Dear Nightshift Manager At The Sheridan Garage

Dear nightshift manager at the Sheridan Garage,

Sorry for taking the key out of the engine of my car after you'd jumped the battery.

This was Sunday night, after a series of events that left me frazzled but also counting my lucky stars. My wife Emily and I were driving home from a weekend at her parents' place upstate. Our five-year-old son was asleep in the backseat. Around ten o'clock, somewhere on the Taconic Parkway in Westchester, an orange light reading "ABS" appeared on the dashboard display. I had no idea what this meant. (A message from God to start working out?) But when I pointed it out to Emily, she guessed it stood for "Antilock Braking System." I don't know how she knew this-Emily grew up in New York City, and doesn't drive-but she was right. Still, neither of us knew what we should do about it. The car seemed to be driving fine, so I figured I'd just look into it after we got home.

A little while later, after the Taconic had turned into the Sprain Brook, I noticed that all the other dashboard lights seemed to be dimming. At least, I thought this was the case. I wasn't sure. I wondered if maybe it was just that they looked dimmer in comparison to the brighter orange "ABS" light that was new to the scene. I was still wondering about this as the Sprain turned into the Bronx River Parkway and when the little red picture of the battery lit up.

Also, we seemed to be losing our headlights. But again, it was hard to be sure, because of the brake lights in the car ahead of us.

"This is bad," I said to Emily. But I couldn't figure out why the battery would be dying while the car was driving. I thought that just happened when you left the car parked overnight with the lights on. I don't know very much about how cars work. In fact, I know so little about how cars work, that I'd be sympathetic to the argument that, really, I should not ever drive one again.

"I guess we need a new battery?" I said. But we still didn't know what to do. I didn't know how long it took for a battery to die after the warning light went on. "I hope we make it home." I turned off the radio and the air-conditioning. There were lots of other cars around us, driving fast on the confusing sprawl of highways and bridges and exits and merges that circles the city. The shoulder looked thin and uninviting, especially with the kid in the backseat.

Turns out it doesn't take very long for the battery to die after the warning light goes on. We got off the Parkway at the 177th Street exit and went under the Cross Bronx onto the Sheridan Expressway. And then the engine started slowing down. I pressed hard on the gas pedal and the car started herky-jerking. We were in the middle lane. Cars zoomed past on either side of us. I pushed the button for the hazard lights but they didn't go on.

I said "fuck" and asked Emily to unroll her window to signal to the cars around us. Her window rolled down three inches and stopped. "It won't go down," she said.

The worst part of our night came when I turned my head around and saw that there was an eighteen-wheeler truck merging onto the road behind us. Merging into the right lane, where I was at the time trying to aim my lurching, sputtering, largely invisible and electronically-sealed death box. I held my breath and let it pass, and then cut off another car to turn into the right lane. Then, thank god, we found ourselves on an exit ramp. It was an upward incline, which was not great. But it was straight, which was great, because I now noticed that the steering wheel was resisting my turning it.

The best part of our night came when Emily saw a sign for the Sheridan Garage across the street from the top of the ramp. I pulled into the parking lot and felt the steering wheel freeze into a locked position just as we rolled through the open door and under the fluorescent lights. "Wow." I stopped the car and turned to Emily. "That was really lucky!"

This is maybe where the worst part of your night began. You work at the Sheridan Garage. And after I got out of my car and knocked on the frosted-glass kiosk there, it was you who opened the door and stepped out to greet me.

You were nothing but nice. But we had trouble communicating because you don't speak very much English and I don't speak very much Spanish. At first, you thought I just wanted to park my car at the garage. But I was able to express the truth of the situation by pointing to the car and saying "battery" and making a knife out of fingers and drawing it across my throat. You perked up and said the word "jump" and called out, "JoJo!" and something in Spanish. I smiled and shrugged. Could it be that all the car needed was to have its battery jumped? Seemed unlikely. But what did I know? I wished I could have admitted to you my level of ignorance about cars from the outset.

JoJo, younger man in a blue polo shirt, appeared from the back of the garage pulling a dolly. On the dolly was a milk-crate that held a car battery with jumper cables attached. You asked me to open the hood and I did and you connected the cables and told me to start the car and I tried to but it wouldn't start. You said something to JoJo and unconnected the cables and reconnected them in a few different places, one of which resulted in sparks and, apparently, a shock to your hand. But after some more discussion with JoJo and a couple more tries, the car finally started up. You smiled proudly and gave me a conclusive nod.

JoJo unconnected the cables and put them back in to the milk crate and carted the jumper battery away. But the car didn't sound so good and I saw that the ABS light and the little red battery were once again lit up on the dashboard. I got out of the car and brought this to your attention. You got into the driver's seat and inspected the dashboard and revved the engine, which sputtered. "No good," you said.

"Yeah," I said.

You said something in Spanish and I shrugged. You said something that sounded like "alternator" and got out of the car and pointed to a part of the engine that Internet research has since told me is called the alternator.

"Oh," I said, nodding stupidly. "That's it."

We then spent a couple minutes coming to the understanding that there was a mechanic who worked at the garage who could fix the car and that I would come pick it up on Wednesday morning. You went back into the kiosk to call a taxi for us and Emily went to wake up the kid. I got back into the car and took the keys out of the ignition so I could open the trunk to get our bags. This was a mistake.

You stuck your head back out of the kiosk when you heard the engine stop running. "No!" you said, looking at me standing next to the car with the keys in my hand. "No off!"

"Oooh," I said, realizing that you would probably need to move the car out of the entranceway to the garage.

You shook your head sadly and started walking to the back of the garage. "JoJo!"

Sorry about that. See you tomorrow?