at 12:15, and on the road by 12:30.

I picked up my foot long BMT at Subway, as is my custom, with a bag of Sun Chips and a root beer and settled in for ten hours of pure joy behind the wheel of my car through some of the most consistent terrain God ever designed on this Earth.

In order to leave Tulsa, I have to do this weird etch-a-sketch type maneuver where I start by heading north on 75, then go about a mile east on 244, before turning west onto 412, which takes me most of the way out of Oklahoma. I remember it as a dance step. Anyway, right after merging onto 412, which is under construction, I found my way into a vacuous cavern of a pothole hungry for tires along the right side of the right lane.

Eight inches doesn't sound like much. At 70 miles per hour, it sounds like you broke the whole passenger side of your car off. Then the grinding noise starts. I never lost control or even felt like I was close, which was pretty incredible considering I was holding my sandwich the whole time. Also, I never even thought about swearing. But I was scared. Mainly of having to change a tire. I credit my hours of running from cops in Grand Theft Auto for this; say what you will about murder, drugs, prostitution, and profanity, but that game gave me a serious leg up when it comes to driving through difficult situations.

As I pulled over, on a bridge (which is totally not what you're supposed to do), I joined a line of about eight or nine other vehicles who had also hid the pothole-o del muerte. I looked into the passenger side mirror of my car, seeing if I could see any damage. The fact that I could see warped edges of the rim stretching inches out away from my car was my first clue that something was more wrong than a spare could fix.

I called my mom. She put my dad on the phone. I got out of the car and surveyed the damage: both passenger side tires, rims, and wheels were done. Finito. The police were now on the scene, blocking off the lane which had claimed two perfectly good wheels from my now forlorn looking car, so I walked over to them to see what I should do. They wanted me off the bridge, and said that they would come down and escort me off the highway once the road crew arrived.

Devoid of any other options, I retrieved the rest of my sandwich from my car, sat down on the guardrail halfway between my car and the cops, and had a picnic.

About twenty minutes later, one of the patrolmen drove up to my car and, with the words "You ready to try this?" sent me to my car to get it to the QT at the next exit. As it turns out, mucho difficult to drive without tires on half your wheels...it seems like everything's going to explode at about 30. I made it to the QuikTrip, there in North Tulsa, at which point the officer literally said "You're safe here, but I wouldn't go too far in any direction." I thanked him for the advice and, for the first time, examined my surroundings. A chain link fence surrounded the QuikTrip. A chainlink fence with barbed wire at the top. I locked my doors.

It was shortly after this that she drove up and parked in the space next to mine. I had heard her engine making strange noises as she used the same exit I had just used to leave 412, distracting me from my reading; I watched her the whole way in. There was a baby in the car with her, in whatever it is that you put a baby into while in the car with a blanket over the handle, making a little tent. And I smiled, I felt comforted with the knowledge that people--rich, poor, black, white, North Tulsan, Springfolk--are all the same.

But she didn't get out at first. I thought that was odd. She had parked quite a way from the store. I tried to focus on my reading. She was out of her car now, looking under the hood. There were tears in her eyes. Just when I was beginning to debate offering help of some kind, she got back into her car and got out her cell phone. Surely she has help on the way, I thought.

She rolled the passenger side window halfway down. It was warm and humid by this point in the day; not hot like August, but not weather for sitting with your infant in a car. I tried desperately not to notice. My car was hermetically sealed; I had my A/C running. I had a drink. I tried again to focus on my book. I tried to send my mom a text message that the tow truck would be another half hour.

Just then, the loud, terrible beeping of a truck in reverse captured my attention. The tow truck had arrived. I got out of my car and greeted the very nice, older gentleman walking toward me. We chatted about how quickly he had gotten there (he had been downtown filing some paperwork) and how I had gotten myself into this predicament. And then there she was.

She was standing outside her car, now, with her baby in her arms, tears streaming down her face. She called out for help. She asked the tow truck driver to help her. She asked how much it would be; she didn't have insurance, so the driver told her that the rate was something a mile. I don't remember what it was, but I know now and I knew then that it was too much. She pleaded; the auto shop was just up the road a block or two. He said OK.

I sat there. I wanted to say "Take her first, then come back for me. She has a baby. She needs help." But I didn't. I couldn't? No, that's not it. I just didn't. And I hated myself for it. And I still hate that part of me for it.

The tow driver lifted my car onto his flat bed. I kept my back to her and her car. Before we left, he went over to her and said one last thing. I couldn't hear him over the idling engine, and his back was turned so I couldn't even read lips.

I hope it was good news.

Then I climbed into the truck and we were on our way.

***

Peace, love, and joy to you all.

Part 2/3 should be up by Tuesday of next week.