Towing Stories

The mists creep across the mesa surface at seven thirty in the morning. No roars fill the air overhead as the airport is closed, and the clang and banging from the construction supply company down the street is muffled.

“Where’s my kitty,” I call as I arrive.

It takes him longer and longer to know who is at the gate each morning, but eventually he stands up from his rug scrap and stretches and tells me all about it.

“Your tail is very dirty,” I assure him scratching him under his chin in just the right spot. “I know, it’s dirty every morning, but have you considered washing it. Yeah, it must be very hard to be a white kitty in a tow yard, but white paws and a clean tail won’t hurt you.”

I chatter on at him as I push the main gate closed behind me. I keep on chattering nonsensical things as I run for the bathroom, take any impound slips and paperwork out of my mailbox, open the office door, and deliver antibiotics in a favored kitty food of choice at the speed of light. He lets you know if you are laggard feeding him. In fact, he talks to you from the moment he knows it is you to the moment you feed him.

Thursday morning there was little to talk about other than the ding in his head or his cough. Friday morning we had lots to talk about. Cars and trucks filled my lot to the very inner fence. There were so many vehicles that I called for assistance while telling Frazier what I thought of the mess.

My youngest arrived to spread out the impounds in one accessible layer, answer the phone, and lead patrons (we used to call them that at the library) to their now liberated cars/trucks/SUV’s. I released their cars/trucks/SUV’s.

Just as the layer of vehicles in the back lot reached manageability, two large, two ton, flatbed, car carriers arrived on my doorstep with two more very awkward impounds. Frazier took one look at all this cacophony and hid under the office. Smart man.

I went out to face the 1968 Chevy Pickup with the huge, monstrous, oversized tires that were hanging off the side of the tow truck with my clipboard in hand. Following that was a early 1960’s house trailer with a flapping door and bent carcass. The local armory Captain had them towed from his parking lot by the CHP. That was an odd pairing.

No VINs on either of them. (And all vehicles have Vehicle Identification Numbers even old ones.) You should have seen two drivers climbing along the side of the truck body over six feet up in the air to find that the windows didn’t open and that there was no VIN anywhere it should have been. No VIN and the wrong license plates on the trailer too. The CHP took the plates. Not boring at all.

So there I was when a police woman arrived in her shiny car.

“Are you here for my two vehicles that don’t have VIN’s?” I ask.

“I’m here for the stolen car,” she grinned in reply.

A Honda that had been stolen over a month ago and not wrecked by who ever stole it? No new damage at all, come to think of it. A miracle. A one of a kind magic.

“I like it when something good happens,” the officer said.

She left a message on the registered owner’s phone, and we both thought no one would ever call on it. It was an old car, and there were Children’s Hospital bills in the glove compartment. We both agreed that they probably couldn’t afford to get it out again. That happens all the time.

“Yu half my car!!!!”

There he was, a young man with a thick Russian accent who filled my office door. He was overjoyed that we had found his car.

“Someone left it in an apartment complex, and the manager had it towed,” I told him. “Perhaps it ran out of gas? You might check the oil? Water?” I didn’t want to tell him that they may have left it because it broke down.

He had come from work with out a key, so I moved it outside the lot gate with the fork lift. I didn’t drop it either. “You have to come and get it this evening,” I told him several times.

“Oh, I vill, I vill,” he assured me as he smiled down on the car….patting the hood.

I went back to my eternal paperwork. The sun crept over the edge of the sky, and the air grew chill.

“Where’s my kitty?” G called into the dark.

“Your person is here,” I told Frazier. My person was here too.