Angels Among Us

Some of you may perhaps remember a song by the country band Alabama called "Angels Among Us." From maybe the late 90s? I never cared for the song much. I always thought it was kind of cheesy. It is, but it was what I thought of Saturday night when I met Leroy.

Saturday was a very hard day, for various reasons. I was pretty ready to be done with the day by evening, but I was taking the younger two boys to serve at the Saturday Vigil Mass at the church in the other village we go to sometimes. Mass started at 8 p.m., but they needed to be there early, so we left at 7:15. My low tire indicator light was on, but the town maintenance shop in this village has an air compressor hose on the outside of the building that I have used many times to air up my tires.

There was a truck parked on the other side of the parking lot of the shop when I got there. This will be important later.

It was raining slightly as I pulled up to the shop, hopped out, aired up my tire for a few seconds, and then pulled the air compressor out of my tire to put it back on its hook so I could continue on my way.

Except the valve of my tire got stuck in the air compressor. So when I pulled at it, the valve got ripped out and stayed stuck in the air compressor's chuck. This meant that not only was my tire rapidly deflating, but the air compressor continued to run, with no way to turn it off, as the actual machine was inside the locked building.

There I stood, in the rain, in my church clothes, holding a hissing air compressor and watching my tire go flat.

Not my best moment.

I had my cell phone, so I called A., asking him to bring some pliers to possibly pry the valve out of the air compressor, and also to change my tire. Luckily, we only live ten minutes from this village, so I knew it wouldn't take him long. 

As I was getting off the phone, I saw someone get into the truck on the other side of the parking lot. I went over there and waved down the person who had gotten into the truck, thinking maybe he would have pliers. When he rolled his window down, I asked if he happened to work there.

"Actually, I do," I replied.

THANK YOU, GOD.

This is how I met Leroy. 

He unlocked the shop and turned off the air compressor. I stood there apologizing and explaining while he tried to get the valve out of the air compressor's chuck. This is when I learned his name, that he comes to the shop every morning and evening to feed the feral cats that live there, and that he takes care of his 92-year-old mother. He reassured me that it wasn't my fault that the valve had gotten stuck, telling me the compressor chuck was old and needed to be replaced anyway.

After the compressor had been off for awhile, the pressure came down enough that he was able to remove the valve from the chuck. 

At about this point, A. arrived and I took the boys up to church in the van. They were still in time to serve Mass, and I didn't go back to the Honda. A. told me that Leroy stayed there with him and helped him try to put the valve from the Honda's spare tire on the flat tire. Leroy also found another valve they tried, which didn't fit. And, when the Honda slipped off our jack in the gravel parking lot, Leroy brought out a floor jack from the shop and helped A. change the tire with that.

In the course of our very brief conversation, I had told Leroy that I was going to church. He said he had been watching an Easter Vigil Mass on television before he came to the shop. His elderly mother couldn't really leave the house anymore, so he wouldn't be going to the Easter Vigil at church.

But I went to church, and you'd better believe that I spent much of the two-hour Vigil Mass thanking God for Leroy.

The end.