Harness Undone

Last Friday I got to step out of my harness a while when, out in my car and hell-bent on errands, I made a left-hand turn and felt something give.  One minute I could brake and steer  fine; the next I could do neither, and my tame little house cat of a car was screeching like a Tasmanian devil.“Excuse me! Am I … dragging something?” I called to the pedestrian striding along beside me. “No,” he called back, “but it sounds like your belt is loose! I’d get to the closest service station if I were you!”Lucky for me I spotted one not 1,000 yards away. By the time I reached it I was practically braking like Fred Flintstone, two feet on the asphalt. The kid pumping gas went and white at the sight of me and disappeared inside. Seconds later out popped the mechanic on duty.“Some noise!” he said, with cheerful demeanor. “I could hear you behind two closed doors.”   We opened the hood and I looked on, as with the soft inquisitive touch of an old-time family doctor, he began checking this and that.“Tell you what, I have a little time this morning,” he said finally. “If you want to sit over in McDonald’s for 30 minutes I can get up under her and see what’s what.”So I went there, first pausing to text the news to David, possibly the most easy-going person in the galaxy. Then I ordered coffee and the Snack Size Fruit and Walnut Salad and settled myself in a booth. I pulled out the Time Magazine that’s been riding around in my gym bag since last year and fell to reading This is fascinating!" I kept thinking as I read article after article – about Burma and the economy and robotic surgery.After a pleasantly indeterminate drift of time, I looked up and saw the mechanic shouldering past a line of parked cars to find me."It's just the idler pulley," he said. "I can walk over to the dealership across the street there and get one and have you on your way in no time at all."And so it happened. I more coffee, read a few more essays in Time, including one by Joe Klein, author of the novel-made-into-a-film Primary Colors that so accurately captured the nature of a certain 1992 presidential candidate from Little Rock.Then suddenly here came David, who works just close enough so he could sneak away, and together we ate a big old bunch of burgers, mine bunless with the cheese scraped off.Then we crossed the parking lot to get to the service station. There I paid the man  and thanked him and was indeed on my way, just as he'd promised, back in harness and grateful for the small vacation.