I’d always thought angels were frequent flyers, winging to the jobs to which God assigns them. In January some years ago, I discovered they also work from junk cars.
Because I had a six o’clock meeting in Washington, I was on the D. C. Beltway on Friday evening at five-thirty. It had been snowing. Traffic was a nightmare. Drivers were frantic. They would zigzag, feint and dart like fish in a feeding frenzy. Even at fifty-five miles an hour I seemed to be standing still as cars shot past me on either side. I was in the middle lane, trying to remain calm. One driver would speed up and ride almost on top of my rear bumper and then back down. I think he was signaling his contempt for my conservative driving. Trying to leave a safe distance in the front and in the rear was impossible. As I slowed to make space, a car darted into the slot as if I were making the space for that driver. Motorists were predatory. If I could get out of the middle lane and into the right, I thought I’d be safe.
I sped the car up trying to position myself. The motor raced, but the car did not accelerate. The motor had disengaged from the drive. I had no power. Something was broken. My car rolled freely, but was inexorably destined to stop in the middle lane. Horns honked, cars jockeyed furiously to pass me on either side. Besieged by outraged motorists demanding that I move right, left, back, forwards – just move and get out of the way – I felt under attack. I was frightened.
My car decelerated. There was a break in the traffic. I looked for a place to pull over, but high snow banks from the recent plowing had covered the safety lanes. An opening appeared in the right lane, about two cars in length just short of the Georgia Avenue exit and I pulled over. My car, its one side pressed to the snow bank, had about three feet on the driver’s side where traffic hurtled around the beltway like the blade of a buzz saw.
I didn’t think I was in any serious danger but I did have one anxious thought. “What if I were having a heart attack? Nobody would stop to help and I would die alone.” I felt cold, angry and powerless.
A car pulled up in front of me. It looked junky as if it had been abused a lot, not like my comparatively new Taurus. My first reaction was that this was not the Good Samaritan; this was the robber. He’s stopped to rip me off. The driver got out. I watched him warily as he approached my car. I opened my window half way. “Can I do anything to help?” he asked. I can’t remember what I said, but it was something evasive and dumb. He took a friendly initiative in the conversation. “Look. If you have AAA, I could give them a call and get them to come. Give me your AAA number and I will go over to Georgia Avenue and let them know you are here. There’s a CITGO station there.” I remember giving him the number hesitantly, passively assenting and somehow feeling safer for being noncommittal. He asked if I needed anything. Thanking him, I said “No.” He returned to his car and headed toward the Georgia Avenue Exit.
Humiliated by my own suspicion and guardedness with this stranger, I also had a surge of gratitude for what had happened. The two feelings collided. I felt mean spirited. Treat the stranger with hospitality; the old biblical exhortation goes, because you may be entertaining angels unawares. As I handed him my AAA card through the half closed window of my locked door I was still thinking he might be a crook.
An hour later he appeared and pulled up. He got out and came over to my window. I rolled it all the way down. “AAA is on the way. Need anything else?” I thanked him, said no and asked his name. “Steve” he said. He went to his car and it roared away into the omnivorous traffic. Riding in the wrecker later, I thought how my car was brand new and had been serviced only recently while Steve’s looked well worn. It’s the way things work: those who have less to give offer more of themselves. I guess that’s why angels drive junk cars and stop to help strangers.
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