The Big Wheel

After Rachel was born, Mom and Dad visited every Tuesday afternoon. They came to our house in Lansing after tending to Grandma Myrtie in Grand Ledge—buying groceries and taking her to the doctor or the bank. They brought us vegetables from their garden, and often a rhubarb pie, sometimes peach, and when Tom came home we all had supper together. It was a nice routine.

On those Tuesdays Mom often presented me with something she had bought at a garage sale. The quilted bedspread I later dyed purple. A pressure cooker. The wind-up swing for baby Rachel. A nylon winter jacket—navy, with an orange and yellow striped collar. Mom paid 50¢ for it, and as things turned out, it was my only winter jacket for the next 10 years.

Rachel was a toddler when Mom brought us a Big Wheel. It wasn’t an expensive brand-name Big Wheel, but a somewhat flimsy imitation. And something was out of kilter in the front wheel—it didn’t steer very well and it wouldn’t go very fast.

I was a regular at garage sales myself, as Tom's book scout. One day I found a brand-name Big Wheel, bright red and yellow, sturdy, and in excellent condition. I thought the $4 price was high, but new Big Wheels were $28, and the one from Mom just wasn't satisfactory. I paid the $4 and took it home. What a difference! Rachel pedaled it furiously down the sidewalk, steering it easily into the Thompson’s driveway.

Next Monday I placed the faux Big Wheel at the curb to be picked up with the other trash. Midmorning, the doorbell interrupted my editing. At the front door stood an African American man—early thirties, I’d say—about my age. Nice looking. Wearing a suit. His car stood at the curb.

“I noticed the Big Wheel out front with the trash, and I wondered if it would be all right if I took it. I know some kids who would like to have it.”

I was embarrassed. He thought I could afford to throw out Big Wheels. I lived in a nice house on a tree-lined street. I was white. He thought I was one of the “have’s,” discarding Big Wheels right and left. How could he know I wore a winter jacket that cost 50¢?

“Oh, well, sure. That’s fine.” Words came tumbling out. Gushing out. “I wouldn't really be throwing it out, but it’s got a bad wheel. It works, but not very well. And I bought a better one. At a garage sale, I mean, not a new one. That one out there was from a garage sale, too, actually. My mother bought it for my daughter.” I was talking faster and faster. “But the new one I bought is better. I mean, not new, but newer than that one. Not broken, I mean. At a garage sale. It was just $4. That one out front does work, though. But it sort of steers funny. I wouldn't even be throwing it out but I found that other one, and there was no need to have two.” I took a breath. “You're more than welcome to take it.”

He thanked me and left.

I closed the door and watched from the window as he put the toy in the trunk of his car. I burst into tears. I lived in a nice house on a tree-lined street, and there were little kids who had nothing, and he was willing to stop and ask if he could take my trash. And I was white and he was black. Was this scene much different from the ones—how did I know them, from movies? from books?—in which the black man comes—obsequious, to the back door—and asks if there is some work he could do for a meal, and the white woman prepares a plate of food and gives it to him, feeling smug and pleased with her generosity? Had anything in changed? Would it ever change?

I did not feel smug, and I wept. I wept to think that I had become a “have.” I wept for myself, and for that man, and for those little children who would ride the broken Big Wheel.