Would You Help a Stranger if it Made You Seem Like a Nice Person?

My day was blown up right after work when I noticed a guy struggling to start his pickup truck. I had just finished my day job and was plotting my evening: write this newsletter, write my novel, play with the dogs, and exercise. I’d have time later on to read and relax.

A few minutes earlier, I’d been bringing my dogs inside when I noticed the guy and his wife making their way with their two kids toward the pickup. They all piled in and I thought nothing of it. From the comfort of my kitchen, as I chugged a cup of water, I saw him going from the engine compartment to the driver seat and back again, turning the key but getting nowhere.

We live next to a school and it’s not unusual for people to park on the driveway behind our house and take their kids to the playground. In fact, hearing kids play and laugh fills our backyard with joy.

Hoping to be a hero, I grabbed my portable, emergency jump starter and walked out back.

Turns out he had a similar portable jump starter but he’d drained it already in his attempts to start his pickup truck. No matter, because mine was fully charged. We attached it to the terminals, his wife turned the key, but we got nothing beyond a few sad, quiet clicks from inside the engine compartment.

“It’s been giving me trouble all week,” he said. “My little battery jumper got her going each time. Not sure what’s wrong now.”

I didn’t want to spoil his fun, but the thing that was wrong now was probably the same thing that was wrong three days ago when the problem revealed itself. I offered to drive his wife and kids home, as they needn’t linger here while the problem got solved.

“Thanks but we live way up north of Lansing.”

I’m in a suburb south of Lansing, so I didn’t even want to ask why he’d drive thirty minutes with a sketchy pickup truck to play on a tiny playground. There had to be twenty other playgrounds between here and there. Come to think of it, there are three Meijer stores, seven Quality Dairies, and thirty-five marijuana dispensaries between here and there (Lansing has a lot of marijuana dispensaries). Surely they could have spent the late afternoon elsewhere.

Having given up on the portable, emergency jump starters, I offered to take his inside to recharge it and bring my car around to attempt a good old-fashioned jumpstart. They thanked me but I demurred—no thanks needed—as I have been helped quite a few times when my car shit the bed at an inopportune time.

When I was getting my master’s at Cleveland State, I took the bus downtown for a while when my car was at the repair shop (i.e., my father underneath the car on the street in front of the house). While riding the bus through downtown, there was a guy attempting car repair on Public Square. One of the other passengers shook his head and said, “Man, you know you got trouble when you’re fixing your car in the shadow of the Soldier & Sailors monument.”

I came close, once, when my car malfunctioned during my commute to downtown Detroit. A belt broke, and the car overheated quickly in the summer heat.

At the time, I was a lowly intern, and kept driving my Ford Fiesta until I got to work, the engine temperature pegged so hard in the red it bent. One of my coworkers took me to a parts store downtown and then completed the repair using a Bic pen as a lever to install the belt.

Over the years, I’ve been blessed by other good Samaritan mechanics. I’m not saying I didn’t deserve all those kind gestures—I mean, I’m really a nice guy—but those helpers didn’t have to do that stuff.

I’ve also been lucky that my cars haven’t broken down consistently because, eventually, you’re going to encounter some real assholes who refuse to help and possibly even call the police for being a public nuisance with an unreliable car. People like that won’t take the time to notice what a nice guy I am, and I really feel sorry for them.

Getting back to the guy in the pickup truck behind my house, I’m pretty sure he realized what a nice guy I am because I drove my car around the back without even asking for gas money.

Unfortunately, the old-fashioned jumpstart didn’t work either. In desperation, I called my neighbor, Gary, who is a gear-head and, remarkably, a nicer guy than I am. As expected, he came out to lend a hand.

He brought a Sears voltmeter to verify our connections, and also a plug-in car starter. We strung together two 100’ extension cables and juiced that crappy pickup truck with 50 amps.

50 amps and still nothing.

Now the guy with the broke-ass pickup truck didn’t have AAA and didn’t have any idea what he’d do if we couldn’t start the broke-ass pickup. I offered to drive him home, which was really nice of me, and Gary offered to help take out the car battery to get it charged up overnight, which seemed even nicer (I’m telling you, Gary rules in this nice-nice business).

I brought out the barely recharged portable jump starter and our guy with the broke-ass pickup tried it one more time. He reiterated his faith in that little lithium battery, that it had saved him every day this week and it would probably save him again. He just had to give that thing another chance. It still didn’t start the pickup but he tried it again. Then again. Then once more.

Son of a bitch if it didn’t start the pickup truck. Gearhead Gary was thinking the starter’s solenoid was toast, which I thought sounded right despite not knowing what it meant, but I think the stupid, broke-ass pickup didn’t know what that meant, either, which is why it started up.

If there’s a moral to this story, I don’t know what it is. The lesson might be to stay close to home when your only source of transportation is a broke-ass pickup truck, but no one in America wants to learn that lesson.

We have faith in our gadgets. We think past performance is indicative of future results, but only when we want the future to be like the past.

We hope for miracles, like the rapture, or winning the Power Ball lottery. Those things would be nice, I guess. Fixing your broken stuff is hard, while hoping someone gives you a pass to eternal bliss, or 400 million dollars, is easy.

Sometimes, while we’re hoping for a miracle, we have to settle for just a little bit of luck and some helpful strangers to get through our day.