Ode to Bruce

The check engine light came on last week, I pulled into a gas station and checked the dip stick, and everything looked fine. Turned the car back on, the light was gone, I drove. A few days later it did it again. This time I actually bothered a mechanic to check it. All fine, he said; the light must be on the blink.

On the blink. That's what he said.

I thought of him today as Liam and I cooled our heels and our engine on the side of the New Jersey Turnpike, after I noticed the temperature gage in the red zone. Could've been there for a week for all I know; I've never seen the thing budge and sort of assumed it was busted, and don't tend to check it for that reason. Suddenly it's moving. (This is, you may have gathered, an old car. A great old car. Never failed me, not once in 200,000 miles.)

Finally, heart in mouth, wondering about the genesis of all those engine fires I've witnessed over the years, I unbuckled Liam's seat belt (I know, I know--but I wanted to be able to grab him and jump in the event of a speedy exit), started the thing up again, flashers flashing, and rolled off the highway into the bowels (no offense to any natives) of Newark. I stopped at three service stations. The first two, nobody speaks any language that I speak. At the third, the guy eyes me approaching him with this surly glare--he's talking on the phone and balancing his checkbook--and I actually hear myself apologizing for disturbing him. This is female behavior, and I hate it. He looks under the hood, touches and tugs and opens and checks. "No problem," he says. "Circuitry must be on the blink." I swear. On the blink. He wants $20 bucks for the diagnosis. I know he wouldn't have charged my father, but I didn't want to fight; Liam was already scared.

Still felt unsafe. On the way back to the turnpike we found BMJ Automotive, run by B, or Bruce--big and bald, fingers like sausages, black Harley Davidson shirt. He looks at the engine, asks a few questions about when the temp goes up and my speed, and tells me the radiator's shot. Like, duh. Why didn't I guess that? I ask if I can make it home--an hour and a half--and he says it'll be fine if I keep it under 50 and don't shift into 5th and shut the car down if the gage tips into the red again. He lets on that he's got one child in med school and another studying architecture in Rhode Island. He jokes with Liam and cheers him up. I try to pay him but he tells me to buy Liam some lunch instead and then gives the kid a lollipop.

I'm in love. What I wouldn't give for more of that in my life: competence and kindness. A moment of silence for Bruce, my Man of the Hour.