The Drive By

By Merle Harton, Jr.

[This is the story of my friend Hank, a man known for his commited Christan faith, for his mature walk with God, and for his sincere interest in simplicity. At issue at the time was his car—it was an admitted piece of junk, especially for a company president in Louisiana, but he kept it because he didn't want to appear ostentatious by driving a later-model car.]

The one time I got to ride with Hank in his car was quite an adventure.

It was the day my car was in the shop. I got a ride to work but didn't know how I was going to get home. I took a moment and bowed my head for a quiet request that someone would be available to give me a lift home after work. Within half an instant—maybe less—the phone rang. It was Hank.

"I heard you needed a ride home," he said. It's ninety-five miles out of the way, but I'd be happy and honored if you'd let me drive you home."

"How did you know I needed a ride?" I asked.

"Oh, gee," he said, "I thought everybody knew."

I decided not to touch that one. Instead, I said: "But, Hank, you know my house is only about five miles away. It's not NINETY-FIVE miles."

"It may SEEM like five miles," he said. "But if you're in the right frame of mind, it turns out to be almost exactly ninety-five miles."

I didn't get that one, either. We agreed to meet in front of the main building right after work, sometime before dark.

At the end of the day, at about twilight, I stood out in front of the main building, waiting. Suddenly, I heard a distant clamor. The noise got louder. It was precisely the sound nine Coast Guard helicopters make just before they crash! I dove into the ditch and covered my head with my briefcase. The noise was thunderous now, unbearable, and it was coming right towards me. This was it. Armageddon. This was the big one. Then it stopped. I heard a car door open. And then footsteps. I peeked out from under the briefcase and saw Hank's shoes. I jumped up and brushed myself off, feeling totally humiliated.

"You know, every once in a while I like to lie down and push my face in a ditch, too," he said with a gently smile. "It really gives you that close-to-nature feeling, don't you think? Come on now, hop in the car."

And what a car it was.

"Isn't that an antique?" I asked.

"Not yet," he said. "A couple more years to go."

We walked over to his Grand Prix. Hank stepped in front to get the door for me and grabbed the door handle and pulled. Off it came.

"Now that's never happened before," he said with a puzzled look. "Sorry about that. Never mind, I'll just open it from the inside." He hurried around and got in on the driver's side and opened my door from the inside. As I got in, he tossed the door handle over his shoulder to the back seat, where it landed with a clank on a pile with all the other parts of the car that would no longer stay put. I pulled the door hard and, as it shut, the trunk flew open, the horn honked, and the interior light flashed on an off.

"Now that's never happened before," he said.

He twisted the key four or five times, and then a couple more, until the Grand Prix made a few wimpy coughs and finally turned over with a horrible roar and a shudder. He stepped on the gas and the car lurched forward, snapping my head back. "Sorry about that," Hank said.

As we began our drive, I took a casual moment to look around inside. The dash was missing most of the usual knobs. In their place were various other items (pen tops, paper clips, wads of paper where there were once air vents) and a dozen sticky pads with detailed instructions on selected but important functions of the car. Take this entry, for example: "Air conditioner—Bang dash hard with fist, once; pull red paper clip to right half way, back left one quarter; bang dash with fist hard again." Or this one (which left me more than a little nervous): "Brakes—pump three times, shift into neutral, pump again until the right rear wheel burns rubber, yank into low gear, back into neutral, and then push down on brake pedal until your foot cramps."

"I know what you're thinking." Hank looked defensive as I eyed his use of ordinary office supplies. "I assure you, these are not our company's supplies!" With that, he twisted the steering wheel left and right, and each time he did this, the wheel sent out a grating squeal, not unlike the sound of a creaking door in a haunted house, only louder.

We were now roaring down the highway at about 60 miles an hour. I pointed to the speedometer and suggested to Hank that he might be going to fast. He looked at the dash and just gave me a wide grin. "You know, I think the odometer is working again," he said. "Oh, hey, and the speedometer, too." He stepping on the gas and watching the needle climb. The steering wheel squealed again.

Just then we came upon a man struggling to change his tire on the shoulder of the highway. Hank's face became serious, determined, and he immediately did everything his sticky pad said to do to stop the car. We came to a stop two inches behind the man's car, but well ahead of the cloud of burning rubber behind us. In less than a minute, Hank was out of the car, had changed the man's tire, and was back in the Grand Prix, screaming down the highway again.

A moment later he got a funny look on his face. At the next intersection, he burned more rubber making a hard right turn. A mile or two down the road, well into a wooded area, Hank suddenly came to a complete stop and jumped out of the car and, within two minutes, got a cat down from a tree, freed a racoon from a hunter's trap, and escorted two deer and forty-three armadillos across the road.

Back in the car, sixty miles per hour again, burning rubber, that funny look on his face .... Over the next three hours, and over most of St. Tammany Parish, I was a witness as Hank walked ten ladies across the street, pulled a child from a burning building, found homes for twenty stray cats, halted a convenience-store robbery (which was concluded, incidentally, when he convinced the robber to give the money back and free the hostages), changed five more flat tires, counseled three couples with troubled marriages, jump-started an 18-wheeler, and transported 26 hitchhikers to various distant destinations.

Although I had done nothing the entire time, I was exhausted by the time we pulled up at my house. As for Hank, all he could say was: "See, I told you. It's exactly ninety-five miles to your house."