I crouched down looking at the rusty bolts.
“Then how was it inspected four years ago?”
He shrugged. “You can go home and look for the spare if you want, but I have to fail the inspection. It’s going to be another twelve bucks when you come back.”
That’s how they get you. If they find anything wrong, they have to fail the vehicle in order for you to drive away. Then, it’s another fee when you bring back the truck to try to get it inspected again. Anyway, that’s why I had a new spare tire in the bed of the truck. At the time, I had never expected to use it. Why would I? I can’t remember the last time I had a flat.
It had never occurred to me to look for a jack. That had to be part of the inspection though, right? If they demanded a spare, why wouldn’t they require a jack to be in the vehicle as well.
I sighed and then flinched back when I tried to lean against the hot metal.
Option two was out. I could walk or try to drive on the rim.
“Walk,” I whispered.
(Like I said, it was hot.)
Like I said, it was hot.
Arguably, it wasn’t that hot.
I grew up in South Carolina, in a fetid swamp vaguely near the coast. Now that was hot. It was different though. It was usual. You knew to take it easy certain times of day. You knew not to try to walk four miles of dirt road at one in the afternoon. You knew to stay in the shade and have some water around.
All of that wisdom flew out of my head at some point. By the time I moved to Maine to live in the house that I inherited from Uncle Walt, I was the kind of person dumb enough to be driving around in a fifty-year-old truck right into the teeth of a scorching hot day.
I had walked about fifty paces when I heard the crunch of gravel. Instead of turning around, I almost broke into a sprint. I was convinced that I would see the old truck rolling towards me, a limping predator out for my blood. Maine is that kind of place. It’s the kind of place where trucks become possessed and hunt down newcomers on dirt roads in the middle of nowhere.
“Hey,” someone yelled.
I turned and saw a bright, shiny new car sitting next to Uncle Walt’s truck. The guy was waving at me.
My social anxiety had evaporated in the heat. I practically skipped towards the guy.
“Car trouble?”
“Flat. I don’t have a jack,” I said. I followed his eyes down and I realized that I was still holding the tire iron.
“I bet I can help with that,” he said.
His car started to back up. The paranoid part of me spoke up and I knew that he was going to keep reversing until he got back to the Prescott Road, leaving me there. It would be within his rights. I probably looked like a crazy person, standing there with a tire iron and sweating through my shirt.
He didn’t. The car swung in neatly behind the truck, his hazards popped on, and he got out.
“Wow, it’s hot,” he said.
His trunk popped open and he straightened back up. I tossed the tire iron towards the flat tire—no need to brandish it—and tried to lean against the fender again. It was still burning hot, of course. I rubbed my seared flesh.
He was rummaging in the trunk when he asked me something that I didn’t quite hear.
“Pardon?” I asked, approaching slowly.
“It occurs to me that this little jack probably isn’t going to do much to lift that truck. Here, hold this.”
He handed me one of those little donut tires.
“I have a spare.”
“It’s not for your truck. I’m just hoping to add some height to this.”
He held out one of those scissor jacks. For his small car, I’m sure it would be fine. With about fifteen inches of travel, the jack would easily get his car off the ground. For Uncle Walt’s truck, fifteen inches wouldn’t even unload the springs.
He had a handful of parts and the jack. I followed him towards the truck.
“Lay that on the ground.”
He maneuvered the donut tire under the frame and then tried to balance his jack on top. After assembling the rest of the pieces into a crank, he began to extend the jack.
“Thanks for stopping. Maybe I could try your phone or something? I really don’t think that this is going to…”
“No signal out here. That’s why I stopped. If I had my car we would be all set. I have a really good…”
The tire tipped and the jack spilled to the ground.
“This is a rental,” he said, gesturing to the shiny car. “Mine’s in the shop. You’re right, this isn’t going to work. Can I give you a lift to town?”
“Actually, my house is just another few miles. If I could get there, I can call a tow truck or triple A or something.”
I had said the wrong thing. His eyes stayed on mine while he reassessed me. Clearly, I was untrustworthy. If the roles were reversed, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t even have stopped.
“I’m supposed to be picking up my kid,” he said. “I really don’t want to be late.”
“Of course.”
“I’m headed to town anyway, so I don’t mind dropping you off.”
“Sure,” I said. Politeness dictated that I ignore the obvious lie. If he was really in that much of a hurry, would he have stopped at all? Was driving another ten minutes really going to upset his plans? If the jack had worked, we would have taken at least that long to change the tire. No, when I suggested that he take me back to my lair, he had reassessed and decided that he wasn’t going to let me lure him to a more remote location.
“Oh!” I said. “What if we use my spare
