A Tale of Good Samaritans

Every once in awhile you have a day that reminds you how wonderful strangers can be.

I had that day last Friday.

I was taking Benji on his long-awaited pre-school graduation trip to Soak City, a water park down in Orange County. He had managed to convince his entire pre-K class that this was where they wanted to go. So we set off, he and I, with a bag of bathing suits, water, sunblock and beach shoes.

I was sitting in traffic near Silverlake when a dude in a pick-up pulled up next to me, really nice, and said, "Hey, your left front tire is flat." I said thanks, and wondered if I could make it to Soak City.

A minute later a guy on the other side gestured to me to roll down my window. He gestured to my left front tire. "It's flat!" he said.

I tuned in to my car, and even on the worn out, pot-hole pocked L.A. freeway I could feel something was wrong. I got off at Alvarado and pulled into a gas station to take a look.

My tire was not just flat, I was riding on the rim. And I was in the middle of a neighborhood I do not know that well, not close to any of the garages I am familiar with. I went into the convenience store and a Filipina woman and her daughter told me there was a tire store right down the block.

I went outside and a sweet Latino dude in a little run-down Honda pulled up and offered to help me put air in my tire. He wouldn't let me leave without doing it.

My tire was so flat, and blown out, it wouldn't hold any air. He reached in and felt the inside of the tire and nodded his head knowingly. "It won't hold the air," he said.

Then another guy came and told me where the tire store was. The first Latino guy said he would make sure I got there. So he jumped in his car and rode behind me to make sure no one rear-ended me. Then he made sure I was in good hands, and drove away. He said he hoped that if his daughter was ever in distress, someone would help her. I said I thought someone would.

I was at a cheap garage full of Latin Americans who spoke a little English in a parking area full of junked cars. But J.R.--who looked like an Indian from the mountains of Peru, fit me right in and changed my tire. Basically I had had a blow-out.

He felt under the car to my right front tire. That one was bald and about to blow, too. He changed it. He said I should change my back left, too, but said I could drive out if I promised to change the tire by Monday (I was literally in the process of getting the tires changed. Jonathan had warned me it was time.)

I freaked that a tire could blow again on some wild L.A. freeway and said, "Change them all!"

He did. He entertained Benji and gave me four new tires in half an hour for $200. Jonathan almost fell over when he heard the price.

Each of these people treated me with so much respect and compassion. They all made me feel grateful for this city and its hidden humanity. Drop off the freeway in a strange part of the city and people will emerge and help you.

Just as I will help them, or whoever needs me, here in Hollywood. That is a vow I made myself.

We made it to Soak City by noon, and my boy had the time of his life.

On the way home, soggy and happy, stuck in a sig-alert in downtown, with the sun setting over the city, I thought about how much I love L.A.. I thought about how misunderstood, and how hard to penetrate it is. But that is the challenge of L.A..

And I love challenges.