E-Mail This Article to a Friend Taking a toll Ever wonder what it’s like to spend your working days in a box as a toll collector? BY CAMILLE DODERO

It’s a strange request to ask a taxi driver to deposit you in the middle of a tall bridge at five a.m., and the cabby I’ve asked to drop me off on the Tobin one recent Tuesday morning doesn’t want to comply. "I don’t know where the Tobin Bridge is!" he insists.

It’s too early for this. And too cold — one of the coldest days we’ve had all winter. "Of course you do," I argue. "You’re a cab driver." I explain that I’m not going to jump; I’m researching a newspaper story about what it’s like to be a toll collector. Frankly, being paid to stand in a box all day making change looks like the professional equivalent of purgatory, and I’m curious to learn how toll collectors stay sane — never mind where they park their cars or go to the bathroom. The cabby grumbles, but finally shifts the car into drive.

"Good morning," says the blond fiftysomething collector when we pull up in Lane 13 on the bridge. "Four-fifty." This is Karin Beutel, the Winthrop resident I’m supposed to spend the day shadowing. I explain why I’m here, thinking this will exempt me from the toll. But as I soon find out, there are no free rides on the Tobin Bridge. Doesn’t matter if you’re lost, rushed, chasing an ambulance, or idling in a hired cab with a $30 fare on the meter: you’re legally required to fork over the fee. "Four-fifty," Beutel repeats sweetly.

I pay the toll and open the door, thinking I can just climb into Beutel’s booth right away. "No, no, no!" she protests. "He’ll have to drop you off over there." She points at the right side of the bridge, toward the Tobin Bridge Administration Building, a destination that will require the taxi to cut across what seems like 100 lanes of traffic. "Watch out for the Fast Lane!" warns Beutel.

Inside the imposing administration building — it’s built into the side of the bridge, with the top floor sitting on the bridge’s uppermost tier — a mustachioed Massachusetts Transportation Authority (Massport) employee wants to know what I’m doing. I explain I’m here to spend the day with Beutel. His face says Why would you want to do that?, but he just nods and agrees. He fetches me a TOBIN BRIDGE–emblazoned fluorescent-orange safety vest so I won’t get mistaken for a speed bump. "It’s meat-locker cold," he sighs. "Should be fun."

In Awkward social situations, people discuss the weather because it’s a universal, inoffensive subject. But in a toll collector’s daily routine, it’s the only subject. They talk about the cold with the motorists. They talk about it in the break room. They talk about it with their supervisors. They talk about it with the customers some more. After all, toll collectors have to work rain or shine, frigid blizzard or sweltering hot spell — Mother Nature is more their boss than any Massport supervisor is.

Beutel knows this well. A sandy-blond Austrian immigrant with dark sunglasses and a lined face, she’s braved the past five winters listening to motorists wonder aloud how she doesn’t freeze to death, lose her appendages to frostbite, or even seem grouchy. During the day I’ll spend in Beutel’s southbound booth — a cloudy-breathed day of icy wind, reddened skin, and chapped lips — I’ll hear motorists chatter about the cold in endless variation:

You warm enough in there?

Cold enough for you?

Stay warm!

I’m cold. I don’t even want to ask how you are.

You look nice and cute and bundled up.

You poor thing!

I’m going to bring you gloves and a coffee next time.

"I hear it so often," Beutel sighs, after one of the cold-enough-in-there motorists departs. "But I know they all mean it well."

Contrary to popular belief, Tobin Bridge tollbooths are heated in the winter and air-conditioned in the summer, with a controllable thermostat inside each one. Although the small stations become quite toasty, Beutel does have to lean outside every minute, if not every four seconds, so she isn’t exactly stripped down to her skivvies. Her layers include long underwear, Massport-supplied uniform slacks, a turtleneck with MASSPORT stitched on the collar, a Massport V-neck sweater, a bulky coat, and the requisite TOBIN BOOTH vest — but no gloves. "They slow me down!" she explains. Her hands are chapped from the cold; a recent paper cut, a recurring hazard of the job, has deepened into a dry red crevice.

At 6 a.m., a supervisor ushers me across the bridge to Beutel’s booth. Beutel pauses from a cheery string of "Good mornings" and "Thank yous" to greet me, immediately apologizing that the narrow booth isn’t conducive to conversation. "I don’t like to show people my back, but I can’t help it in here." Within seconds, a motorist’s face appears in her window, and she returns to her matutinal mantra. Good morning. Thank you. Good morning. Thank you.

Inside the cramped booth, which measures 32.3 square feet, are a computer monitor, a coin-filled sandwich baggie, a metal cash drawer, and a few pieces of sugar-free hard candy. There’s also Beutel’s portable CD player/radio, which she’ll turn on after rush hour; collectors are allowed to bring radios, but not televisions. On the floor are a rubber mat, torn corners of dollar bills, and a tiny trash can. All day long, Beutel faces the rusty-green ribcage of the Tobin Bridge. But behind her, the cityscape looks like an architect’s model: from this distance, the Hancock Building is a stack of staples, the Citgo sign is smaller than a fingernail, and the Bunker Hill Monument looks like a silver pencil sharpened with a knife.

Under the deep-blue predawn sky, drivers pull up, one after another, at the rate of eight per minute, their bills flapping in the wind, their woolly arms extended. "If they have the money ready, it goes smoothly," Beutel explains. "On the weekend, they’re all scrambled up, so it goes slower." Many motorists request receipts and she responds dutifully, "You got it!" Some ask for directions, others ask for the time. When someone wants to know about a Fast Lane pass, she hands them a pamphlet on enrollment.