Race (4 page)

As I was on my twelfth someone ran up. “I was
only
gone for two minutes,” he said.
  

Sorry, sir.
 
I see an expired meter,” I said and moved on.
 
It’s always
two
minutes.
 
The man muttered something under his breath.
 

I’ve been called many things: Meter Maid, Green Hornet, Vulture, and other lovely terms that I didn’t know existed in the English dictionary.
  

The first couple of days on the job were terrible.
 
The things that were said to me left me scared.
 
I stopped sleeping, and I love to sleep.
 
I dreaded going to work and having to confront these types of people.
 
The looks they gave, the upstanding middle fingers, the curses.
 
Now, I’m immune to it.
 
In fact, I think I’ve become cynical.

If they say, “Screw you,” I say, “Thank you.” That pisses them off.

If they say, “Kiss my ass,” I say, “Sir, it’ll take me a whole week to kiss all that.”

I keep smiling and that truly annoys them.

I remember once this nice lady placed a spell on me, saying I’d die a horrible death in ten days.
 
That was eight months ago, and seeing that I’m still alive, the spell didn’t work.

Maybe someone has a voodoo doll of me.
 
Every so often they poke needles into my head.
 
No wonder I can’t think straight.
 
Maybe…just maybe, they place a pillow over my head and…yes, now it makes perfect sense, that’s why I feel sleepy all the time.

I drove into a more upscale commercial street.
 
This street had something that made all PEOs life easier: pay-and-display kiosks.
 
Each of these babies replaced ten parking meters.
 
Plus, these high-tech solar-powered kiosks were reliable and difficult to vandalize.
  

All I had to do was look at the receipt on their windshield, and if it was expired I gave them a PIN.
 

***

I drove to a public parking lot and made a quick round when I saw a car parked in the disabled zone.
 
I scanned the vehicle and found a placard hanging from the rear-view mirror.
 
I went back into my cruiser and contacted the communication dispatcher.
  
Parking Enforcement vehicles are not mobile workstations, meaning we have no access to police information systems—at least, not yet.
 
The dispatcher, linked to police systems such as CPIC (Canadian Police Information Center) and MTO (Ministry of Transportation of Ontario), responded to my query over the radio network.

This disabled permit was on the wrong vehicle.

Beautiful.

I wrote a ticket for three hundred dollars and placed it under the windshield.
 
I was about to leave when the owner showed up.

“What are you doing?” he yelled from a distance.

I did not answer.

“Hey, man.
 
I’m talking to you.
 
What the hell are you doing?” He hobbled toward me.

“I’m giving you a ticket, sir,” I said.
 
What I really wanted to say was:
don’t mind that, that’s just a flyer
.

“You can’t give me a ticket,” he said, waving his hands.
     

I hate people who abuse rights that are for the disadvantaged.

“Can’t you see my foot?” he said, pointing to his right foot.
 

I looked at it carefully and I didn’t see anything wrong with it.
 
It looked like any other foot.
 
Maybe it was shorter than the other one, but I didn’t want to mention it.

“It’s broken,” he said.

“Sorry to hear that, but that placard is not registered to your vehicle, sir,” I said.
 

“The permit belongs to my aunt and since I broke my leg she lent it to me.”

“That’s not how it works,” I said.

“What do you want me to do in this condition?
 
Park at the end of the lot and walk?”

“I’m sorry, sir,” I said.
 
“I’m just enforcing the by-laws.”

“You can’t do this,” he said.
 
He was in my face.

“I just did,” I said.

Veins popped up in his forehead.

“You can’t do this,” he repeated.
 
“I know my rights.
 
I’m
gonna
take you to court.”

There was a crowd gathering around us.
 
This was going to get nasty.

A woman carrying way too many shopping bags said, “This man is hurt.
 
There should be a law against you guys.”

Everyone approved.

I wasn’t about to start a verbal tennis match with the woman, so I pulled out my cell and dialed a number. I said a few words and turned to the violator.

“All right, sir,” I said.
 
“Please follow me.”

I led the man away from the crowd.
 
He hobbled alongside me.
 
We stopped at a spot where, in the distance, his vehicle was clearly visible.

“Now, sir,” I said.
 
“I think we should discuss this in a civilized manner.”

“Yeah,” the man said.
 

“How did you break your foot, sir?” I asked.
 

“I dropped a bowling ball.”

“Sorry to hear that.
 
It must have hurt.
 
