Beneath the Skyline

A Less-Than-Perfect Morning

Deborah Good

About thirty minutes ago, my doorbell rang. Good friends who live next door were stopping by to drop off their baby monitor before heading out for the evening. The baby monitor now sitting on the table beside me is a small speaker that receives a signal from the room where my friends’ two-year-old son is sleeping. Because our houses are attached, the monitor’ transmission passes through the wall we share, and if little Jacob so much as hiccups, I can hear it loud and clear.

I am sitting on a dining room chair from friends I used to live with, at a table on loan from my older brother and sister-in-law who live in the apartment below me. My housemate is borrowing my car for the evening. And I am listening to music another friend gave me on a mix CD last year.

In big and small ways, the people I know are taking care of me, and I of them. We lend each other whatever resources and expertise we may have. A sociologist might call this “social capital” and a psychologist, “interdependence.” I recently called it my “security blanket.” The people-web that surrounds me day to day is what makes me feel safe and okay.

Interdependence is a lifestyle I try to cultivate. Sometimes my attempts go smoothly. Other times they look a little less perfect, like this:

Several years ago, I was living with three good friends—Julie, Melody, and Christina—on Hazel Avenue in West Philadelphia. Their names will help you follow the story I am about to tell.

The four of us shared many things: food, chores, clothing, and the personal details of our lives. We also borrowed cars from one another. Because the city offered us biking, walking, and public transportation options, two cars for four people served us just fine.
It was Friday and I was off work for the day. Having just returned from breakfast with a friend, I stood on our porch listening to a long and apologetic cell phone message from Christina. She explained that she and Julie had left my car parked illegally at 38th and Spruce Streets because my muffler seemed to be dragging on the ground. Since they had both needed to rush to work, they’d left a hand-scrawled note on the windshield to deter the notorious Philadelphia Parking Authority.

(I should add that the dragging muffler was not altogether surprising, as my car at the time was a twenty-year-old maroon Honda Accord, belonging to my parents. It was a bit rough around the edges and within the year, my parents and I sold it for 450 whopping dollars to someone who responded to the ad I’d placed on craigslist.org. He was moving from New York City to D.C. to be the mascot for the Washington Nationals. I am serious. But that is another story.)

I put down my cell phone to think about next steps. Only later did I learn the sequence of events that led to Christina’s message.
Friday morning was chilly—cold in fact. I had already left on foot for my breakfast plans and Melody had biked in for her early shift as a nurse at a local hospital. Christina and Julie were at home, getting ready to leave for their respective jobs.

Julie planned to use Melody’s car for the day and decided to warm up the engine about five minutes before she was ready to go. She started the car and then locked the doors with the engine running, so no one would make off with the car, and assumed the automatic key chain in her hands would get her back in when it was time to hit the road.

Unfortunately, she was mistaken.

With its engine running, Melody’s car would not allow Julie to use the automatic key chain to unlock the doors. She could not get in. She could not leave for work. And the car was locked with the engine running.

Incredulous, Julie rushed inside to search Melody’s drawers for another key. No luck. When she called the hospital, she learned Melody had an extra key with her there. Julie would have to get it from her.

A plan began to form. Julie would drive my car to the hospital with Christina. Christina would wait in the car while Julie ran inside for the key. Christina would then catch the trolley to her job downtown while Julie drove back to Melody’s running car and get started with her day as though nothing had stopped her. It was a good plan.

Three-quarters of the way to the hospital Christina and Julie heard an awful metal-on-pavement scraping sound. (For those of you who like to talk car parts: Apparently the exhaust system in my car had rusted out at the catalytic converter, and the front end of the muffler had dropped to the ground.) This is when they ditched my car and tucked their note under one wiper.

Meanwhile, Melody’s car was still sitting on Hazel Avenue, running.
Julie took off sprinting to the hospital, got the key from Melody, hopped on the trolley back home to Hazel Avenue, and finally gained entry to Melody’s car. Christina walked to the nearest trolley stop and headed to work.

By the time I arrived home from breakfast, oblivious to the whole ordeal, the others were safely at work or on their way. Only one problem remained unsolved: What was I to do with my illegally parked car?

A tow truck is always an option, but I opted to once again rely on the people I know. I have an internal rolodex I use when I need help. When I recently needed advice on my resume, I asked my friend, Wanda. When I was cooking and didn’t know what to substitute for buttermilk, Ben got the call. In this case, I called Blunk, who often went by his last name. He was generally good at problem-solving. “I’ll come pick you up in about half an hour,” he told me. “Bring a garden hose.”

A hose?

I did as I was told. When Blunk, my garden hose, and I arrived at my
1985 Honda, I was relieved that Christina and Julie’s note had worked: the car was ticket-free. Blunk and I ran the hose around the entire body of the car, under the exhaust system, and through the two back-passenger windows. Blunk sat in the back seat, pulling gently on both ends of the hose, to hold up the falling-down muffler while I hopped in the front seat and eased my way to the nearest Midas, without a scrape.

Some say that asking for help is hard to do, but it does not have to be. I regularly lean on the people I know—my well-loved and slightly ragged security blanket. 

I recently heard a man interviewed on the radio who was shrinking away from friends while unemployed: “I just want to get through this on my own,” he told the reporter. I wanted to tell him that he was wrong, that our lives can and should be small protests against the loud voices of independence and self-sufficiency. 

I wanted to tell him my story of how five friends, two cars, and a garden hose made it through a less-than-perfect morning, and how none of us did it on our own. 

—Deborah Good, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is a research assistant at Research for Action (www.researchfor action.org) and author, with Nelson Good, of Long After I’m Gone: A Father Daughter Memoir (DreamSeeker Books/Cascadia, 2009). She can be reached at deborahagood@gmail.com.