Gas Station, March Night

The front tire, the front tire rod, and stripped tire lock

on the Volkswagen Jetta days before the trade-in, the big call

back, lost title, and the titanic pothole we foundered into

just off the George Washington Bridge in Fort Lee, NJ....

Scam of six stranded cars towed in less than three hours

on a Saturday night when we left the Bar Mitzvah early

to make way to the Sicilian Birthday Party, not a tow truck

to be had and I became a raving lunatic, wanting to be hospitalized.

Seriously, after perhaps the best Bar Mitzvah I’ve ever seen,

(and I’m from LI), where Matthew dedicated his rites to Nana’s

survival out of Hungary—the rest had perished—and to Uncle Lou’s

fighter plane mission into Israel during the Occupation.

Not a tissue to barter in the packed Village Synagogue, with N.’s

mom battling lung cancer, her name called out clearly during

prayers for the sick, Mi Sherbeirach avoteinu. . . . And just yesterday

we graduated college. N’s & W’s parents paid for the festivities—

because my father used checks sparingly, and refused to commit

at first, until he saw the Lord Jeff ’s second-floor party room,

then wadded out a stash of hundreds because the food was good,

the red wine abundant. The guilt I felt for slipping out of the Bar

Mitzvah early—these reunions rarer and rarer, and when we hit

that pothole, driving without glasses, two glasses of wine later

with Dr. Feelgood, my partner, trying to make way to the party,

imagining already I’d whacked him in the face as we careened

toward the gas station and he said No to the first tow trucker

who didn’t have time to tow but offered to help change

the tire, we know how thank you though I never have;

hours later and still no one. My credit card denied

at the convenience store since I had not travel-alerted

the Bank of America about traveling abroad to Fort Lee.

Or wanting to be hospitalized, with the grim reality

of the exorbitant carfare we’d spend back and forth

from the hotel in Manhattan to the gas station

the next morning to retrieve the car, after they fixed

the front end. Traumatized, by flashbacks

of Sister Leonilda hitting me deservedly with a stick

at Wednesday afternoon CCD classes, me hitting back . . . .

Would Dr. Feelgood also need to be hospitalized?

When I noticed his empurpled face? Had I willed

the tire rod to slip? And the barroom cut above his eye,

his face pancaked into the wheel rim? Rage-filled

at my helplessness, I stole paper towels without soap

from the bathroom, hand sanitized. What else could I do?

I enlisted an overzealous, drunk Green Bay Packer’s fan

in his Day-Glo green jacket to stand by the car

and help change the tire, to fix the stripped tire lock

to no avail. At least other cars might see us to prevent

further calamity until the tow truck arrived hours later

in whipping wind, on the night we missed the Sicilian

Birthday Party, the chance to hear my mother tongue and,

not to mention, the doubtless overabundant Sicilian food.