Tuesday, March 02, 2004
Perpendicular Parking
The gleaming expanse of his radiator grille leads the wide nose of his hood into the parking space. The sight he sees on the other side of his utterly spotless windshield disturbs him.
He likes the orderly layout of his dashboard, the smooth expanse of his glossy hood, the cleanliness in design and execution and maintenance of his broadshouldered, softseated domestic sedan. When the world outside his windshield echoes the world he lives in on his side, he’s happy. But when the outside world is disordered or dirty, he becomes a little agitated. Not so as he’d notice it, but enough so that anyone with him would. But this time he’s alone and when he sees the van he doesn’t even realize that he’s started muttering to himself.
The van: a somewhat older domestic cargo van, fair to poor condition, parked across four parking spaces, parallel where the spaces are herringbone. A thick coat of yellow dust dulls the faded paint and pitted glass. The tires seem tired. He glares at this filthy vehicle obstructing four times the amount of parking to which it’s entitled, and it sets him off. He starts going through his punctilious leaving-the-car motions, shutting down the engine and checking for his wallet and his shopping list, running a mental check of all the petty accoutrements of modern living, as all the while a corner of his mind engages in an ongoing harangue against whomever left that eyesore of a geology experiment of a junker parked over four full spaces; it’s antisocial, infuriating. He’s worked himself up pretty well by the time he’s reaching for his door handle, even to the extent of asking himself if he should leave a strongly worded note on the van’s windshield, when he sees them coming out of the grocery store – and he can tell instantly they’re headed right for him.
All three of them wear shades in the blue dusk, walking like they’re in an invisible snowdrift, their legs laboring and their gait constrained. The guy in the middle wears a leather duster and leather boots with toes that come to scuffed yet severe points. His black felt hat is broadbrimmed and flattopped, cut and blocked like a riverboat gambler’s. He is dusty, head to toe, and his scruffy beard seems to be nothing more than an accumulation of an extra few layers of dirt over his jaw, which he holds humorlessly clenched.
She walks at his right shoulder – not behind him, for damn sure. Black biker leathers, head to toe, glossy and in good repair. No logos. No smile. Lots of black hair; very pale skin; very very red lips. Slim but muscular, it’s obvious even through the leathers. Her motorcycle boots look like lethal weapons. One fist is clenched; the other loosely grips a worn-looking ball peen hammer.
Behind them walks an enormous man, broad and tall and heavy, a buzz-cut surmounting a head that would have been flat anyway. Small eyes, wide apart; small ears; wrists like a normal man’s neck. The pavement shudders with his every step. He wears a Celtic’s away uniform and sweats profusely – down his face, his arms, his legs, his chest… He carries four bags filled with bottles of alcohol in a very secure bearhug.
The man in the duster steps up to the driver’s door of the van and digs out of his pocket a keychain with only two keys on it. He goes to unlock the door but then stops, slowly turns around and looks hard at the man in the sedan who is staring at him with amazed disbelief; asks him, “What?” His lips barely move and the sound does not carry, but the man in the sedan hears – and quite clearly. “Nothing, nothing,” he stammers from the safety of his vehicle, glancing down at his lap and the passenger seat, wishing he had something to look busy doing till the van pulls away.
