nytimes
This reminds me of how after 9/11, evil fucks would scam elderly people by calling for donations that never went anywhere but into their pocket. This is why I hope god exists. Unfortunately, like everything else, I've got the feeling that I'm going to be disappointed.
I say tax the loan modification business at a 60% tax bracket.
ReplyDeleteThis is not unlike back when I was working a temp inventory job after freshman yr in college. It was in Camden. Somebody popped Dad's Skylark hood (you could practically do it with a hairpin back then)and stole the battery out of it. (I think you know this story). If not, I called Dad for help, then waited in a restaurant across the street, where a guy walked past saying, "Who needs a battery? Car battery. Who needs one?"
I glared at him, but didn't engage. He walked by again, saying "$20 bux for a battery." Which actually seemed like a good deal (though Dad wouldn't have liked it), but ultimately, I remained mum because I figured that he'd probably just steal my $20, and maybe worse.
So Dad shows up with a backup battery, fully charged. He parks. I meet him. We walk toward the Skylark. And battery man (who has followed me out of the diner)makes a beeline towards us. All of a sudden, Dad doubles back to the station wagon, opens up the back door and pulls out one of my baseball bats.
As surprised as I was to see that, I hadn't even digested it when Dad then sprints directly at the guy, wielding the bat. It was such a sudden reversal that the dude immediately reversed course, and ultimately took off and didn't come back, even tho Dad never really got that close to him. But he actually scared the shit out of him.
We get the battery out of the station wagon, and Dad quickly puts it in while I hold the bat. Starts up on the first try and I follow him home.
And now as I write abt that, I realize now what terror he must have felt when I made that call. In a shitty area of Camden. Waiting in some shitty restuarant (with an apparent speak-ez of some kind operating thru a secret side door). Battery stolen out of the car and completely stranded, and he was a good 25 minutes away.
When all of this went down, I think my immediate reaction was that we might have gotten by with a lesser or perhaps even no demonstration of any kind. As I thought about it more, I honestly think back then, I attributed Dad's forcefulness to his anger about being ripped off when he was already busy saving all that he could.
But now I realize how ridiculous that thinking is -- even tho I truly came to it in good faith -- this is really what I thought. But in fact, much like that Thanksgiving where he raced down to DC with Bernie, it must have been driven by the abject fear that parents have when their children are in peril. When I think abt it now, with me in Camden at the time, surely he knew how poor and segregated and dangerous it could be. This wasn't too far from RCA. This was a solidly black neighborhood and I was one of 3 non-black people crowded into the restaurant.
When I think now, I wonder abt the 20-30 min drive he had to make not knowing what he would find when he got there. No cell phones then. I don't even remember where I called him from. The relief he must have felt when he walked into that diner and actually found me there. And once he got to that point, where he at least some control over the situation, he was in no mood to surrender it again.