Parking Spaz

People in this city go absolutely mental over parking spaces. As car owners can attest, at any given time there are a total of about five open spots in the entire Greater Boston area, and all of them have a car backing in at the moment. I have, on many occasions, nearly gone on a Grand Theft Auto–style rampage after the car in front of me pulled into the last available resident-parking spot. I have wished terrible things upon you, fellow drivers, and I’m sorry if any of you actually contracted foot-and-mouth disease.

But even though I’ve blued the air with disturbingly creative profanity in frustration over parking spaces lost, I’ve never actually had an altercation over a spot. Until now.

I was driving to work, which I don’t usually do, but I wanted my car available for a quick Friday-afternoon getaway. Now, there are usually plenty of meter spots in the vicinity of Improper Towers, so I wasn’t worried about finding a space. In fact, I was upping the ante—I was looking for a free, nonmeter space. And while driving across the Mass. Turnpike overpass on Berkeley Street, I found one. I backed in and switched off the ignition.

At just about this time, a Jetta diesel that had been furiously reversing up the street stopped, and a red-faced gentleman in a pastel Polo shirt jumped out and stormed over to my window. “This is my space! Get the f--k out of this f--king space right now!” he screamed.

This was indeed a conundrum, because clearly it was not his space. Not only did this space lack a sign in front of it reading “Reserved for Entitled Pricks,” there was also the matter of my car being in it. I double-checked and affirmed that I had not parked atop the roof of another car, so therefore the space must have been vacant when I took it. My old physics teacher would have been proud.

I am a reasonable person, and if I really had committed a parking sin I might have conceded the point and driven away. However, the space race hadn’t even been close. He was pulling off Cortes Street a good distance ahead as I’d been pulling into the spot, which seemed a pretty weak basis for his claims of ownership. I was in the right, but when faced with such a confrontation, one must size up one’s adversary and make a judgment call. If the space-claimer is six-foot-five, driving a 1975 Camaro Z-28 with bullet holes in the mud flaps, and has a tattoo of a teardrop under his left eye, perhaps it’s smart to cede the space. But when your adversary is wearing a pastel Ralph Lauren shirt and driving a Jetta, you can safely assume you’re not dealing with Tony Soprano.

“I’m not moving,” I informed him. “It’s the principle of it.”

“Move this f--king car right now!” he shrieked back at me. “I saw this space first!” Apparently, the kind of guy who jumps out of his car and demands your parking space is also the kind of guy who doesn’t take no for an answer.

“Who says you saw it first?” I asked the Conquistador of Cortes Street. Reverting to fourth-grade debate techniques, I added, “I saw it first.” I then gestured directly across the street to an open meter and told my new friend that a fine space awaited him right there. “But that’s at a meter and this is free!” he screeched. Well, cry me a river. Casual Friday is off to quite a terrible start, isn’t it Mr. Pastel Polo?

I told him that he’d have to pay the grand sum of two bucks for a meter. He just stood there staring, as if he was contemplating dragging me from my car and beating me, which he undoubtedly was. I stared back, envisioning what life must be like for this guy’s family and coworkers. I can see him at home, punching the microwave when his popcorn burns, cheating against his kids at Go Fish and bragging to the neighbors about the awesome mileage his Jetta diesel gets. And if he acts like this much of a dill-nut over two dollars in quarters, he’s probably not much fun on a trip to Foxwoods, either.

Eventually he gave up and stormed away with a shouted threat that he would someday break my mirrors off. As soon as he got back into his car, I pulled out onto Berkeley Street behind him and another car quickly took the much-debated space. It felt good, giving that new person the nice excitement you get when you find a free spot. ∂