I was going up the on-ramp of the freeway when the gauges on the dashboard went crazy. Lights were flashing, the needles swung wildly from side-to-side, and suddenly, the power steering was gone. It took all my strength to pull the car over to the shoulder of the road. The engine died and when I turned the ignition key there was nothing.
I sat numbly in the driver's seat wondering what I should do. Like all manly activities and hobbies, I knew nothing about cars either.
I racked my brain figuring out who to call and became fearful when the realization struck me the only person I knew well enough in town was my landlord Danny. My hands clenched the steering wheel as my body trembled with severe anxiety.
Danny was a pompous, overbearing man who made me extremely nervous. Truth-be-told, he scared me.
I sat there frozen in place, knowing I would have to call him and ask for his help. I pictured his face with the red, bulbous nose and the smug smirk of superiority. I knew he would talk down to me, and make disparaging comments about my masculinity.
I held my cell phone and searched my contact list for his number. I hadn't programmed it into my phone-he had.
One day I was lounging by the small swimming pool outside the apartment complex. I had just finished speaking with my mother and was about to put the phone away when Danny suddenly appeared and asked what type of phone it was. Before I could answer, he snatched it from my hand and examined it.
"You don't have my number in here-you probably don't know how to do it...don't worry, I'll do it for you," he said in his typically snarky way.
As I waited for him to answer my call, I was overcome with a sickening feeling in the pit of my belly-I really didn't want to talk with him.
Then strangely, the longer it rang, the more I hoped and prayed he would answer. He was truly the only person who could and would help me.
A wave of helplessness washed over me when his phone went to voicemail.
"Danny, this is John," I said beginning my message. "There's something wrong with my car—it went dead-I'm on the side of the on-ramp at the Mitchell Avenue entrance to the freeway...c-could you please come and get me-I-I don't know what else to do..."
Waiting for his call, I stared blankly out the windshield, looking at nothing, cursing my manly incompetence. I hated my father for dying while I was still too young for him to teach me how to be a boy and a man.
I hated him for leaving me alone with a smothering, overbearing mother and two taunting, and hateful sisters.
The ringer on my phone startled me. It was Danny.
"D-Danny, I..." is all I could say before he interrupted me.
I heard his evil chuckle then he said: "I knew a boy like you would be asking me for help sooner or later...I want you to thank me for programming my number into your phone."
Huh? What did he say?
Then he said, "Well..."
I swallowed hard then said, "Thank you."
"I want you to speak in complete sentences...explain why you are thanking me," he said. His voice sounded stern, almost angry.
I was in no position to make him mad.
I said, "Thank you, Danny, for programming your number in my cell phone."
"That's better...stay in the car while you wait for me," he instructed.
"Okay," I answered.
"Okay what?" he shot back at me.
His tone made me tremble.
"Okay, I'll stay in the car while I wait for you," I said meekly.
He said, "Good boy" then ended the call.
I found myself thinking about the phrase Danny had used: "A boy like you..."
It was exactly what I'd heard from my mother over-and-over-and-over.
"A boy like you can't play football—the real boys would hurt you."
"If you ever move out of here into your own place—a boy like you needs to learn how to cook and clean and sew."
The last time she'd said it to me was the worst.
I'd finally managed to save enough money to leave home. I was twenty-one years old, and had worked two jobs since graduating from high school. Moving to an apartment in my home town would do me no good. I would still be living too close to her.
I searched a map of the country and settled on a city in Florida. It was on the Gulf Coast, I liked that, but even better was the fact I would be close to a thousand miles away from my mother.
I expected her to scream and yell and tell me I couldn't go. Instead, her reaction surprised the heck out of me.
