Remembered Kindnesses #2

Four days ago I drove home from the grocery store. It was torrential rain. A bad gloomy morning all around.

I live on a street (not for long!) where a huge group of Harley Davidson dudes reside, so my dead-end street is always populated with parked motorcycles that can make the rest of us have a difficult time. I’m a good parallel parker, anyway – I rarely have to pull out for a second try – but the Harleys scare the shit out of me, I won’t lie. They are gleaming awesome machines, obviously precious and beloved, and … well. There have been times when I have driven a block away so that I don’t have to deal with parking amongst those motorcycles. Easier to just walk the block to my house.

The rain was letting up a bit as I pulled onto my street. It was only 11 in the morning and I already wondered how the hell I was going to get through the whole day. I was so tired, so sad.

My street was sprinkled with gleaming Harleys. There were places in between them, but that would require me parallel parking between two of them, something I have successfully avoided the entire time I have lived here.

Like I said, I live on a dead-end street – and two of the Harley owners were out in their front yard as I pulled up. They were putting some furniture out on the sidewalk so they sort of stopped, glanced at me, waiting to see what I would do. Worst possible scenario. To have the owners of said gleaming motorcycles WATCH as I park between them.

But I had had it. I had had it with all of life at that moment. I am no longer going to get out of the goddamn way of other people. No more. I am going to take MY space and I am sick of being a good fucking sport about getting out of the way. No. No more.

The dudes were watching. I had on sunglasses.

I pulled up beside one of the Harleys. I grit my teeth, and – in one smooth motion – backed in between the two bikes, perfectly positioning myself, not scraping anything, not hitting the curb – with inches to spare between the two bikes. I am telling you, that parking job was a thing of beauty and a joy forever.

And it might have stopped there. I would have had a grim proud moment to myself, all alone, but it would have had a “fuck you” feeling to it, as in: “Fuck you, Harley dudes, I am sick of having to navigate around your bikes, and I just beat the system, so SCREW YOU.” There is, of course, a certain amount of joy in “winning” – and I would have felt triumphant regardless – because that was a tough parking job, not to mention being eyeballed by two scary-looking bald dudes right across the street.

So it might have stopped there. But as I took the key out of the ignition, grabbed my iPod, whatever, I became aware of a dim sound. My windows were rolled up, due to the rain, so I wasn’t immediately conscious of it – and certainly not aware that it was for me. It finally caught my attention – was it cheering? Clapping? I looked up and the two Harley dudes were clapping, and giving me a thumbs up sign.

When I got out of the car, one of the dudes called across the street to me, “That is, hands down, the best parallel parking job I’ve ever seen!”

Other dude was clapping and laughing out loud. “You looked so PISSED OFF and then – zip zip zip – you just backed the fuck into that spot – it was so awesome!”

What was really cool about this interaction was that they had sensed where I was at – emotionally – and that I refused to be pushed off of my own street. I might have become a creature of snickering fun to them if I had had to laboriously parallel park, pulling out, trying again, going at it a different angle – but the fact that I got it right in one try, with almost one gentle swoop of the wheel, made them love me to death. Love me so much that they clapped and cheered.

Didn’t make the day shorter or better, but it is another moment for the stockpile.

It put a glow through my heart, and made me laugh. I walked into my house, pretending to bow at them as I opened my door, and I still heard them laughing about me as I walked inside, laughing about my angry grim face and how I would not be deterred.