One chilly day last week, I tried to start our 12-year-old car which has survived an encounter with a deer, a big hole in a construction zone, a tree, a left turn barrier and sudden meeting with another vehicle. It’s the one Penny uses on her photo forays to various lakes, rivers and nature sites in the area.
Alas, the battery was dead, and invoking the name of the deity with words that should not be heard, I jumped into our other car, a sleek four-year-old model which we will pay off in only six-plus years. It is a cozy nest that can warm me at the push of a button, warn me with a beep and remind me with a ding-ding.
As I was leaving our house, a tall 60-ish year-old man wearing a yellow crossing guard vest sidled up to the car door. I pushed a button and my window rolled down.
“Do you remember me,” he asked. “I used to mow your front yard.”
I remembered. Most of all I recalled the well-worn mower and how, despite its age, it did what it was designed to do, which is the most you can say for any machine. He deserved what I agreed to pay him. It was commerce the way it was supposed to be.
“Can you help me, please,” he said. “My car was broken into and my wallet with my money was taken. Can you take me to a gas station. I need to get gas for the car.”
I can almost hear your response now.
STOP! IT’S A SCAM! DON’T BE A FOOL!
Instead, I asked “do you have a gas can?”
“I will get one,” he said.
I followed him as walked to an adjoining street. He signaled me to wait as he ran between two houses and returned with a red gallon can. A button opened the passenger door, and he got in.
Small talk followed. I think he said his name was Chester and he was from the Joliet area and was cleaning an elderly woman’s garage when the front window of his car was shattered overnight. He said members of his family had once lived in Park Forest and had moved some time ago. I told him we were short-timers in town, coming in 1964, moving to the house we are in today one year later.
“You must like it here,” he replied. I nodded.
When we arrived at a gas station, I told him I would pay for the gas.
(STOP! IT’S A SCAM!)
I thought the station’s neon sign said gas was $3.09, but when I paid with a twenty, I got back $16.81. OK, I thought, so it’s $3.19. Did I read it wrong? And Chester’s fill up came to not 3/100ths short of one gallon. This too, I suppose, is also commerce.
We drove back to where I picked him up. As he left I gave him $10 for what I said was gas money for his trip home and wished him a good holiday.
(SUCKER!)
I then used the snug cocoon of the car to finish the errand I was on for Penny, who, some seven weeks before, fractured the fourth and fifth metatarsal of he right foot when she tripped over a pallet while doling out food at a pop-up food pantry in Richton Park. The cure included six weeks in a cast and I suddenly became her arms and legs at the pantry.
Daily Southtown
Twice-weekly
News updates from the south suburbs delivered every Monday and Wednesday
I used to explain it to friends, saying it was an unwritten commandment that “no good deed ever goes unpunished.” I think we often these kinds of remarks as a defense mechanism. It may be a way to keep our concerns to ourselves.
Errand done, I came home with a light heart and in good spirits. Helping a stranger with a gallon of gas and a 10 made me feel better. I had bills to pay, and I was trying to fight off a cold that wanted to grip my chest, but life, I decided, was good. I told Penny what happened and how I felt.
She replied, “I hope it wasn’t a scam.”
Sigh!
Happy holidays.
Jerry Shnay is a freelance columnist for the Daily Southtown.
