Don's Slashed Tire

Here I sit in my van, in the light of my powerbook and a Scentinella Insect Candle, waiting for a $40 tow truck to arrive, parked on Haight by Steiner, in the deep dark underbelly of Lower Haight, the dangerous part.

I was hanging out at the Horseshoe coffee shop, hacking ScriptX code on my powerbook, fixing the bug in Playfarm that Jason the Cloud was planting flowers in the middle of the pond, until Horseshoe closed at 1:00 and kicked me out.

When I got back to my van, I noticed a tough character standing by the curb next to my van, with a couple of milk crates that were down in the gutter in front of my tire. His radio was on one milk crate, and he was standing by the other. I said hi, and told him that I was about to drive my van away, and didn't want to hurt his radio, so I was asking him to move the crates. He said oh that's your van, and left with his radio, so I took the crates out of the gutter.

When I pulled out, I noticed a low rumbling sound, familiar only because just a couple weeks ago I ran over a board on 280 and got a flat, bent up the rim, and replaced the fucked up wheel with another one I bought from the Pick'n Save junk yard in East Palo Alto. (They didn't charge me the $1 entrance fee this time because they had lost their license to disassemble cars, so I couldn't go pick'n, but they did have a big pile 'o pre-picked wheels to paw through.)

I stopped and looked at the wheel and sure enough the tire on my new junk rim was flat. I pulled back into the parking space, which somebody was already posturing to take from me, such is parking in the Haight at 1:00 am on a Thursday night. So I got out of my van and examined the tire, which didn't seem to have any obvious gashes, but later it turned out to have five knife slashes in it.

So who should happen along but another gregarious rustic, who quickly assessed the situation, and offered to supply me with a fine hydrolic jack, since he just happened to be a professional auto mechanic. He emphesized that he was not asking for money, and led me across the street, to the van of his comrads.

It turned out that it was actually their hydrolic jack, that would surely help me to relieve the pressure on my tire, which I could then easily inflate. So he acted as my liaison, helping me to negotiate a favorable deal with them. They seemed pretty cranky, and wouldn't let him into their van to get the pump. So he tried to argue them around to our side, encouraging me to put them in a better mood by offering some sort of incentive. I told him I would just take care of it myself, and see if any of my friends who lived nearby could help me, or call a tow truck. Suddenly there was a breakthrough in the negotiations, and he explained that they were more than happy to help me fix my tire. I declined, and walked down the street to the payphone in front of the liquor store.

I called John and Julia, who weren't home (but I left this phone message, and another phone message in the morning, and yet another phone message from the tire place -- thanks for uploading it, John!), and David, who was in bed and didn't have a jack or a pump. I asked a couple cabbies if they had air pumps, but they didn't. So I went through the yellow pages, and called a few tow truck places.

I had to go into the liquor store and get change a few times, and wait behind people buying single beers with nickles and pennies. People were repeatedly trying to sell me bicycles and asking me for change, which I didn't give them; one guy who I said no to had a metal rod in his hand that he was swinging into his fist, and said "kill a whitey" the next time he walked by, while I was on the phone with David, who is Nebrew -- half Negro, half Hebrew: a black jew -- and didn't let that keep him from earning a PhD from MIT in artificial intelligence applied to computer generated music.

The last time I went into the liquor store to get change for the phone, I was amazed to see one of the guys who worked at the liquor store in possession of an electric air pump with pressure tanks! He was operating it indoors, holding the nozzle and waiting for it to charge. I asked him if it could inflate car tires, and he said no, it was just for cleaning the refrigerator.

So I finally found a place that would send a tow truck for $40, and I'm waiting for it as I write this, at 2:55 AM. They're having an interesting conversation outside that I can't quite follow.

This is not the first time I have been in my van on Haight street typing on my powerbook, listening to the conversations outside, after having been kicked out when the Horseshoe closed. Last time the crack heads came out, and one of them had a rock, but he didn't have a lighter. So he was asking around for some way to light it, but so far all he found were some friends, who were helping him look for someone with a lighter. I just sat in my van and listened, working quietly on my powerbook.

Back to the present, 3:00 AM August 18th 1994, a dude just came up to the window, and said scuse me baby, I need two cigarettes for a dollar, is Nell here? He stuffed a dollar bill into the cracked open window and groped around for the lock. I pushed his hand away and said I didn't smoke, didn't have any cigarettes, and I didn't know who Nell was, so he walked away.

I sure wish my tow truck would arrive.

It never did, but after sleeping overnight in my van, I called another one in the morning, and bought a brand new tire and my very own hydrolic jack.

-Don