Yesterday was an office holiday, and I had scheduled for the afternoon a car wash for the PT Cruiser I have been leasing since 2003 — which was inspected this morning and returned to the dealer three hours ago. The trip should only have taken half an hour, but I returned ninety minutes later and, too, having made an unforeseen expenditure.
I paid for full service, a thorough vacuuming and scrubbing of the car's interior and an unpiloted trip through an automated car wash. Within fifteen minutes of paying I could, from a hallway inside the establishment, see my Cruiser rolling slowly forward through a soapy mist, then rotating brushes, then a series of rinsing hoses and blow-driers. One crewman drove my vehicle from the end of the conveyor outside, right up to the driveway onto the main road, where he was joined by three others with gloves and rags to finish the cleaning.
After about a minute, he motioned to me. "Sir?" I prepared my receipt — one of three — and was mid-sentence in inquiring which one to return when he said, "You have a flat tire." The interjection leaving my mouth had something to do with scatological apotheosis, as there was my right-rear tire, deflated. I have only driven on a flat tire once but, somewhat like, I suppose, childbirth, once is enough for a distinct memory. During the drive to the car wash, the car had not handled as if it were on three wheels. I told the crewman this.
Could someone fetch a pump? I asked. The crewman answered yes, and went one further without my noticing by quietly informing his manager, who in turn paged the owner. Word came back that the owner would be out in a moment, and his employees were to change the tire for me. Did I have a spare? Of course; and thank you, Lord. I have changed a flat once but again, once is quite enough — however, there isn't anything to be gained by refusing help from men who by their very work are going to be more deft than you.
The owner arrived just as the spare began to drop from the underside of the Cruiser's hatchback. No explanation necessary for the neat, burly man: We'll change it for you. The owner himself squatted and began unscrewing lug nuts. Three of them came off as he regarded the tire, frowning. He turned to the crewman fitting an industrial jack beneath the car: Let's give the pump a try before we go through all of this trouble. The fellow with the jack and the owner wedded a hose to tire and air compressor: ten seconds, nothing; twenty seconds, nothing. At thirty, the crewman slapped the tire twice and gave his boss the kind of look that compels one to do what the owner did next, which was to nod, "Let's change the tire."
As the spare was fixed on the wheel, the owner bent forward, held the flat tire between his hands and rolled it slowly, examining the tread. Could he see any ruptures? I asked. He shook his head, continued to roll and look down. "It's the valve stem," he said, finally, straightening himself. "Shouldn't cost you more than a couple bucks." He pointed immediately eastward. "Take this next door to Dean. He'll get you all fixed up."
The spare was on, the tools pulled away. I removed my glove and thanked the owner. He smiled slightly and deferred to the crewman who had, as he said, completed "most of the work." I duly thanked the other, and made the quick left into an old gas station and garage to seek out Dean.
Dean works at Joe's, and if I am not mistaken, owns Joe's. Did Joe leave? Is Joe a Betty Crocker or Remington Steele? I didn't ask, but stuck to script: Next door, car wash, flat, valve stem. Dean was genial — disarming, uncharacteristically so for those of us who believe we know, through one or two mechanics, all mechanics. He took the keys and, steering the Cruiser into his shop, began working.
The administrative assistant, in her forties, kindly and pretty, made several efforts at small talk before finally engaging me biographically. I don't care to be a bore, and strictly answer questions when chatted up by strangers; but she succeeded in nurturing a conversation that lasted twenty, twenty-five minutes, or however long it took Dean to finish. Dean walked into the office. The assistant and Dean were caught in an odd conflict of interest — Dean's confidence in his performance led him to simply tell me that my car was done, then the assistant asked me to clarify a statement I had made about writing a second before Dean came in, and then I decided to stick to business first and asked Dean what he had done to mend the tires.
Then I answered the question. Dean overheard. Policy and politics, really? I qualified that by remarking that politics is inevitably polemic, though there ought be some intellectual etiquette. No yellow journalism, then, chuckled Dean. Well — I was fair to Nancy Pelosi with my little facetious parody last week, wasn't I? — OK, not too much. From there the conversation was between me and Dean, as in fact this mechanic spent a lot of time thinking about the country, and matters of national importance, and the way in which a mechanic might properly inform himself.
What to do with the news networks? Dean asked, grinning. He didn't want to hear about the erstwhile Playboy model, now an erstwhile lady, more than once — certainly not "every five minutes." Stay away from cable during the day, I replied. Ah but, he said, even at night, it can be a lot of useless broadcasting. Right — that is why, I announced, I find my news on the internet. Can it be trusted? The potential for disinformation is greater, I observed, but if one knows its sources, primary sources, then Yes. It used to be, Dean said — accurately — that the internet was overwhelmed with nonsense. I agreed, but online communities have come to ensure honesty, or at least disclosure of one's sympathies.
Ten minutes passed as Dean and I talked. Term limits, federal spending, congressional earmarks — on that last one, I said, the telecommunication networks had scored largely, at least compared to what they could manage before. A group of internet doyens, bloggers, under the name Porkbusters, made something of civil agitation by exhorting House and Senate majorities to restrain their conditioned tendencies to shunt one district's money to another district with not as much, like, say, the ones that elected each of them. I have said, and hold, that Porkbusters can't change Washington like term limits will, but the effort was an accomplishment like none before.
Dean, from what and how he spoke, would be center-right; and maybe the rest of his staff, and maybe those at the car wash, too. There was among them no evident animosity for the country, or the government, and if so the only distrust of the state a naturally American one — accepting that from politics some sentiments, and sediments, are inextricable. Where are they learning what they know or think they know? What about the capital, or the war?
Given some news coverage today, a little the day before and probably tomorrow, is a group like Porkbusters — called the Victory Caucus. The Caucus is devised to "Deliver the perspectives and news on the war effort which the mainstream media neglects to help the American public understand the nature of our conflict and its true progress," and "Provide tools and infrastructure to help citizens who are committed to victory organize into a recognized and influential caucus." It is run mostly by those on the right, but I could tell you that without looking, having deduced on my own that the only rational conversations — for or against the war — are being held on the right.
The Caucus is an attempt to popularly puncture, or tap, or otherwise influence a circuit between corrupt journalism and a political establishment that has come to believe that all knowledge is drawn from said journalism, all reality a projection thereof. Polls here and there still contend that the American spirit isn't pacifist or defeatist but vexed about the fronts; however, vexed because the public is interested in winning wars. How about a channel between the soldiers and allies facing the enemy — and the man, or the mechanic, who would act in one way were he to know other than what he has, through an honorable benefit of the doubt, resigned himself to accept?
When I said "Porkbusters," Dean laughed out loud because he liked the name. From what he told me, I will presume he liked the big idea, too. The tire service and the insight were well worth twenty-one fifty.