The Tattooed Good Samaritan

 We had been driving for an hour and a half and still had about three to go. My sister Sara and I had spent a couple of days at the beach. We were on our way home: sunburned but happy. When the car started making a bad noise we pulled onto the shoulder. The back right tire was smoking, and very flat. Faced with trying to put on the spare, we managed to drive underneath an overpass where there would be some shade. We unloaded our luggage and pulled out the spare, only to find that there wasn't a jack. Sara confirmed with her husband, since it was his car, that no, he might not have a jack after all. Oops. So there we were, stranded miles from the nearest town and hundreds of miles from home. Sara pulled out her phone to call her insurance, leaning into the car to try to hear over the noise of vehicles whizzing past us at 75+ miles per hour.  I began to put our luggage back in the trunk when a truck pulled up and a man got out and asked if we needed help. He said he had a jack, and in a moment he was lying on the pavement setting up the jack and working to take off the bad tire. I had two thoughts: he was our Good Samaritan, and just like the man from the parable, he was the kind of helping hand one might not expect.

The stranger wore a black shirt which read 'Let the bad times roll', a snakeskin belt with a skull, and was tattooed all over. They were grim tattoos, with demons, skulls, and words like blood overlaying images of muscle and sinew. He was an intimidating man - until he looked at my sister and I and sincerely, earnestly offered his help.

 I tried to offer him a towel to be a cushion from the rough pavement but he said he was fine. I stood by helplessly as he worked on changing the tire. Ultimately, he wasn't able to get us on our way: the spare was too flat to do any good. However, he left his jack with us.
"I have another one, this one is old anyway," he said. We thanked him and he got in his truck to leave. A moment later he came back, asking if we needed any water or food while we waited for a tow truck. We told him we'd be fine and he nodded, leaving for real this time. Eventually another truck stopped and two men with an air compressor were able to fill up our tire and get us on our way. My sister and I were thankful for the help from all three men who came our way, though I especially won't be forgetting the first one, the tattooed Good Samaritan who stopped and helped and gave. Wherever you are, thank you. I hope I can pay your good deed forward soon.