Last night we were on our way back from Austin, after watching a bat exodus (more to follow), and our Dodge Caravan overheated about three miles from our KOA in San Antonio.  What followed was a series of events alien to my grown-up life: summoning a tow truck, trying to locate a taxi, trying to figure out where we were at an unfamiliar exit ramp in an unfamiliar town, and this morning, trying to decipher the baffling code of a city bus schedule.

Enter Rebar.  Rebar (I checked the spelling) is a tow truck operator in San Antonio.  When he arrived on scene last night, first he made sure that we would get back to camp ok  . Us being me, Jen, our three boys, and Shadow, our faithful dog.  Rebar said if we needed a place to stay, we could crash at his apartment.  He offered the kids chips from a bag he had in the cab.

Sometimes it takes a burp in one’s plans to realize how much goodness there is in the world.  Rebar is four months in the country from Kurdistan.  He speaks four languages, and his formal English is much better than mine. He fled Iraq finally, where he’d worked as an English translator for the U.S. Army.  Something about extremely short career expectations.

Now he is in San Antonio, learning his way around, and grateful to be here.  And so, need I add, are we.  At this hour, I don’t know what will become of the work on the car.  Will we have to end the trip to pay for a new engine? Were we mistaken to tow our car? Will we have to drive it from now on, and try to sell a tow dolly?  I hope not.

But we met an angel last night, in the midst of trying and failing to find a cab to come to the part of town we’d broken down.  I had the sensation, talking to Rebar, of reading The Life of Pi, and wondering, at the end, how much of Piscene’s tale was true, and how much was fanciful fiction designed to weave a more exciting tale, and in the case of Rebar, to maybe reap a better tip.

I prefer to believe in angels. Rebar is one.  That’s what my kids remember about our cramped, late-night drive,  and there is more than enough danger in the world for me to worry that they’ll arrive as adults overly innocent.  So thanks, Angel Rebar.  Welcome to America, and I hope you continue to be yourself here, for our sake.