The Taillights We Fixed for Free

The Phone Call

Here is the thing people asked me later. Why did I not just call the sheriff and be done with it?

I did.

I called him Monday afternoon. I have known Sheriff Halvorson since he was a boy in my lunch line, and he took my call himself.

“Marge,” he said, “I heard.”

“Is it your policy to tow a child’s car for a taillight?”

There was a long breath on the other end. “No, ma’am. It is not. Equipment violations are a ticket and a fix-it notice. A deputy can tow if a car is unsafe to drive, and that’s a judgment call, and I’ll be honest with you, that was a hard call to justify.”

“So what happens now?”

“I’ll talk to him. That’s what happens. I’ll talk to him, and it’ll go in his file that we talked.” He paused. “I can’t give you the money back, Marge. I wish I could.”

“I didn’t call for the money.”

“I know you didn’t.”

That was as far as it could go, and I knew it before I picked up the phone. I was not going to try to cost my daughter’s husband his job. I was not going to stand up at a county board meeting and make my family into the gossip at the Cenex for a year. Lisa had to go home to that man every morning after her shift.

But I could not let it sit there, either. I could not let my grandson believe that this was how the grown-ups in his life fixed things.

Tyler’s Idea

It was Tyler’s idea, really. I want to give him the credit, because it belongs to him.

Tuesday night the salvage yard part came, and he and I went out to the garage after supper to put it in. A Grand Prix taillight comes out with a few nuts from inside the trunk, and it took him about fifteen minutes with a socket wrench while I held the flashlight.

When he plugged it in and I stepped on the brake, the new light came on bright and red, and he stood behind the car looking at it for a long time.

“Half the cars in this town have a light out,” he said finally. “Did you know that? I counted on the way home from school today. Eleven cars. Just between the school and here.”

“Eleven?”

“Mr. Peterson’s truck has had a brake light out since August. Is Craig going to tow Mr. Peterson?”

I did not say anything. I handed him the rag to wipe his hands.

“Most people don’t even know,” he said. “You can’t see your own taillights. You’d have to have somebody stand behind you.”

And there it was. I felt it the way you feel a good idea in your chest before you have the words for it.

“Then let’s stand behind them,” I said.

He looked at me.

“Saturday,” I said. “The church parking lot. We’ll buy a box of bulbs and some red lens tape, and anybody who wants to can drive through, and we’ll check their lights and fix what we can. For free.”

“Grandma.” He said it like I had lost my mind. Then he said it again, slower. “Grandma.”

“Can you change a bulb on most cars?”

“I can change a bulb on any car,” he said. “I watched about a hundred videos when I was waiting for this part.”