There are certain people you meet who seem perfectly normal at first.

Then they show up at your house with a giant red diesel-engine lawnmower, help tackle your enormous yard, disappear for several weeks, and reappear at a vampire suspect’s birthday party.

That is how somebody becomes Saint Nick.

To be clear, Nick does not walk around Elmira dressed like Santa Claus. He only wears the red suit for SantaCon.

The nickname works because his name is Nick—and because when he first appeared at our house, he arrived with exactly the kind of help we desperately needed.

Our lawn is not a small lawn.

It is the type of lawn that makes you question every decision that led you to owning that much grass. When it grows, it does not grow politely. It seems to organize, advance, and prepare to take back the property.

Then Nick showed up.

The Hum Beneath the House

I did not see him arrive.

I felt him.

I was inside the house, down in the basement working on plumbing, when the walls began to hum.

This was not the soft vibration of somebody pulling into the driveway with an ordinary vehicle. I could feel the weight of the engine through the house. The sound seemed to travel through the ground, into the foundation, and directly up through my feet.

Something enormous was outside.

I stopped what I was doing.

Then I ran from the basement and up the stairs, screaming my husband’s name.

“Stylo!”

I was convinced we were about to be infiltrated.

I was only half joking.

City Instincts in Rural Elmira

You have to understand: we are city people living in a rural area.

Living out here was our lifelong dream. We wanted the land, the quiet, the space, and the freedom for our children to run and explore. But achieving the dream did not automatically erase the instincts we had developed in the places we lived before.

Just as you learn to pay attention to things that go bump in the night, we learned to notice unusual engines, unfamiliar cars, footsteps, voices, and people approaching the property.

Our antennas are always up.

I am Trinidadian American—from Trinidad and Tobago by way of Brooklyn, New York, and Newark, New Jersey.

My husband, Stylo, is Jamaican American—from Spanish Town, Jamaica, by way of Brooklyn and Newark.

We are products of our former environments.

We know how to scan a situation before deciding it is safe. We know how to look through a window without making it obvious that we are looking through a window. We know how to speak to each other without moving our lips when somebody unfamiliar is approaching.

So when the entire house began vibrating and I heard a huge engine outside, my first thought was not:

Perhaps a kind stranger has arrived to help with the lawn.

My first thought was:

Who is coming onto this property, and what do they want?

The Giant Red Machine

I made it upstairs and found my husband outside.

Then I saw the machine.

It was a massive red diesel-engine lawnmower.

This was not a regular lawnmower.

This was the type of machine that looked as though it could mow the lawn, level a field, clear a highway, and possibly assist during a small military operation.

And riding it was Nick.

I bolted through the door with the fury of ten lions of Judah.

Nick put his hands up in surrender and simply asked if he could help.

From my point of view, an unidentified man had arrived on heavy machinery and was advancing across our property.

From Nick’s point of view, he was simply coming back to help a neighbor finish his lawn.

Those are two very different versions of the same afternoon.

Why Nick Came Back

At some point earlier, Nick had seen my husband trying to tackle our enormous lawn with a regular-sized lawnmower.

Stylo had been out there working for hours, pushing that little machine across a piece of property that seemed to grow larger every time he turned around.

Nick had driven past and noticed him.

Later, he told us that when he got home, he said to his wife:

“I have to go back down there and help him. I have to go back down there and help this guy. He has a regular-sized lawnmower, and he’s been trying to tackle that lawn all day. I just have to go back down there and help this guy.”

So he did.

He went home, got his giant red diesel lawnmower, and came back.

There was no long discussion.

No complicated arrangement.

No appointment.

He had seen another man struggling with a job that was too big for the equipment he had, and something inside him would not let him stay home knowing he could help.

Once we understood what was happening, we were grateful.

Still surprised.

Still slightly on guard.

But grateful.

Accepting Help Is Complicated

For some people, accepting that kind of help might be easy.

For me, it is not.

My husband and I were both raised with strong ideas about independence, pride, caution, and not allowing ourselves to become indebted to people.

Help can feel complicated.

Even when someone offers it freely, a small part of you may wonder what accepting it means. You wonder whether you are imposing, whether you now owe something, or whether the person will eventually regret offering.

