I pulled up to a stoplight, and had to brake hard on the summer-oiled pavement, activating the antilock brakes. My entire dash lit up with an array of lights - the expected slippy car and ABS lights, yes, but also the low charge indicator on the battery - and the engine died.
I turned the key off, then back on, trying to restart the motor. The only sound from under the hood was the click, click, click from the starter. I tried again, same results. The light changed, and I tried to turn on my flashers to alert the cars behind me. No dice, I didn't have enough charge even for that. I opened my door and waved the cars to go around me; with some grumbling and just a little honking, they did.
As it pulled around, a beat-up old orange pickup of dubious vintage slowed, then backed up to park directly in front of me. The driver, a thirty-something guy with a medium build and a long beard, wearing jeans and a "Freedom is a Right" t-shirt, with no mask in sight, hopped out into the rain and came back to ask me if I needed some help. In no mood to argue the merits of a mask in the midst of a pandemic (after all, we were outdoors, it was raining, and we were six feet apart), I explained what had happened, and he nodded sagely. "Yup, either the battery or alternator", he agreed.. Either way, the car was not going to start where I was stranded, and without flashers to alert oncoming traffic, I was in a dangerous spot. He said he had a chain, offered to pull me off the street and over to a nearby parking lot. A little leery, but unwilling to take my chances on a collision by leaving the car where it was until AAA would be able to show up in an hour, I agreed.
He'd done this before. It took just a minute to dig the chain out of the debris in his truck bed, and he quickly got it hooked up under my bumper and to the spot on his rear end where the bumper would have been mounted if said bumper was actually attached to the vehicle. We hopped back in our cars, and he smoothly pulled me out of harm's way, around the corner, into the lot, and neatly into a parking spot. (or two, but let's not get picky here!)
Let me pause for a moment to give thanks for power steering and brakes - the car was NOT easy to maneuver without them. I spend the entire less-than-a-minute I was being towed frantically yanking on the wheel and stomping on the brakes with all my might to avoid crashing into the back of his truck.
Now we were safely out of traffic, he offered to see if giving the car a jump would work. I readily agreed, and he went back to the cab of his truck, dug a bit more, and came up with a set of jumper cables. We popped the hood, he hooked them up, and we gave it a shot. The car started right on up. As we waited to see if the battery would take a charge, we chatted just a bit.
He said it was just chance that had him driving down the road behind me - if he hadn't needed to drop off a something with a friend nearby, he wouldn't have been anywhere near me. I thanked him, offered him all the cash I had on me - ten bucks - but he declined. He didn't want money for doing what decent people ought to do when they see someone in trouble and they can help.
After five minutes or so, we tried unhooking the cables, and the gauge immediately dropped to zero - there was no way the car was going to make it to the nearest auto parts store, just ten minutes away. I could see his wheels turning, wondering what else he could do, but I stopped him. I was safe, my car was safe, and I had friends I could call.
He smiled, said goodbye, climbed back in his truck and drove off before I remembered I hadn't even asked him his name.
Good Is.
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Footnote: I called Joe, and he was able to come get me. He ran up to the auto parts store, picked up a new battery and the car started right on up. Today, I took it to my mechanic - sure enough the alternator was also on the blink - and got it replaced. When I get tired of looking at the scratched paint on the bumper, I'll get it fixed. (his chain popped it a bit off kilter and messed up the paint). The $200-ish cost to repaint will be a small price to pay for a quick resolution to what could have been an ugly situation.
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