Hero Story

In an effort to retain the adjective "uncharacteristic" as a companion to all of my actions, I am forever engaged in displays of atypical behavior. In the past hour alone, I have parted my hair in the middle, spit on a desk lamp, and made myself a cup of coffee with artificial sweetener -- all things that are profoundly different from the way I have handled myself in the past 30 years. There are many reasons for abiding by an erratic routine, but it would be too typical of myself if I actually listed them.

So with this in mind, I present to you an anecdote several years old in which I practiced the art of deviation. It was July 2004 and I was a hero. Now, I admit that there have been times past in which I experienced a partial euphoria from self-sacrifice that one might equate with heroism, but in light of this recent adventure, I can honestly look back on those halo-worthy moments as frivolous kindness. To name one, I can never forget the time that I patiently walked behind a 75-year-old man in a narrow stretch of hallway. Mind you, my car was double parked outside of a downtown residential high rise, and all I needed to do was use the bathroom in my apartment and run back downstairs. But that was seemingly impossible, as this gray-haired man perambulated like a human spider, using spatially inefficient metal crutches attached to his arms rather than ones that rested under his armpits. It would have been possible to walk around him, but I worried that in doing so, I would inadvertently make him aware that he should be editing his will. On the contrary, I held my bladder and waited until he reached the elevator. I can only hope that some young man will one day treat me with the same belittling civility. But that is not the stuff that makes up a hero. I know that now.

I didn't wake up that Tuesday morning intending to save a baby. I had intended to get Swedish pancakes without going to IHOP, a herculean task to be sure if not heroic in itself. In this quest for sweet bread, I found myself driving down a residential street in the fairyland suburb of Evanston, Illinois. Clearly I had some kind of acute hearing that day, for not only did I hear the screams of a pregnant woman in distress but I was miraculously able to distinguish them from Sheryl Crow's All I Wanna Do that had been blasting out of my speakers.

Normally, I'm not into pregnant women. Talk about "baggage." But I have to admit that I have sore spot for ladies in distress who are flailing their arms in front of my moving car. In this circumstance, I had no choice, morally and legally, other than to stop.

"My baby! My baby!" she wailed, as though she was a woman who was having an issue with her baby. Without hesitating for more than a minute, I kind-of quickly pulled over and got out of the car upon hearing the denouement lyric until the sun comes up over Santa Monica Boulevard.

What I soon learned was that this woman had locked her keys in her car along with a two-year-old baby boy.

“Please sir. Help me get my baby out!”

It was abundantly clear that this baby would have starved to death in a Lexus if nothing was done in the next 48 hours (he had some crackers).

“I will do everything I can,” I replied and just stared at the baby from the sidewalk while nodding my head for 30 seconds before saying, “Which window do you want me to break?”

Incidentally, she did not want me to break a window, but, instead, wanted me to pry open the gas cap. There was a spare key inside.

“I’ve been trying to open it, but my I can’t seem to do it,” she said. Indeed, her hands were shaking more than Amy Winehouse on an international flight. Granted, this happened many years prior to Amy Winehouse’s success, and it is feasible that she was simply a recreational user at the time who might have fared well on a long flight without a puff from the proverbial pipe. But perhaps she is really, really afraid of flying and quivered regardless of any chemical co-dependency.

I approached the gas cap like a lumberjack approaches plaid – ready to own it. The desperate mother stood behind me with her hands joined in a sign of supplication. The wind died down, birds silenced their chirps, and the sun retreated back a few degrees to get a better look. Or maybe Earth rotated back as a favor for the sun. Yeah, that makes more sense.

I’ve always wanted to do something physically important while listening to the 70’s action-show sound effect of the Bionic Woman or the Incredible Hulk in the background. While I can’t say that the sound actually occurs in life, I can say having that sound in one’s head enhances one’s strength threefold. I can also say that gas caps are not secured too tightly on Lexuses.

You should have seen the face of the baby when his mother opened the car door with the key I wrenched from the gas cap. It was exactly the same face he had when he was locked in the car – but a little freer.