When Things Don’t Cost

Jimmy the mechanic knocked at my door.

I always know it’s him because he’s a bit short, so all I can see through the window is the small bump of his ponytail.

When I opened, he was holding the gear shift of a car, attached to what looked like a long black rubber hose.

Jimmy had been trying to fix his own vehicle for a solid month. He scrimped and pinched until he got enough for a junkyard engine and transmission. He borrowed Serendipity to go out to Mingo and get it. He banged it all together in the on-street parking space in front of his house. But first he could only get it so it went in reverse, and next it would go forward but not go into park.

“Is THAT what the other side of a gear shift looks like?” I guessed.

He gave a long, careful explanation of the functions of the gear shift. Jimmy always gives me a dissertation on the function of a car part when he’s showing it to me, and I never retain more than about a third of it. The gist of it was that there was a broken part in his new transmission, a kink in that long rubber hose that shouldn’t be there, and he needed to borrow Serendipity for another junkyard trip– perhaps for a few more days.

Jimmy had been borrowing Serendipity to take his own children to school and Adrienne with them, then swinging back around to take his wife to work, then bringing it to our house before I’d even gotten up for my coffee. This was a huge favor to him because without a car, his children have to get up at five-thirty to catch the early bus, but with a car they can sleep until almost seven. It was a miracle for me, because Adrienne is sick to death of the five-thirty wakeups, but with my insomnia I can’t be relied on to take her to school in the morning myself and Michael never learned to drive.  I happily agreed to let this arrangement go on as much as it needed to. I asked if, once his car was roadworthy, he could keep on taking Adrienne to school in exchange for a gas card now and then. He said we didn’t even have to pay, since he was going there anyway.

For another week, Jimmy came and got the car keys at seven in the morning and brought them back before eight. He borrowed them again at three to pick his wife up from her shift at the restaurant and to buy groceries. He drove her out to Mingo once or twice, and each time he brought her back I found he’d pumped a bit of gas to say “thank you.” I was relieved. This has been a horrible month, with first the Twitter ban and then the bad head cold. I would never have been able to get gas as well as pay bills and eat.

Towards the end of that week, we were so broke that we couldn’t scrape together quarters for the laundromat.

Our dryer is still broken. There’s a set of hex wrenches waiting in the Amazon cart so I can try to fix it myself, but those cost money as well. We’d been washing our clothes in the wash and then taking them to the laundromat to dry for a long time.

Jimmy offered to fix the dryer when he has a day off, but in the meanwhile, we could use his.

Instead of toting laundry to the laundromat for a few dollars, we’ve been taking it to his house for free.

I  came across a Tiktok the other day that really inspired me, and now I can’t find it. I promise I’ll edit a link to it into this post as soon as I do. It was a short video of a young man from somewhere in Appalachia, talking about the cost of living crisis. He said that, while it’s true that everything costs far too much and wages are far too low, maybe that’s not the only cause of the cost of living crisis. “Maybe part of the problem is that everything costs.”

“Maybe it’s just the Redneck in me,” he said, and I loved him at once. He explained that he grew up in a “holler,” a little collection of houses in the hollow between two mountains. Everyone in the holler was poor, but it was expected that everyone would help each other. People didn’t need to come up with money for childcare because there was always a neighbor who could watch the children at her house. If your car broke down, a neighbor would help you fix it. If somebody grew vegetables, they’d pass the food around. They didn’t really do it because they were generous; they did it because it was expected, as part of their culture. Yes, they were all poor, but they had an advantage because they helped each other for free.

I do think that’s a part of the puzzle.

These kinds of arrangements aren’t available to everyone, of course, for a variety of reasons. But I think part of the problem with our society is that capitalism has trained us not to expect to help one another for free.

I think we can take back a little bit from capitalism, if we all expect to help each other for free.

Living in Appalachia has taught me this.

I like it here.