Adventures of a Used-Record Dealer
Something happened to me decades ago that, to this day, helps keep me optimistic about humanity. Some say everything happens for a reason. I present my tale here to the gentle reader to make of it what they will. I run a small used-and-new record store in Maine that I opened in the ’80s. The business and this incident are loosely connected.
On a winter morning in the early ’90s, I was in New York to deliver a load of records to a wholesale customer’s warehouse, near JFK Airport. Bitter cold had settled over the entire Northeast a week before, dropping temperatures to single digits as far south as Philadelphia, and well below zero in New England. The temperatures had combined with heavy snow that preceded the cold snap, turning road surfaces into a gritty, salty, gray crust that covered anything that moved.
My drive from Maine to New York had turned my van into one rolling lump of that nasty crust. But safety first: I’d made multiple stops along the way to keep my windshield, headlights, taillights and mirrors clean. On the way down I had spent the previous night at a motel, and before turning for home my last stop would be lunch in Brooklyn at a Thai restaurant I liked.
On the bright side, this weather kept the traffic down, and when I got to my favorite Thai place there wasn’t a single car parked along the entire block opposite the restaurant. The delivery had gone smoothly and I was feeling relaxed as I casually pulled in across the street from the joint. Then, when I was about to get out of the van, I realized I was at a bad angle to the curb, and even with no one else around — I’m particular about that sort of thing — I felt the need to correct it. I cut my wheels at an angle that would fix the slight flaw and slowly inched backward.
Suddenly, THUNK. I’d backed into something solid that had seemingly materialized from thin air.
Now, too late, I checked my mirrors. Behind me was a massive SUV, a Cadillac Escalade. A black Escalade. Not just black, but black and shiny — on that day, maybe the shiniest vehicle in all the New York metro area.
I watched in my driver’s side mirror as a young, athletic-looking Black guy with a shaved head slid slowly from the Escalade’s driver’s side door. In full-on hip hop gear, he was wearing a powdery baby-blue jumpsuit that looked like velour and big, chunky white sneakers that looked brand new, like right out of the box. He looked ready for a photo shoot — in Miami.
In my other mirror I watched My Man’s partner sliding slowly from the passenger side, also with a shaved head, sporting a matching outfit and the same shoes, but his jumpsuit was the color of orange sherbet. They were also both rocking those big, ropey gold chains that were a mandatory fashion accessory in the heyday of gangsta rap.
Hmm, I thought. Deep shit…
I was a little rattled. I crept forward a few feet so as not to be in contact with this land yacht, then slid out of my crusty clunker to greet these guys and see what was what. They were standing in the street between the vehicles, no doubt doing their best to look mean.
“Where did you guys come from?” I asked. “I never even saw this thing pull up!”
My Man in blue replied, “Didn’t see it pull up?! That m——f——r was stationary!” I remember thinking that was an interesting and slightly ironic turn of phrase, but I didn’t feel inclined to compliment the man at the time.
None of us was dressed for the four degrees we were standing in, and I didn’t want to freeze my ass off while I tried to navigate the next five minutes, so I excused myself for a moment to grab my heavy wool overcoat. Now I was comfy, but these guys were still glowering and pretending it was 75 degrees. I had a feeling they were waiting to hear whatever lame thing I’d say next.
What they had no idea about, and couldn’t have known, is that my left leg is a prosthetic from just below the knee.
I’d lost my leg in an accident years earlier, while helping a friend move on a snowy, slushy day. Back then I had a big step van about the size of a UPS truck. It was legally parked at the curb and I was standing behind it, inspecting the load we’d just completed.
An old lady, blinded by the setting sun shining on her windshield that was nearly opaque with the crusty dried slush of that sloppy day, was driving toward me, half in the parking lane. She drove into the back of my van as I was standing there. The impact put me in the gutter with my leg smashed off.
It was rush hour on a weekday afternoon on a busy street in a coastal Maine town. Witnesses reported that a Coast Guard guy in uniform came out of traffic and, using a belt supplied by a bystander, applied a tourniquet and stayed with me until an ambulance came screaming around the corner.
The witnesses said the Coastie left as soon as the ambulance was in view. Thank you, whoever you are.
Fast-forward 10 years to these Brothers, looking hard, on another cold day in another gutter. I glanced to see if there was any damage to the shiny Caddy and couldn’t see a scratch. These guys were squinting, looking me up and down like they didn’t know what to say. I said it was lucky nobody was hurt, and explained how I’d lost a leg years before in similar circumstances.
It was just like they hadn’t heard me. They were getting impatient. My Man in blue wanted to know what I was going to do about “hitting” his car.
Half shouting, “Hey, man…,” I banged my prosthetic leg hard against the bumper of my crusty beater: THUNK. “That’s what I’m talkin’ about!”
This definitely got their attention, but they still looked a little miffed. We were already a few minutes into this mess, so I spelled it out in 10 seconds flat: there was no damage done, this is what could’ve happened, and this is, in fact, what happened to me.
My Man in blue’s eyes got a little bigger: “No. Shit. Man, I had no idea. I’m really sorry.” Then he gave me a hug, told me to “take care” and to forget the whole thing. I got a hug and a kind word from Sherbet Guy, too. It was as mellow as could be, and we parted.
I relived the whole scene while I ate lunch and couldn’t help musing over what might’ve happened had there been a couple of white wanna-be gangstas in that Escalade. Hugs might not have been part of the program.
After lunch I found the block deserted again except for my van, and I suddenly regretted not inviting those guys to join me.