Shatter your toes?”

“Huh?”

“I mean, broke your foot terribly?”

“Yeah, hurt like hell,”

“I bet it did, sir.
 
I’m just doing my job.
 
I checked the permit records and it does not belong to your vehicle.”

“Yeah,” he began to stumble.
 
“It belongs to my dad.”

“You mean aunt.”

“Yeah, aunt.
 
She’s actually my dad’s aunt.
 
After I broke my foot she lent it to me.”

I nodded.

“I was
gonna
get my own,
y’know
,” he said, as if he could walk into any store and pick a disabled parking permit off the shelf.
 

“So what do you want me to do?”

He cleared his throat after seeing I was willing to compromise, which I was not.
 
I was simply buying time.

“I don’t think I should get the ticket,” he said.

“You want me to take back the ticket?”

“Yeah.
 
I got witnesses and I’ll take you to court.”

He would do that, after he saw I’d given him a three-hundred-dollar ticket.

I lowered my voice and leaned in.
 
He got closer, too. “Sir, this is what you’re going to do.
 
You’re going to keep that ticket and you’re going to pay it within fifteen days.”

Veins popped up in his forehead again.

“And sir, you’re going to run. Run as fast as you can.”

“What?” he said perplexed.

I turned and looked in the direction of his vehicle; he instinctively did the same.
 

A tow truck was getting ready to haul his car.

The man forgot about his injury and dashed.
 
I never knew someone with a broken foot could run that fast.
 

Now let’s see those witnesses.

Some days my job was so much fun.

***

I went to a fast-food restaurant, the one with the golden arches, but I’m not saying which one.
 
I sat in my cruiser and ate away at my chicken burger.
 
We’re not supposed to eat in our vehicles, but who would know, right?

What else do PEOs do?
 
Give tickets every minute of every hour? No.
 
Like I mentioned earlier, we deter crimes.
 
We’ve recovered stolen goods, assisted police officers in arrests, and even prevented robberies.
 

A few months back I had chalked the tires of a vehicle parked in a non-metered space.
 
I recorded the time and a short while later, when I returned, I saw a kid trying to break into the car.
 
He had slid a metal coat hanger through the side window, and was, unsuccessfully, trying to unlock it.

I walked up beside him and watched.
 
He was perhaps thirteen or fourteen, definitely not driving age.
  
I knew what he was after, as I had scoped it out before: a brand new Yamaha five-disc car stereo, with two-hundred-watt speakers and subwoofers that were powerful enough to shake this car and the ones around it.

The kid was sweating and he was becoming impatient.
 
He would slide the hanger down the window slit and fish it up and down.
 
When he wouldn’t get the desired result he would pull it out and curse.

The kid wasn’t even looking up. He was focused on the task at hand.
 
After a few long minutes he had the door unlocked.
 
I could tell he was glad. So was I.

I placed my hand on his shoulder and spun him around.

“All right, son,” I said imitating my father’s voice.
 
“You’re under arrest.”

He didn’t wait.
 
He darted.
  
I went after him.
 
We raced, maybe a block and a half before I finally caught him.
 

“Why bother running?” I said out of breath.
 
“I saw you break into the car.”

The kid just shrugged.
 

“Let’s go,” I said.

During our walk the kid kept his head down.

When we got back I saw the car’s door open and the stereo, speakers, and everything else of value missing.

The kid looked at me and said, “I didn’t take nothing.”

I had been duped.

The kid was a decoy and I was the bait.
 
While I was running after the kid his buddies cleaned the car.

Obviously, I didn’t see the kid take anything, so the Judge gave him some community time. He and his buddies got away with thousands of dollars worth of goods.

Even now I laugh when I think about it.

It goes to show no matter how smart you think you are, someone is always smarter.

***

It was almost the end of my shift and close to rush hour.
 
I drove to a tag-and-tow street.
 
I stopped behind a gray Plymouth Voyager and wrote a ticket.
 

“Hey, wait.
 
Stop,” said a voice further away.

I turned and saw a man in a robe running towards me.
 
He stopped and caught his breath.
 

How do people know I’m about to give them a ticket?

“Hey, please.
 
Don’t give me a ticket?” he said.

“You’re not supposed to be parked here.
 
Rush hour,” I said.

“I know,” he pleaded.
 
“I’m having a bad day.
 
My girlfriend left me.
 
I was up all night.
 
I didn’t even go to work…”