Me-the-Bad-Luck-in-Their-Day and Me-Hearing-the-Exhale-When-the-Bike-Runs-Again

Five o'clock on a Friday, under the banyan tree at the foot of the flyover. The day's last scooter lies tilted on the stand, rear wheel off, a basin of cloudy water waiting for the inner tube, and my hands still sharp with the smell of patch glue. Fifteen years in this spot, and the two voices in my head still run together every time I pick up the file.

Me-the-bad-luck-in-their-day: Nine people today. Not one asked my name. They stop by when a tire has gone flat, when they are angry, when they are late, then they leave, and nobody has thought about me a second time. I am the bad part of their afternoon.

Me-hearing-the-exhale: True, nobody asked my name. But at noon I dipped the tube in the basin, bubbles rose right at the puncture, and the woman in the blue shirt, standing there with her bike propped on her hip, tilted her head and said "so that's where it is." I heard her let out a breath. I was part of that breath.

Me-the-bad-luck-in-their-day: One breath. Over one nail. They pay and forget.

Me-hearing-the-exhale: So they forget. I don't remember the face of the man who patched my father's tire when I was ten. All I remember is my dad standing with his hands on his hips, letting out a breath, then riding me on, glue still on his fingers.

I wiped my hands on a rag gone black, the smell of hot rubber still on my fingers. A motorbike passed and the passenger turned to look at me sitting among the tubes, then turned away.

Me-the-bad-luck-in-their-day: So it is as I said. People remember feeling lighter, not the repairman. I'm just a pipe.

Me-hearing-the-exhale: Maybe. I can't argue about remembered faces. But without a pipe the water doesn't run, and I don't see why those two things have to be traded against each other: being remembered, or being of use.

Me-the-bad-luck-in-their-day: And maybe I'm not even a good pipe. The day before yesterday I told a customer his tire couldn't be patched anymore, and he went and bought a new one. The next day the guy across the road told him the old tire had only a bad valve.

Me-hearing-the-exhale: That one I got wrong, and I can't dodge it. When he came by again I told him straight. He nodded, wasn't angry, finished his glass of iced tea and left. I don't know what he thought. I probably never will.

Sometime this morning a boy of about seven stood and watched me patch for ten minutes, not blinking. His mother called him three times. When the scooter was done he asked, "Does your hand hurt, Uncle?" I didn't know what to say, so I said, "No." Half true.

Me-the-bad-luck-in-their-day: Then why do I ask every day when the shift ends? Those nine people, what for?

Me-hearing-the-exhale: Because however far I follow the question I only ever get one answer, and it is short: nine bikes ran again today. I don't know if that is enough. Some days it sounds like enough. Some days it sounds like the hand pump running out of air, squeezing and squeezing and the tire not rising.

Nine people. The woman in the blue shirt. The man delivering ice, truck loaded heavy, engine running before I had finished hearing his thanks. Two students pushing one bike between them, each insisting it was the other's. The vegetable seller who kept asking if I was sure it wouldn't leak again. I remembered five of them. For the other four I only remembered their punctures.

Me-the-bad-luck-in-their-day: If I quit tomorrow, who would notice?

Me-hearing-the-exhale: Those nine would go somewhere else. They would still breathe out somewhere else. It's just that today they breathed out here.

The two of us went quiet for a while, with only the sound of water dripping from the tube into the basin.

I can't say who won, and I doubt anyone has to. The first voice isn't wrong: people really do not come back looking for me. The second voice isn't making things up either: the exhale is real, I heard it with my own ears. There is just one thing I do not know, which is how the two weigh against each other on the afternoons I'm tired, and whether ten years from now I will still be able to hear the second one. I leave that spot as it is, unpatched. There is another piece on this site about the day someone saw meaning in a small task, from a very different workplace.

There are weeks when the question "what is it all for" stops being an evening question and turns into noise all day long, and everything feels empty. If that feeling goes on for several weeks, talk to someone with professional training, a doctor or a psychologist. This piece cannot replace that. And if there is ever a moment when you think about hurting yourself, even as a passing thought, tell someone you trust today, and read the Emergency Support page.

At the foot of the bridge a bicycle bell rings. Someone walks a bike over, front tire flat, a plastic bag still hanging from the handlebar.

I put the file down.