Once upon a time I lived in Brooklyn
Heights – for seven years. It was a good
neighborhood and one subway stop away from lower Manhattan where I worked. The car I purchased while living there was a
Subaru wagon. According to Consumer
Reports, it was the least targeted car by thieves.
In Brooklyn Heights if you parked on the
street, like I did, you had to race home by 6 PM two days a week and move your
car for “Alternate Side of the Street Parking.”
I hated it and did it religiously.
One day I received in the mail about
eight traffic tickets of all flavors.
Each ticket called out my license plate number and a loose description
of my car. I went and looked at my car
and as it turned out, someone had stolen one of my license plates, and
proceeded to try to set the Guinness world record for traffic violations.
So I trudge to city hall in Brooklyn with
my police reports in hand and plead my case to the judge. After a commensurate amount of whining, the
judge dismisses all the tickets. I then
walk over to the court clerk with my pile of official documents in hand and ask
that my record be cleared. After a
couple of dirty looks, my request is accepted and I head home.
Fast-forward about three weeks. I race home at night to move my car back
across the street for alternate side of the street parking. My car is not where I left it. I scratched my head a few times and question
my sanity. I decided to call the local
police station and ask for some help (Like do you know where my car is?) They tell me, “We don’t have it, but you must
be in a ton of trouble because the Sheriff has your car.” The officer’s tone was something in the realm
of: You are so screwed.
But first, really, a Sheriff in New York
City in the early 1990s? Why would we
even need a Sheriff? I doubt his six-shooter
would be any match for the automatic weapons currently available on the
streets.
So the next morning I’m back at the Kings
County Court House in Brooklyn Heights with all my documents, re-pleading my
case. After significant pain and
suffering on my part, they came to the conclusion that as much as I am a raving
lunatic, I had been mistreated and things needed to be made right. As it turns out, the original clerk decided
not to do the data entry on my original acquittal, so the system still thought
I was a dead-beat. Turns out my problem
brought to light a major gaff on their part and the “clerk people” were none to
happy with me. Senior clerk personnel
were hovering about looking very disgruntled and put out. I assured them that my dissatisfaction level
was a couple orders of magnitude greater than their’s, and to please step on
it, as I had a “Meet’in with the Sheriff”, pronto. Actually I needed to be somewhat civil, as I
needed a release document from the court so that I could deliver it to the
Sheriff…who had offices in the middle of Staten Island. For those of you unfamiliar with the
geography in this area, there is no way to get from Brooklyn Heights to Staten
Island…especially if you don’t have a car.
So now with new documents in hand, I take
the subway from Brooklyn, back into lower Manhattan. I walk to the Staten Island Ferry, which I’ve
never been on, and cruise to…Staten Island.
I was told to take a non-descript bus to a place that seems like no
man’s land. The bus eventually stops and
the driver looks at me and asks, “Didn’t you want to go to the Sheriff’s
office?” I reply in the affirmative. I step off the bus into a fairly desolate
area. I look up and I’m facing a trailer,
a long trailer. With that the bus door
closes and it takes off. He’s too far
away now and I can’t catch him. (Think
the movie, Trains, Planes, and Automobiles, where Steve Martin was dropped off
at a remote rentacar location only to find there is no car in the slot he’s
assigned…and subsequently goes berserk.)
I’m thinking this must be part of the court clerk’s plan for revenge. It’s late afternoon now and with no where
else to go, I walk up to the Sheriff’s…trailer.
It was an interesting set up. Half of the trailer was a boiler room where
people appeared to be dialing for dollars.
The other half was the Sheriff’s office – times must have been
tough. I show my paperwork to the
Sheriff and he’s incredulous. He made it
seem like he’d never had a situation like this ever happen. As special as that made me feel, I was toast
at this point, so I say to the Sheriff, “Can you bring my car around?” He replies, “Oh we don’t have your car here. It’s at the Brooklyn Naval Yard docks off the
East River.” He goes on to warn me, “Now
as much as I’m going to give you another release document, the guys at the
docks are still going to want you to pay them $180 for towing. You’re going to have to stick to your guns
with these guys.” What would cake be
without some icing on top of it?
Now the challenge is that I have to do a
reverse commute back, starting with… finding the ghost bus to nowhere. Once I get through Manhattan, I need to
figure out where the Brooklyn Naval Yard is and how to get there. Then I’ll need to wrestle someone for my
car. And it’s starting to get dark.
So there were two other gentlemen who
completed their transaction with the Sheriff right before me. The best way to describe them would be to say
they could have easily been in Bob Marley’s band – very Rastafarian with
massive dreadlocks to the point where they almost looked like they had the
medusa sitting on their heads. Not
exactly the kind of dudes I’m used to hanging out with. (For that matter, I don’t think I’ve ever
known any dudes.) They’re going to the Brooklyn
naval yards too. As we’re all walking
outside, the guy who seems to be the leader asks me if I want a ride. Their vehicle is an old Volkswagen bus,
something you’d see in a Cheech & Chong movie.
I hesitate for a second (remembering my
Mom warning me, never speak to strangers) and mull over the decision I have to
make. It’s like when you’re on a plane,
taxing on the runway about to take off.
The pilot suddenly stops the plane and comes on the PA system and says,
“Folks, we think one of the breaks might be leaking. We have three other break systems, but we
want to check it out just to be sure. I
know it’s insane, but I’m thinking to myself, “I can live with those odds. Come on, let’s roll the dice and get this
bucket of bolts off the ground.” I tell
my new friends, “Thanks, I’d appreciate the ride.”
Then the side door of the van slides
open, I step in and the door close behind me.
In the van are the leader who is driving and his co-pilot who I’ve
met. The driver’s son, who looks to be 9
years old is sitting with them. In the
back with me are the rest of Bob Marley’s band mates. I immediately get a major sinking feeling in
my stomach – much worse than the one you get when you pass a State Trooper on
the highway pointing the radar gun at you while cruising at 90 mph. No, this is more like the feeling you have
for Ethan Hawk in the movie, Training Day.
It’s towards the end of the movie and a corrupt Denzel Washington is
setting up Ethan. While playing cards
with some very bad guys, he’s tricked into giving up his gun. When he realizes what’s going to happen, and
that he had no way to protect himself, the whole audience simultaneously has an
anxiety attack.
My new travel companions did not seem
thrilled to have me with them, but at the same time, they weren’t bothered
either. It was like after acknowledging
that I was in the van, they acted as if I was invisible - which I was fine
with. We get to the Naval Yard just
before closing. The driver of the van
aka Bob Marley, and I are transacting our business simultaneously. And true to the sheriff’s word, the guys running
the Naval Yard acted as if they’d never coughed up a car without getting
paid. Heels are dug in deep and I
refused to blink. They finally threw my
car keys at me and gave me a vague idea of where my car was located among the
sea of vehicles in the darkness of night.
Naturally they had disconnected the car battery which made extricating
my car that much more fun.
But the lesson of the story is this:
(other than, “Always spring for the parking garage.”) Be sensitive to how you judge people who are
different…than you. When the driver and
I were parting at the naval yard, I tried to give him money for helping me
out. He refused. I finally gave him $20 and asked him to buy
something for his son, which he reluctantly agreed to. He was just one person looking to help
another person.
