The Taillights We Fixed for Free

Getting Ready

I went to see Pastor Ron on Wednesday morning. Our church is St. John’s Lutheran, a white clapboard building with a bell tower, sitting right where Main Street bends toward the river. The parking lot is the biggest flat piece of asphalt in town that is not the school.

Pastor Ron is fifty-eight and has been our pastor for nineteen years. He came to us from a church in Iowa, and he still says “pop” wrong according to some of the old men, but he has buried our parents and married our children and he is ours.

He listened to the whole thing in his little office with the radiator ticking, and when I was done he took his glasses off and rubbed his eyes.

“Marge,” he said, “is this about Craig?”

I thought about lying to him. You cannot lie to your pastor in his own office, so I didn’t. I told him the truth.

“Some of it is,” I said. “Most of it is about Tyler. I want him to see a different way to fix a thing.”

“And Craig is going to hear about it.”

“Everybody’s going to hear about it. It’s a town of three thousand people.”

He was quiet a while. Then he put his glasses back on.

“I’ll put it in the bulletin,” he said. “And I’ll tell you what. If you get to some kind of number, I’ll ring the bell for you.”

“What kind of number?”

“I don’t know yet,” he said. “You’ll know it when you get there.”

I went to the parts store on Main that afternoon. The owner, a man named Dale who sat behind me in confirmation class, listened to what I wanted and went in the back and came out with a cardboard box.

“Twenty-five of the 3157s, twenty of the 1157s, a dozen 7443s, and some of the little ones for license plates,” he said. “Two rolls of red lens repair tape and one of amber. That’ll cover most of what drives around here.” He punched it into the register. “That’s a hundred and ninety. I’ll take a hundred and forty.”

“Dale, you don’t have to do that.”

“I know I don’t.” He taped the box shut. “My brake light’s been out since Labor Day. Put me on the list.”

Hailey made the signs. She is a sweet girl, Tyler’s girlfriend since the spring, the kind who says “yes, ma’am” without being told. She made three posterboards in green marker: Free Taillight Check, St. John’s Lutheran, Saturday 9 to Dark. One went up at the Cenex, one at the co-op, and one in the window of the café, right next to the notice about the Legion pancake breakfast.

The Night Before

Lisa called me Friday night.

I was in the kitchen making bars for the next day, a double batch of scotcheroos, because I am a school cook and I do not know how to do anything without feeding people.

“Mom,” she said. “What are you doing?”

“Making scotcheroos.”

“You know what I mean.” Her voice was tired. She had been on shift the night before. “Craig saw the sign at the Cenex.”

“It’s a free taillight check, honey. At the church.”

“Mom.” She was quiet for a second. “Is this to embarrass him?”

I set the spoon down in the pan. I thought about it before I answered, because she deserved a real answer.

“No,” I said. “It’s to show Tyler that you can fix a thing without punishing somebody for it. If Craig is embarrassed by that, then that’s something Craig ought to think about.”

She did not say anything for a long time. I could hear the television in the background at her house.

“He’s not a bad man, Mom.”

“I never said he was.”

“He’s scared all the time,” she said. “About Tyler. He’s been scared since Tyler got his license. He won’t tell me why. He just gets this look.”

“Then maybe he should tell somebody why.”

“Maybe,” she said. “Good night, Mom. Save me a bar.”