2007.02.18 Porsche Prating 2: Humility

It was time for yet another in a frequent series of washings for the Porsche. Not a big surprise. It was also raining, though, so I'm not really sure what I was hoping to accomplish - because it would be dirty again by the time I drove back home. Call it a bonding mechanism.

When I pulled up to one of the annoyingly few self-serve car washes in the area, there must have been a lot of people hoping to bond with their cars, because most of the bays were full. There was one open, though, and I nosed Richthofen towards it. And as I came into view inside the stall, I could see a possible reason why it wasn't being used to wash any cars at the moment: there was a homeless person in there.

He wasn't doing anything wrong, just standing beside his accumulated possessions in a shopping cart and taking shelter from the rain. Instead of backing up and driving away like the cowardly elitist that I am, I stopped and got out. I asked him, "Is it OK if I use this bay to wash my car?" He seemed to say something, and I couldn't make out what he said, but he moved his cart out of the way of the washing bay. So I got back in Richthofen and proceeded to feel like a complete ass.

I mean, here I was, an arrogant prick driving a fuckin' Porsche, and I watched the meek creature shamble entirely out of the bay and into the rain. There's a monstrous gulf of experience between us, heavily biased towards him suffering, and I just pushed him out into the rain by virtue of my aura of social comfort. I probably could have felt somewhat less ashamed of myself if I had just kicked a helpless puppy.

In an effort to assuage my sense of honour, after easing Richthofen into the bay I hopped out and followed the homeless guy around the corner. He hadn't gone far, just out of sight, and was being quiet and patient. I said, in as comradely a tone as I could croak, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean for you to have to stand out in the rain. Please feel free to come back under shelter. I'll try not to spray you while I wash."

He seemed to hesitate, and I could feel him unwilling to trust me. But he eventually came around the corner again and came in only as far as necessary to avoid having rain pelt him. This made me feel a bit better about what I felt was my blatant display of the inequities of life.

For about nine seconds.

Because that was about how long it took me to walk towards the wash controls and realize that I was presently going to feed an untold sum of quarters into a machine to produce water and foam to cleanse my obscenely expensive car. And I was going to do this all in front of this forlorn luckless fellow.

Christ. What an ass I am.

PLUNK PLUNK PLUNK PLUNK PLUNK PLUNK PLUNK - PLUNK PLUNK I imagined I could feel him flinching with each metallic crash. I wondered how much nourishment or taste of oblivion he could manage to scrounge up with a couple bucks in change.

The dial got cranked to rinse and the pressure washer fired up. I unholstered the nozzle and started rinsing down my black Porsche with its artistically elegant curves. It might very well be the most awkward think I've ever had to do. Trying to pantomime "red fish swimming up stream to spawn" in a game of charades for 10 solid minutes when the whole crowd had conspired to make it a joke - that hopping flopping torture paled in comparison.

After the rinse, it's time for the foaming brush to scrub the exotic sports car's thin film of dirt off. With ridiculous bright pink foam. Feeling like a mook, I made a laughably inept attempt at conversation. "So, how has your day been?"

He gave me a hangdog look, and said "S'OK." Maybe he saw how uncomfortable I was, and maybe he appreciated that I was trying to make some sort of effort to bridge the gap between us. Maybe it just took him a moment to warm up, because he then said something like, "It's a funny sort of day, with people being all busy and stuff. It's supposed to be the weekend, right?"

"Right."

He cocked his head towards Richthofen and said, "That sure is a nice car. I don't usually like cars, but this one I like. It's pretty." I mumbled some sort of thanks from my pit of humiliation. "What year is it?"

"It's a 2002. I just got it though - I couldn't afford one of these things new." Did I just say that? Yeah, I did. Shit.

"I used to have a car. A 1976 Cadillac Tornado. It had an engine so big, it could have pulled a house down."

I grinned. "Cool!" Never heard of the thing, but I worked hard to make my grin look friendly and genuine.

"I never really liked driving, though. Too many hassles. You must like driving to get a car like that."

"Yeah, I do." My mouth goes dry, and I feel an insane need to keep talking. "It's a funny thing, to like something so frivolous. Like a car. It's pretty much all I have - I just live in a tiny little place so I can afford this thing." Shut up, Clayton, shut up shut up shut up.

"What is it you do?"

"I'm an engineer."

A pause. "You work on a train?"

"No, I design stuff. Drawings and calculations and such."

"Oh, right, right. It must pay pretty good."

The machine starts beeping, telling me that my time is running out, and I haven't finished slopping on the bright pink foam with entirely too little focus. "Yeah, I sure can't complain." I fish another few quarters out of my pocket - PLUNK PLUNK PLUNK PLUNK. "The best thing about my job, though, is that I really like doing it. It's what I would choose to do for fun, even if I didn't get paid." It's pretty much my standard line that I like using to describe what my job is like for me, and it's bitter ash on my tongue as I say it. "Heck, I'd even do my job for free - just don't tell my boss." I strained out a few awkward laughs at my own joke.

"I don't know who your boss is." He said it defensively, like a thin edge of crazy peeking through the seam in the conversation.

I resume my scouring of Richthofen with the pink foam vomiting brush, clumsily smacking the bodywork with the flopping hose, and remark, "Man, am I ever terrible at this."

He didn't say anything. Maybe he just nodded.

Pink foamy shit done enough, I switched back to the rinsing pressure washer, and I was glad for the noise of it to prevent pointing out just how incapable I was at maintaining an innocuous conversation. Before I'm done rinsing the car off, though, the time ran out. I didn't hear the beeping over the roaring water noise, and now I had to pay the minimum startup fee again. It's just a buck seventy-five, but it was the most expensive fistful of quarters I could imagine spending. PLUNK PLUNK PLUNK PLUNK PLUNK PLUNK PLUNK. It took me only a few more seconds of spraying to actually finish, and there was plenty more time cranking away, wasted.

But it was too late to worry about that. I was done - defeated by the inertia of my humiliatingly contrasted existence. There was no bridging the gap, not that day, not that way. It was folly to imagine it ever being anything other than distant strangers waving acknowledgements at each other from ships passing on their way to oblique ports.

So I did what lucky assholes do for unlucky assholes - I walked up to him and offered him the few bucks that were left over in my pocket. "Thanks for sharing your shelter with me." He hesitated, and accepted the money.

As I walked back to get in Richthofen, he called over and asked, "What's your name?"

I smiled, wan but real, "My name is Clayton."

"Good to know you Clayton. My name's Mark." Or Mike. Or something M-sounding.

And just like that, I think we both stepped permanently into each other's personal mythology. We were beings that were as alien to each other as any two humans speaking the same language can possibly be. As I drove out, I have him my standard oh-so-dorky Vulcan-ish wave, and he gave me a big grinning thumbs-up. Even as I commemorate my memory of him for posterity here in my personal annals, I imagine him telling his comrades about the young guy he met with the Porsche. I hope he lies to them and tells them that we are friends, because that would be the kindest honour.