Park city

In which the author looks for a space

Out There by Ellen Barry

This is a story about my subletter. A few days ago I was leaving my apartment at 9 a.m. and noticed my subletter -- who is a well-adjusted young man, a line cook and a taxpayer -- sitting in his parked car reading the newspaper. This didn't strike me as unusual until it became clear that (a) it was his day off and (b) he had been sitting in the car for a full hour. That night, when I asked about the way he was spending his leisure time, his face lit up and he told me what he had been up to. Yes, it was his day off, and yes, he had to get up at 7:30 to do it, but get a load of this: he was sitting in a street-cleaning zone and waiting for the meter maid so that when she stopped to write him a ticket, he could zoom off right in front of her, leaving her stamping and snorting like a cartoon villain.

"I just drove off!" he crowed, with the pride of a child who has ingeniously left a tack on someone's chair. "I drove off right in front of her!"

Although there were flaws in his reasoning -- for one, the assumption that the meter maid would not be satisfied to just write a ticket for someone else -- I understood perfectly. Certain cities are home to certain kinds of insanity: Washington, DC, for instance, draws a steady stream of paranoid schizophrenics who journey there to talk to government officials; New York is the world capital of neurosis; Boston makes people funny about parking. This month, the parking clerk is taking the offensive against "parking scofflaws," using the simple cause-effect formulation that higher fines will make illegal parkers more risk-averse. He's forgetting one thing: parking in this city, even for a relatively short period, makes people behave in ways that are far from rational. Trust me.

As I look back over two and a half years, of which at least one year was spent looking for a place to park, it's hard for me to say when my behavior crossed the line from eccentricity into mental illness. But this will do: Have you ever driven downtown for a hearing to contest a parking ticket and realized you had a choice between missing your hearing and parking illegally, thereby incurring another ticket that you would contest, forcing you to drive downtown in the middle of the day only to realize that you had a choice between missing the hearing and parking illegally? Do you see where this is going? When I have been in this situation -- and it has been more than once -- I have stared at my own face in the rear-view mirror and it has occurred to me that if I were ever taken prisoner by an enemy of the state, I would crack expeditiously.

During certain periods during my time in Boston, I've incurred such huge parking fines that it would have been economically advantageous to rent a small studio apartment just for my car. It's hard to put a price on the lonely feeling you get when you've been circling your own block for 45 minutes in the middle of the night, waiting for some completed burglary or domestic dispute to free up curb space. In order to make myself feel better during these black moments, I think of that time as my "commute," because if I lived in Marblehead, I wouldn't be home yet. I don't live in Marblehead, though; I live in Allston, 10 minutes from wherever I was coming from. But that's not really important; this kind of intentionally distorted reasoning is preferable to the only clear alternative, namely, having a stroke.

So we have coping mechanisms. I have long since stopped feeling anger of any kind at getting a parking ticket; I simply place the ticket on top of a large stack of tickets and carry on with my absurd lifestyle. Sometimes I get such a good spot -- either at home, or at work, or at some third location -- that I leave the car there for days, meaning that I have a great parking spot but, essentially, no car. I shudder to think of the days I have moved my car every two hours for extended periods, thereby shaving a good hour or two off my, um, three productive daytime hours -- or, alternately, those days when I have actually incurred a larger amount of debt in parking tickets than I earned at work.

To make myself feel better about this, I sometimes consider the tickets to be a "personality tax," although that isn't very reassuring unless I assume my personality is an asset. I also sometimes compute other expenses in terms of parking tickets -- as in, "this cashmere muffler only costs as much as `within 20 feet of an intersection' " -- which gives me a carefree, although delusional, attitude toward money. I'm not too proud to admit that I've actually gotten unnecessary repairs done on my car so I could drop it off at the shop and wouldn't have to find a space. In fact, from time to time, upon realizing that my car has been towed, I swallow hard and then feel a tiny whisper of relief that I don't have to look for parking until at least the end of the day.

Well-meaning observers have pointed out to me that I would not be refused service if I attempted to take the T. The funny thing is, as much time as I spend looking for parking, I can't give up the lifestyle. It's like scratch tickets; I know it's ruining me financially, but every morning, when I walk out the door with 85 cents clutched virtuously in my fist, I veer off toward my car. I can't help thinking there's a spot out there for me, close to where I'm going, just a few inches bigger than my car, where the meter reads "out of order": the spot that will make my life easy. You can't win if you don't play.

From time to time I have found that spot. A parking valet at a restaurant near my apartment has taken an interest in my cause, and on a few sultry nights, when he and I seemed to be the only living creatures on Commonwealth Avenue, he has moved not one but several cars in order to make room for me. What bike lock, what underground garage could provide this drama? Once I actually stopped a passerby to point out an extraordinary spot I had found on Newbury Street at midafternoon on a busy day; it was one of those things, like when you see a rainbow and it seems selfish not to share it. The guy smiled in an alarmed fashion and rushed off, huaraches flopping. And then, on a more daily basis, there is the rush of relief that comes every time I come close enough to my car to realize there is no ticket underneath the windshield wiper. Relief can be mistaken for joy in these situations; try explaining that to a pedestrian.