“You wanna step aside for me there, Big Guy?”
Big Guy. That’s the kind of label you are called after doing something stupid, like “Hey, you pour the milk in the bowl after the cereal, Big Guy,” or “Herpes is contagious, Big Guy.”
At first I thought that I didn’t hear him correctly through the small holes in the bullet proof glass, but when he made a hand gesture towards the wall, I knew I had heard him properly. My immediate impulse to feel insulted washed away when I reminded myself where I was.
Nobody ever wants to spend their late afternoon at the Philadelphia Parking Authority. The only reason you would be there is if your car was parked illegally and had been towed. The further north in the city you parked, the more bitter you would become, for the lot for towed cars is located at the southern-most tip of the city. So if, say, you parked in a bus zone for an hour or two at 30th Street Station, you have to get on the horn and call up whatever friend is willing to cart your ass down to Oregon Avenue. It’s situations like this that may cause you to be the designated driver on consecutive Saturday nights. It’s best to get a head start on these favors so you won’t owe anyone, and you can just cash them in like a ‘get out of jail free’ card. That’s what Mary had done. She reminded me on the phone about a couple of Phillies tickets she gave me a while ago, then said, “Funny story–umm....my car...” Small favors are easy to accomplish through friends, but a trip down to the P.P.A., that takes bribery.
I didn’t really mind being there; it wasn’t my car that got towed. I just didn’t want to be sucked in by the black hole of negativity that the P.P.A. creates. Just after Mary left the service area in search of her car, I was left alone by the vending machines. Just me in the waiting area, and four clerks behind the glass partitions. From the open doorway I heard a vehicle approaching, and in the back seat of the yellow taxi was a middle aged mustached man, yelling at God knows what.
Now, I have heard foul language before. I’ve been watching “R” rated movies since I was 6, and was not shy about using a wicked tongue in tense situations; but this guy–this guy just wowed me. The most impressive thing I found about his language was the lack of variety. It consisted of only one word.
“Well, fuck! I don’t fucking–fucking know when I can be fucking there! Fucking...my fucking car got towed! ...The fuck??”
At first I thought he was yelling at the cab driver, who was probably looking for some idle conversation, but got verbally hosed instead.
“So, where ya from Mack?”
“Fuck–fuckity–fuck it!”
Upon closer inspection, I saw one of those blue-tooth phone attachments in his right ear. Sounded like somebody was about to miss an important meeting.
“Fuck no!! I’m here now. I’ll call you back.” He hung up the phone by slapping his right ear. “Fuck!!”
Despite all of his anger, he still managed to walk into the service area nonchalantly, his bloated spare tire entering first and triggering the electronic beep announcing another soon-to-be satisfied customer. Besides the four clerks, I was the only one he could relate to, looking for some solidarity.
“They fucking tow your car too?” he asked.
I explained that I was just dropping off a friend. He put his hands on his hips in disappointment. “Fuck...”
Maybe if I said ‘yes,’ we could have formed some sort of alliance against the P.P.A. and overthrown their reign of terror across the city. Hindsight is always 20/20. Seeing that I was not going to be any help to his plight, he turned his attention to the female clerk. He raised his arms in the air.
“Hey! I thought this was a nice city!”
“It is a nice city, sir.” she said patiently.
I could see in the man’s face an internal struggle between his true self and proper social congeniality.
“The fuck it is!” Congeniality lost by a nose. “Then why the fuck is my car here instead of at the fucking hotel?”
On his left hand he wore a wedding band, and as I sipped my Mountain Dew, enjoying the show, I felt sorry for his 2.5 kids at home, who had better eat their fucking vegetables, or else there is no fucking dessert.
“Sir,” the woman said. “Your car was parked in a loading zone, correct?”
“Yeah, I was unloading my bags! I fucking shouldn’t get fucking towed for it!”
“Did you read the sign where you parked?”
“I fucking did. It said something about not parking after 5:00, but...”
I looked at my watch. 6:47.
It was then that he uttered the statement that is absolutely abhorred by nearly everyone in the world:
“I don’t fucking need this,” he said. “I’m from New York!”
The phrase ‘I’m from New York’ can mean various things to various people depending on their location. For example, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, it means, “Roll out the red carpet, for I am King Shit!” In Hope, Arkansas, it loosely translates as, “I make more money than you can ever dream about, so fork it over!” In St. Paul, Minnesota, it means, “What the fuck am I doing in St. Paul, Minnesota?” But here in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, we like to imagine the New Yorker stamping his feet and crying, “Somebody please punch me in the neck, for I am an unforgivable asshole!” The bottom line is, it never means what the New Yorker wants it to mean.
I can say for a fact that all five of us Philadelphia residents in that room collectively rolled our eyes. The New Yorker began angrily filling out the paperwork required to regain his car and began to mutter,
“$125 for this fucking city. Fucking unbelievable. What a terrible fucking city...”
Now I was insulted. I was never one for Philadelphia pride. I was embarrassed by our wire-tapped mayor, our gross obesity, and our boorish behavior at sports arenas. To listen to this New Yorker piss and moan was one thing, but to listen to him speak ill of my city, that was another. By listening to him insult all of us in the room, I began to develop a growing sense of pride for our corrupt mayor. So our Mayor was suspected on charges of corruption; it’s not like he murdered anyone. Yeah, our city is the 2nd fattest city in the country, but how can you deny the gluttony caused by our fantastic cheese steaks? And we only boo and hiss our sports teams because we know they can do better, because we are just so proud of our 76ers, Flyers, Eagles, and Phillies.
I could feel in that room a certain commonality between me and the clerks, and I no longer felt insulted by the ‘Big Guy’ comment. I’m sure the clerks were going to find many new loopholes to increase his fines ten-fold if he kept going with the attitude.
I saw Mary give me a wave goodbye as she whizzed through the gate in her beat up old Cadillac. That was my cue to leave. Just before I left the P.P.A. for (hopefully) the final time, the New Yorker looked at me.
“$125 for this. Can you fucking believe it?”
As I walked out the door I said, “You can’t park in a no parking zone, Big Guy.”
Contents
Comeuppance