You, me, and Hitler in Spanish Harlem [short story]

story time:

as you know, lea is doing a farming apprenticeship in long island, new york. I drove over there this past weekend to visit, and it was quite nice. long island is an interesting little place, with organic farm providing some good relaxation and learning and such. I especially liked how anywhere on long island is close to water, and some of the shorelines are really undeveloped, raw, and beautiful. they probably won't be as beautiful when global warming raises the waters and nature whips out a can of whoop ass on the island, but for now it's nice.
but that's not even the story. let's call it the setting leading up to the story. it was really chill. this farm has a mobile chicken coup that transports the 500 or so chicks to a patch on the farm so they can run around and be happy and act like chickens and such. on sunday morning lea danila and I had to contain a situation when the most of the chickens acted up, apparently due to not being fed enough, and stamped past the fence. they literally rioted in front of our eyes and got out of their enclosure and started running around the field. it was an emergency, and we did our part in containing it. chickens are not the smartest animal, which is a nice way of saying they are dumb as hell. we were able to trick most of them into stampeding back into the fenced off area, with some assistance from a big bag of grain. but some of them did need to be chased down, with some serious talking to afterward. ... well not really the last part but everything else is true. alas, that is not the story either but more setting, so let's get to it.
sunday evening, about 6 pm, danila and I depart riverhead, long island.
we drive to queens, through queens, and into manhattan. at some point I bring up the idea of stopping by this restaurant I know in spanish harlem to get a bite to eat of... you guessed it: finger-licken' delicious chicken. since we were making good time and were hungry and the detour was minor, we agreed that it was a good idea. also, kate lives right by there and agreed to join us so the plan was set.
by 7pm,we meet up with kate and by 7:30 or so we find the restaurant. and here is when the story really gets a bit out of hand.
you are warned.
ok, so parking was scarce and I doubled parked near the restaurant to run over and pick up the food. walking back, I notice a steady and strong stream of water coming from under my car. bad.
I look under the hood and sure enough it's leaking. and no, it's not that calm, slow kind of car leaking. this was like niagara falls' little pinky here: small but powerful.
somewhat befuddled, I get into my car and start driving. barely a moment passes when danila points out that my temperature gauge is quickly rising. within minutes, it's all the way at the top where the "H" letter is next to a big red square and I pull over.
did I mention we're in spanish harlem?
so, what to do, what to do?
eat.
we're hungry and the car is overheating, so the best idea we could come up with at that moment was to let the car cool and eat the delicious spanish chicken.
delicious, yes, but soon enough our ravenous appetites are satisfied and the car is still broken.
we twiddle around the engine, bring a few jugs of water, and pour it into a seemingly empty engine coolant tank.
we get back into the car, drive a few blocks, and the car overheats again.
shit.
we pull over at a shell station to ponder our next move when a hispanic guy on a bicycle drops in and offers his help. beggars can't be choosers, so he starts working on the car and after adding water directly into the radiator the car's temperature stabilizes.
eureka.
at this point, I mellow out a bit and the following exchange happens:

me: hey, thanks for helping us man. we appreciate it
guy: nods head
me: what's your name?
guy: mumbles something that sounds like Cesar to me
me: what's that? cesar?
guy: hiter! hitler!
danila and I look at each other with priceless facial expressions (obviously I did not see mine but it had to be) and no more is said.

which means: we were saved in spanish harlem by hitler.

but, hitler's handiwork was a bit shoddy, as about 10 miles later my car overheats again. this time, it happens as I am getting of the highway to enter newark, since the plan was to drop danila at the train station so he could head home.
I pull over at shady gas station #1, pour some water into my radiator like hitler did, and keep driving.
no luck.
this time the car lasts a lot less and overheats less than a mile later, forcing me to pull into shady gas station #2.
at this point, I am getting a bit depressed, since it is getting late, I am tired, and my car is crapping out in front of my eyes over and over again. since we are just a few blocks from newark penn station, danila decides to try and catch the train to Trenton in case there are any more catch since it is 11:30pm or so. surprisingly, one of the guys working at the gas station offers to lend his car so I can drive danila to newark penn station instead of making him walk several shady blocks. I can't express how much this surprises me because kindness like this is really special in a town like newark. it is really encouraging to see the good side of the human spirit show its face even when surrounded by crime, violence, and distrust.
of course, everything good has an equal and opposite side, sort of like newton's first law. meaning: danila is too late to catch the train he needs to make it to home that night.
but, I am getting slightly ahead of myself.
while danila is at the train station looking at schedules and such, I am talking to hyundai off road assistance to get a tow truck to pick me up. since my car barely lasted a mile between shady gas station #1 and shady gas station #2 in newark, I decided it was safer get towed to my apartment than to risk damaging my engine by taking the car on the highway. there are three phone calls:
phone call #1: the woman on the other end tells me it would cost $71 to get to bloomfield, which I thought was reasonable for the 5-7 miles. I say yes.
phone call #2: the woman calls me back and tells me none of their partner towing companies could do it. they are either too busy or not picking up the phone, so my best bet is for the off road assistance person to find a towing company in the yellow pages.
phone call #3: the woman calls me again and tells me that after calling about 30 towing services, only one agreed to tow my car and is requesting $200. ouch.
I tell her I wil call back later knowing that I will not.
so, my options are either to spend the night sleeping in my car in newark, or to have someone pick me up and come back to get towed on monday. I lean toward the latter option and call nadya. at this point it wisas about 12:30 am and I called her before calling taras since she also lives in bloomfield, knows newark pretty well, and is a student so more likely to be awake late on a sunday night. sure enough, she is and kindly agrees to pick me up. but, to my surprise, she sends me a text message 10 minutes later that reads "I am almost on route 18"
quickly, I realize that nadya is coming from east brunswick, which is at least a 30 minute drive to newark. I call her and we talk and she tells me that she assumed I called her as a last resort, so that is why she headed out to pick me up from east brunswick. I tell her that, on the contrary, she is my first resort (for the reasons mentioned above), and demand that she turn around and head home.
at this point, I see danila walkinging back to the train station and we soon enough we are back where we started at this shady newark gulf gas station. I then decide, in part due to the advice of the guy working at the gas station, that leaving my car in newark until monday evening is not a good idea. so, I buy all the two gallon water jugs in the gas station store, and danila and I set out to bloomfield.
we pray to all the dieties we could think of, as well as to their cousins and their cousins' cousins and, sure enough:
eureka #2
we made it.