I need to say at the outset that here in the United States, in this part of the United States, not having a car creates great limitations. We are not a nation known for fantastic public transportation systems, unless you live in a city like New York or Boston. Local rail lines were torn out 75 years ago, at least, so that we could become a nation of gas hogs driving everywhere we want, whenever we want. In this rural village, the only public transportation available is a weekly bus that arrives around 11 AM every Wednesday and goes to the shopping mall 12 miles away. It returns 3 hours later. Other than that, it is a matter of asking a friend for a lift, borrowing a car, calling a cab--very expensive!--or using your own 2 legs. I walk. If I can't walk, and can't get a ride, I do without. It is as simple as that.
So, back to the ticket. I spoke to a friend who had had some seat belts replaced in her car and what she told me confirmed what I had already suspected: it is a very expensive thing to have done. As it was, I was not having a good time of it financially. The Vampyr had moved out the previous January and I was still learning the effects of that on my personal economy. He had been paying half the household expenses. I was learning the hard way that November is the month I begin to run out of money. In fact, after I paid my car insurance bill that November, I had no money left to speak of until my next pay check, and could not make my mortgage payment. That got me down on my knees. I crawled to our pastor and asked her, in tears, tears of shame, feeling like such a big fat stupid loser, if the Community Relief Fund would give me the money for my payment. (This fund is administered by the local churches and is available to help with personal emergencies just like mine.)
There was no way I could get Fred repaired to satisfy the requirements of the ticket. I knew the car would have to be taken off the road. I couldn't afford to keep it anyway, even without the repair. (That's what so many people don't understand about my car-less-ness--it isn't so much the getting of a car, it is the keeping of a car.) I decided to donate Fred to charity. I made arrangements with the National Kidney Foundation to do just that. Fred wasn't worth much, and would probably be sold for scrap. That fact made me sad but I had to stop anthropomorphizing about the car and just suck it up. (I still feel bad when I see trucks carrying crushed cars passing by on the main road, and avert my eyes in the same way as I do when I see dead animals on the roadside.)
So, I took the car off the road. I removed the plates and sent them back to the state. I cancelled the insurance. I called the National Kidney Foundation. And I asked my friend to go to court with me. I had never been to court before, except for my divorce, or when I accompanied clients there when I worked in crisis counseling. I was scared! I prayed a lot.
The night of court, I dressed nicely and conservatively. Judges like that. They like it if you are polite and respectful too. I used to counsel my clients that, and I saw it work, time after time. The legal system is a game like any other, and the best players often win. It was November by the time we went to court. It was 6PM and it was rainy and cold and dark. I sat in town court with the drunk drivers and the repeat offenders and the bad boys and girls up on their various charges. When it was my turn, I walked up the the judge, a man I vaguely knew and had actually voted for--this is a very small town! I looked him in the eye and told him I did not run a red light, the light was yellow. I told him I could not afford repairs to the car and had donated it to charity. He said that since "my" trooper was not in court that night, I would have to come back, and talk to the officer about it.
Same deal, 2 weeks later. "My" trooper is not there again, but another trooper was. He was so young! What was I doing there, pleading with children in uniforms? Anyway, I told him the same facts I had told the judge. I looked him square in the eye. And was finally rewarded with an ACOD, though he questioned me repeatedly and really made me wonder if I was going to get my way with this. The facts of an ACOD are this: be a good girl for 6 months, and the charges would be dropped at the end of that time.
Being a person who tends to keep a low profile, doing that would be easy, especially without a car. Or, as they say in Jamaica, "No problem, mon."
And I really do not mind not having a car. I tend to worry about cars. They sit there in my driveway and always seem to need something. Insurance, gas, oil change, inspection. They need to be driven to keep the battery charged. They need to have the snow and ice scraped and brushed off of them. People have lent me their extra cars (extra cars! yes! that is how crazy this world is!) for extended periods over these past 3 years, and I am never comfortable with that. (I have had to learn to ask people for help, I have had to learn to reach out. To trust. That has been hard. It is still hard, but is getting easier as time goes by and I see that there are some people who truly care, who aren't mean, and who won't use my need against me. Imagine that.) I worry about cars. I don't need one. I have come to truly enjoy the simplicity of my life without a car. I am in great shape from walking, and I have cut out so many extraneous trips and silly whatnot. I feel like Thoreau at Walden Pond, finding the universe right here in my own backyard.
Of course, it wasn't always like that. I whined for awhile, I played the pity card. Poor me, I am so poor I cannot even afford a car. I am quite over all that, thank goodness. How disgusting I was. Though I must confess, some nights after work, when I am very tired, I walk home up the hill with a backpack full of groceries on my back and another bag or two in my hands, and I feel like a stupid little loser. Losers walk everywhere, losers and nutcases and weirdoes. Even the very poor, most of them, call cabs. It's crazy.
The biggest thing about walking, at first, was that I had to greet people. I had to see things, like cats I knew dead in the road. I had to respond. I could not just zip by, all sealed up in my vehicle, music blaring, ignoring the world. I can't ignore the world when I walk. I have to see that Ray is ill again and not looking so great, but still going to his job cleaning toilets at the harness track because his wife and son are sicker. I have to see that Ron has his entire extended family living in his tiny apartment now, and the son's girlfriend is indeed pregnant. I have to see that the little grey stray cat had another litter of kittens and a couple of them look sick enough to die. Stray dogs run right up to me and ask me to take them home. I can't just zip by all that anymore, unseeing. It's not an easy thing. It forces me to respond. It forces me to care. It forces me to be a better person, even when I hate it.
Until next time, I remain, your friend, Rozenkraai
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