“Put another nickel
in
In the nickelodeon…”
He was walking briskly
now and laughing as he saved two more people from getting parking
tickets. He saw the meter maid, and he sat down in his usual spot
with a look of innocence on his face. He was holding a jar with a
hand printed label that read “Tip Jar.” It was about a third
full of coins.
The meter maid parked
her vehicle and walked down the row of cars checking the meters as
she went. All of the meters she checked had time remaining on them,
which is to say that no one was in violation. She glanced over at
Horace as she checked one of the meters in front of Frankie’s
Coffee Shop. He was sitting outside of Frankie’s, just to the
right of the front door. She abruptly turned to face him.
“You’re not fooling
anyone, Horace! You’re costing the city a lot of money, and if we
catch you feeding the meters again you’re going to jail.”
He answered in song.
“So here I am in the
Tijuana jail
Ain’t got no friend
to pay my bail…”
A group of people
leaving the coffee shop witnessed the exchange, and they were
laughing. All of them put some money in Horace’s tip jar.
“You won’t think
it’s so funny when I catch you, you bum!”
He smiled. She let out
a little growl and stomped off to the applause of the onlookers.
Horace was not really a
bum. Begging was his avocation rather than his trade. The income
from it merely supplemented his Social Security benefits. He had
started begging quite by accident. He had seen the meter maid at the
end of the street when he parked in front of the coffee shop. He had
no change, and he knew she would give him a ticket before he could
come back with the change he needed for the meter. So he stopped a
man who was walking by.
“Pardon me, sir. But
I have no change, and she’ll write me a ticked before I can get
any. Would you …”
“Say no more. The
bitch wrote me up yesterday.”
The man pulled a
quarter out of his pocket and handed it to Horace. This stranger’s
hostility toward the meter maid had Horace thinking. What would
happen if he took contributions to feed the meters so no one got a
parking ticket? He might even collect enough money to pay for his
lunch every day. On his tight budget, that would be a blessing. He
actually collected more than he needed to buy lunch and feed the
meters. This was a strong incentive to keep begging. He was feeding
the meters openly back then, never dreaming that he was doing
anything illegal. The meter maid thought otherwise.
She yelled at him.
“Stop that! Stop that right now!”
“What?”
“You can’t pay for
people’s parking.”
“Yeah, right.” He
put a nickel in another meter to keep the time from running out.
“That does it. I’m
going to have you arrested.”
He smiled as he sat
down in front of the coffee shop. Ten minutes later a squad car
showed up. Two officers stepped out of the car.
“Is he the one?”
“That’s him.”
At this time something
important came over the police radio.
“Tom, there’s a
two-eleven in progress!”
The other officer
pointed his finger at Horace. “Don’t do it again or we’ll
arrest you!”
He then joined his
partner in the car. They took off with lights flashing and siren
blaring.
“You won’t be so
lucky next time,” the meter maid said.
Horace ignored the
warnings. He thought he could still feed the meters surreptitiously.
She, however, changed her route to arrive earlier than usual and
caught him in the act. This time he was arrested.
He pled not guilty.
“Are you denying that
you put money in the meters?” the judge asked.
“No, I put money in
the meters. But the whole purpose of the meters is to collect money
for the city, and I’m paying that money. What’s wrong with
that?”
“It’s aiding and
abetting.”
“What?”
“Letting the time run
out on a meter is a violation of the Municipal code. You’re aiding
the violators by letting them avoid the penalty for that.”
Now Horace understood.
It had nothing to do with holding people accountable. This was about
the money. The city wanted to fine people because the money it
collected from the fines greatly exceeded the amount of money it
collected from the meters. Horace thought this was outrageous. He
was about to express his anger but the judge preempted him by telling
him the penalty for feeding the meters.
“I’m fining you
fifty dollars. Please pay the court clerk.”
Horace was smart enough
to realize it would not do any good to argue with the judge, but the
city council was holding an open meeting the next night to give
people an opportunity to express their opinions about a different
matter. Horace decided to attend that meeting. He was, of course,
going to ignore the topic of the meeting and get in his two cents
worth about being fined for putting money in the parking meters.
When his turn at the
microphone came he said: “Yesterday I was fined fifty dollars for
putting coins in the parking meters so that the poor people parked
there would not be in violation of the parking regulations. When did
this city become so greedy? When did you decide that the money
collected from the meters was not enough? When did you decide that
increasing revenues by fining people was so important that you now
punish Good Samaritans? When did Good Samaritans become bad
Samaritans? This is outrageous! Good neighbors are supposed to help
and care for each other.”
“You’re out of
order,” the mayor shouted. “Now sit down and be quiet!”
“This is my turn. I
will not sit down.”
