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