Originally published 12/04/03, updated 12/05, naively titled "The Parables of the Albatross." Written from the bowels of the Albatross, parked on a Washington Heights street.
The Parable of the Gluttonous Albatross and the Very Expensive Parking Tickets
When the Albatross awoke from its refreshing two-day nap, it discovered, to the delight of its discriminating palate and expensive taste, that it had been decorated with two more parking tickets. One for having an emissions inspection ticket which had lapsed by eight days while it was in Vermont; another for being liberated of its front license plate by the friend who borrowed it. The Albatross shimmied in delight.
I, as you might guess, was less than thrilled. I kicked the bumpers and howled for a good fifteen minutes.
Nevertheless it was Tuesday and I was in a Tuesday zone, and being loathe to amass any more tickets I drove the Albatross around Washington Heights looking for a new parking space. It was 10:00 in the morning.
A minor blizzard began. Snow flew sideways.
Up Cabrini. Down Fort Washington. Across 181st. Down Bennett. Past the Cloisters.
There are no goddamn parking spaces in Washington Heights.
I drove down to Morningside Heights, to Columbia. It was 10:30 in the morning. I was becoming late for work.
* * *
In Which The Albatross Is Bathed In The Radiance of Sublime Grace
I had been warned about the parking situation in Morningside Heights, but oh, the carnage! Fire hydrants parked three trucks in! Vespas parked on top of Minis parked on top of Lincoln Towncars! Ford Explorers in flames! Yuppies using them as barricades, hurling clots of dung at the approaching metermaids!
ok, so it wasn't that bad. but every street was parked two deep on a side, and there was still no place to park. It was 11:00 a.m.
I became resigned to parking on the illegal side of the street and awaiting my fate. The moment I came to rest a sweeper rounded the corner and, like a common city pigeon, I was forced to take flight.
I pulled into a line of cars parked on the wrong side of a street, attended by drivers in cold-weather gear. One guy looked old and Irish, so I figured he knew the routine.
Here's how it works, he told me, blowing on his hands. The sweeper comes by, you pull out. You have to stay with your car until 1:00.
I was already late to work.
A metermaid came by and eyed the drivers. I turned on my engine. She left.
The sweeper trundled into the scope of my rearview. I began to panic – I was more or less parked in. Why was nobody moving?
The sweeper passed us.
It was now 12:30. I read fitfully, unable to keep from searching for the metermaid in the rearview window.
And then -- then – I was witness to the most unearthly automotive choreography . The sweeper pulled into the street again and got behind the car at the opposite end of the block. Around me the whole line of cars started their engines. As the sweeper made its processional up the block, each car in turn pulled out into the opposite lane of traffic, matched in a wave of Busby Berkeley arcs.
I confess – I was not ready for the sublime grace. I backed and filled. I tried to make for the next intersection, but a woman in a white Lexus was in my way. Where? I gestured to her. What next? Where do I go?
The woman in the white Lexus gave me a thumbs up sign, and as the sweeper passed, every car in the row pulled back in its arc and glided to a stop at the exact same place at the curb. And I did also. In another half an hour I was blessed with the gift of a legal parking space.
* * *
The Temptation of the False Parking Space
The fate of the Albatross is to never roost for more than three days at a time, for that is how often the sweeper comes, so again tonight it was an hour of cruising Washington Heights. Up Fort Washington. Down Bennett. Over to Audubon and back again. Countless numbered streets.
The streets of Washington Heights are mysterious with cul-de-sacs and traffic circles. Holy holy holy. And out on the riverfront, where the apartments have a killer view of the GeorgeWashington Bridge and are surely more expensive than I can ever afford, there is a parking space between two SUVs on the secret street called Chittenden. It is a deceitful parking space. There are signs up which say No Standing on either side, and yet here are the SUVs. Surely they must know something! Surely this is the forbidden fruit of the yuppie, the knowledge of the Place Where Cops Never Ticket!
I take the space and get out to confirm that what I am seeing is true. Yes, there are No Standing signs and they mean Not You, Right Here. So what's with the SUVs?
