Tire Shop
I went down yesterday
to fix a leak in my tire. Off Bridge street
there's a place 95 cents
flats fixed,
smeary black paint on warped wood plank
between two bald tires.
I go in, an old Black man
with a Jackie Gleason hat greasy soft
with a mashed cigar stub in mouth
and another old Chicano man
working the other
pneumatic hissing tire changer. The walls are black with rubber
soot blown black dust everywhere
and rows of worn tires on gnawed board racks for sale,
air hoses snaking and looped over the floor.
I greet the two old men
'Yeah, how's it going!'
No response.
They look up at me as if I just gave them a week to live.
'I got a tire needs a tube.'
Rudy, a young Chicano emerges from the black part of the room
pony tailed and plump
walks me out to my truck and looks at the tire.
'It'll cost you five bucks to take off and change.'
I nod.
He tells the old Chicano, who pulls the roller jack
with a long steel handle outside,
and I wait in the middle of the grunting oval tire
changing machines,
while the old guy goes out and returns with my tire.
He looks at me like a disgruntled Carny
handling the ferriswheel
for the millionth time
and I'm just another ache in the arm,
a spoiled kid.
I watch the two old men work the tire machines
step on the foot levers that send the bars around
flipping the tire from the rim
and I wonder what brought these two old men to work here
on this gray evening in February –
are they ex-cons?
Drunks or addicts?
He whips the tube out,' Rudy ' he yells
and I see a gaping hole in the tube,
'Can't patch that,' Rudy says
Then in Spanish Slang says, 'no podemos pachiarlo,'
'we got a pile of old tubes over there, we'll do it for ten
dollars.'
At first I think he might be taking me
but I hedge away from that thought
[...] Read more
poem by Jimmy Santiago Baca
Added by Poetry Lover
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