A good friend of mine is moving to Detroit to do City Year in a few weeks and, though she has lived in the suburbs her entire life, has never really explored the city and all the beautiful things there. So she asked me to show her my favorites, since I’m a Detroit-loving nerd. We spent the entire day driving around Detroit (Eastern Market, Avalon, Le Petit Zinc, Good Girls Go To Paris, The DIA, The People Mover, The River Walk, Belle Isle and the drive along Jefferson into Grosse Pointe for milkshakes at Chocolate Bar). While I adore Detroit, there are plenty of places I drove through yesterday where I wouldn’t want to find myself stranded with my exhaust system dragging on the ground.
Which is exactly how I found myself 2 minutes after dropping my friend off.
I knew it was coming. I drive a really beat up 16-year-old Saturn. The muffler has been sounding terrible for a few months. I just didn’t think I’d end up with both the front and back end of it dragging from my car.
But by some truly beautiful twist of fate, when I was jolted out of my semi-hypnotic boring-drive state by metal scraping pavement, I found myself in the parking lot of the American Legion, across the street from three different mechanics. In all of Metro Detroit, I can’t imagine a better place to break down.
Before I could even get out of the car to inspect the damage and call AAA, two unlikely-looking angels came over and hopped under my car. The one man had shoulder-length greasy grey hair and the kind of tattoos you’d see on Popeye; the other was bald, visibly drunk, took off his shirt (revealing an impressive beer gut) and nearly got his gold chain hooked by a coat-hanger. Their names were Bugs and Dub.
Without saying much other than “where do you need it to go?” and “we’ll fix it up so you get home safe,” they used a coat hanger from inside the legion and another from the owner, who came out a few minutes later, asking if she could run home (across the street) to get anything for us. It took them about half an hour, but by the time they were done, the system that had snapped in two was held up from both the front and the back.
I insisted on buying them a drink, but they insisted that I start it up and make sure I could get it home.
-M