Sometimes accepting kindness requires its own kind of courage.

The Ill Eagle Taphouse

While we talked, Nick told us that he owned the Ill Eagle Taphouse in town.

Yes, I understood the pun.

Ill Eagle.

Illegal.

It is clever enough that you have to say it aloud at least once.

He told us about the restaurant and made us feel welcome to visit.

There was only one problem.

The Ill Eagle Taphouse is a public restaurant. Anybody can walk through the door, order food, sit down, and enjoy themselves.

Still, after Nick had shown up and helped us with our lawn, it felt strange to simply appear at his business.

My husband and I discussed it.

We knew we did not need a special invitation. He had already told us about the restaurant. He had clearly wanted us to know it was there.

But on our end, it still felt awkward.

Would it seem as though we were expecting special treatment?

Would he think we came because we wanted something?

Would we make him uncomfortable?

This is the strange thing about being unaccustomed to receiving kindness: sometimes you can turn a completely normal trip to a restaurant into an emotional and ethical investigation.

Eventually, I found a solution.

DoorDash.

I could support the restaurant, try the food, and avoid standing inside wondering whether I was behaving normally.

So I placed an order from the Ill Eagle Taphouse.

The food arrived.

And it was amazing.

Not “good because we know the owner” good.

Actually good.

The kind of food that makes you pause after the first bite and look inside the container as though the explanation might be written underneath it.

There was something satisfying about finally trying the food Nick had told us about. It allowed us to experience a piece of the life he had described without feeling as though we were asking for anything beyond the meal we had ordered and paid for.

When Saint Nick Disappeared

Then Nick disappeared.

Not in a concerning way.

We simply did not see him.

We tried to find him and asked about him, but several weeks passed. Because of the way he had appeared with that enormous red machine and then vanished from our daily lives, he began to feel slightly imaginary.

Perhaps we had invented him during a period of extreme lawn-related stress.

Perhaps Saint Nick only appeared when grass reached a certain height.

Perhaps the red diesel lawnmower had carried him back to a secret workshop somewhere beyond Elmira.

A Vampire Suspect’s Birthday Party

Then Uncle Jimmy invited us over for pizza.

He called Stylo, asked for a head count, and told us to come at six.

When we arrived, Makella was preparing Jimmy’s special red velvet cake and frosting—the cake she had made for his birthday for more than thirty years.

That was when we learned it was Jimmy’s birthday.

The house was full of family. There seemed to be about thirty people relaxing, talking, eating, and moving between rooms.

Jimmy’s tiny great-nephew was dancing like a miniature Michael Jackson.

Then the door opened.

In walked Nick.

Saint Nick himself.

I looked at him and said:

“We were beginning to believe you were a figment of our imagination.”

He laughed.

But I was only partly joking.

There he was: the man with the red lawnmower, the SantaCon suit, the cleverly named restaurant, and the habit of appearing when we least expected him.

What Community Looks Like

Meeting people like Nick has forced me to think about community differently.

Community is not always formed through grand gestures. Sometimes it begins with a man driving past another man who has been fighting an enormous lawn all day with a regular-sized lawnmower.

Sometimes it begins when that man goes home, looks at his wife, and says:

“I have to go back down there and help him.”

Sometimes it is a person telling you where to find good food.

Sometimes it is finally placing the DoorDash order because you are still too awkward to walk into the restaurant.

And sometimes it is seeing that same person again in a crowded house, at another neighbor’s birthday party, and realizing that the people you have been meeting are all connected.

They have histories together.

They attend one another’s celebrations.

They notice when someone is struggling.

They return with the right equipment.

They help when help is needed.

Little by little, they have begun making room for us too.

I am still learning how to accept that.

I am still careful.

My antennas are still up.

I am still sometimes suspicious when the house starts vibrating and an unfamiliar engine comes roaring onto the property.

But the food from Ill Eagle Taphouse was amazing.

The giant red diesel-engine lawnmower was real.

Saint Nick was not a figment of our imagination.

And sometimes the thing coming up your driveway is not an infiltration.

Sometimes it is a neighbor who saw your husband struggling and decided he simply could not leave him to finish the job alone.