The first one has a red dashboard light and a card that says NYC Housing Authority. The second has a sign that says Fire Marshal Reserve. The third has another Housing Authority card and a light. The fourth car has a handicapped plate and a Club through the steering wheel.
I lay tracks out of that den of deceit, you better believe. Eventually some nice security guard tells me I can have his parking space in half an hour. I hover in front of a hydrant and wait.
* * *
The Morals of the Parables of the Albatross
Do you know what this is?! Do you understand the terrible sublime moral of the parables of the failures of the Albatross?! It is that New York City sees you! It sees you in your fossil-fuel consuming wickedness! New York City is ready to punish all of us for what we have done! It will grind away at our fat undersides with potholes! It will mar the tawdry glory of our paint job with a green sign that says "THIS VEHICLE IS PREVENTING NEW YORK FROM BEING CLEAN!" New York City knows that it is not Gomorrah, it is the rest of the gas-guzzling country that is filled with sin! New York City knows, and New York City will have vengeance!
* * *
Postscript: ... and New York Taketh Away
At approximately 11:15 this morning the vengeful hand of New York rose up and brutally crushed the Albatross into a wall on I-95. Totalled. Free at last. Hallelujah.
Posted by Gus at January 21, 2004 11:55 PM
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Like "The Paradise of Bachelors, and the Tartarus of Maids," I feel there is a companion to the Flight of the Albatross which must be written. From the other side of the petroleum divide, the counter-part to the Albatross's laborous search for rest and competitive convenience:
There is a street, two blocks from my house in Portland, where the sweepers never come. A grainy mulch covers the ground, pulverized remains of the leaves that fell last year lying atop the scattered dust of those that fell the year before. Parking is plentiful on this street, but alas, parking is not what I seek. For I am she-who-bicycles-late-to-work, and I need a quiet, clear path. Every morning, I speed across the 4-lane "neighborhood collector," and dart into the side streets. On the mornings when traffic is kind, I find myself on Woodward, the street that the sweepers forgot.
My bicycle is stout. Its designers fondly imagined it careening along mountain paths, but fate determined otherwise, and it was fitted with moderately smooth tires, beefy fenders, multiple lights and reflectors, and sold to me as the perfect compromise for rainy Northwest commuting. So, despite being denied a life of grand vistas and thumping rocks, it patiently accomodates my whims, accepting torque and texture as merely routine elements of the daily grind.
So the battered fronds on the road present no difficulty, I can stand on my pedals to cross anything short of actual logs. I work up a good speed, thinking I may just be on time today, if the train schedules further on are kind, until I reach the turn.
The turn for some reason is the place where all these leaves collect just when they have reached their finest, most slippery texture, accumulating in shallow drifts that smoothly cover the surface of the road. Drifts of little _flat_ leaf particles, like graphite. Usually wet. Hard-earned momentum must be sacrificed, or I slide across the intersection spreading a swath of mangled leaves underneath my skidding tires. If my mind is really elsewhere, and I take the turn at what I once considered a "normal" speed, I have terrifying visions of making a not-too-soft landing in this layer of wet, tannin rich, motor-oil-lubricated grunge. I have done this only once. As far as plant matter goes, this is definitely the stuff I least enjoy wearing to work on a cold morning.
One winter evening, walking the neighborhood, I attempted to scrape myself a path with the side of my boot. It lasted a week before the remaining mash was scattered, in a presumably thinner layer than before, in its former chaotically smooth distribution across the intersection.
One day, I may return with a broom or shovel. But the street is broad. And my own personal character, like many I know, lacks the discipline to routinely address the problems of tomorrow when enjoying my free time at the end of today.
One day, perhaps, the leaves will grow so thick that worms can eat them without fear of the cars passing overhead, and I will replace my smooth tires with the knobby ones for which my bike was originally destined, and leave a little earlier for work each morning. Or perhaps, one day, the sweepers will return.
Posted by: EKR at January 23, 2004 3:29 PM