“Then you will be
removed.”
Two hefty men in
uniforms were approaching him. He put down the microphone and
started walking to the door in order to avoid the humiliation of
being man handled by them.
A reporter from a local
newspaper interviewed Horace outside of the council chambers. His
story ran in the Sunday edition, making Horace somewhat of a local
celebrity. This quite naturally increased his income from begging.
He thought that getting arrested that day was one of the best things
that ever happened to him.
So where was the meter
maid now? Her threat made him think he had better cool it for a
while. He spent the next hour begging. He waited until the noon
rush at the coffee shop ended before going in there for his lunch.
“Good afternoon,
Gloria.”
“Good afternoon,
Horace. What’ll you have?”
“The usual.”
She poured a cup of
coffee for him. “Cheese burger and fries coming up.”
She left to place his
order then returned to refill his coffee cup.
“So how are you doing
out there?”
“Better today.
Thanks to the parking witch.”
“Well, be careful.
You don’t want to get arrested again.”
He made a dismissive
gesture with his hands. She laughed.
“Order up!’
She retrieved the food
and set the plate in front of Horace.
“Are you going to the
council meeting tomorrow?” she asked.
“You bet. I’m
going to yell at them about the speed trap on West Street.”
She smiled. “Give ‘m
hell, baby!”
Horace did not confine
himself to the parking meter issue. He had become the town crank.
He was the gadfly who always seemed to change the subject at the
council meetings and frequently said what other people were thinking.
He paid for his meal
with dollar bills rather than change. It was his practice to go home
after lunch and empty his tip jar. He would then return to continue
begging. The key was to be at his spot in front of the coffee shop
when the traffic was the heaviest. He always rolled his coins at
night and made his bank deposit the next morning. He did not worry
much about other beggars taking his spot when he was not there. Most
of the beggars hung out in the poor sections of town, but some were
foolish enough to think they would do better in the section of the
city with luxurious offices. Horace knew better than to try the rich
section. The snooty bastards there all read Ayn Rand. They thought
people who were mentally ill or people who were experiencing some
tough times deserved to starve. He had thought that once. He had
been opposed to Social Security, Medicare and unemployment insurance.
Now that he was collecting the benefits of Social Security and was
on Medicare, however, he had changed his mind. He was not
hypocritical enough to think that only the right sort of people
should be permitted to benefit from those programs. If you paid into
them you deserved what they provided. As for his begging? He
justified that on the grounds that he was providing a service by
preventing people from getting parking tickets.
When returning from
home to his spot in front of Frankie’s he circled the block. The
meter maid would be lurking somewhere nearby. He finally saw her
hiding in the crowded parking lot across the street form the coffee
shop. He smiled and waved to her as he sat down. He knew she would
not remain there long. She had tickets to write, and you could bet
that the city expected her to write a lot of them. That was why she
was so angry with him for feeding the meters. Well, we all have our
cross to bear.
At the city council
meeting the next night they let him have his say even though his
tirade had nothing to do with the reason they had called the meeting.
They had learned that ejecting him only drew more attention to him.
It was better to just let him sound off and treat him like the town
character no one took too seriously. He was aware that they were
trying to marginalize him, and he was thinking of doing something
that would get their attention. Since the Councilman in his
district was up for reelection Horace decided to run against him.
Horace had some signs printed that said “Central City Deserves
Horace Grimes!” Somehow Horace’s opponent got one of those
signs. This councilman then displayed the sign in his store window
alongside another sign that asked, “Why? What did we do that was so
terrible?”
Horace was too
preoccupied with the election to be as cautious as he should have
been. He got caught feeding the parking meters again, and they
arrested him. Some enterprising soul made “Free Horace” T-shirts
that bore his likeness behind bars. Some of the small business
people even took up a collection to pay his bail. “Don’t Jail
The Town Character” was one of the headlines in the local paper.
Although Horace thought “Candidate For City Council Arrested”
should have been the headline, the reporter was at least kind enough
to write that Horace was running for that office. Horace considered
the story to be a good thing. He said feeding the meters was an act
of civil disobedience and that his arrest made him a martyr. He was
getting the attention he wanted, but he still lost the race for city
councilman.
Horace’s statement
about being a martyr, however, was not lost on the politicians. They
decided that arresting him was not a good idea. He might not be able
to win an election but that did not mean another candidate could not
use the sympathy for Horace as a weapon against them. They developed
a new tactic for dealing with him. They had the police take him into
custody for vagrancy during the peak begging hours, drive him around
for a few hours, and then release him. They were trying to starve
Horace into submission. Much to their disappointment a young
attorney took the matter pro bono and made them stop doing it. Their
next tactic was to arrest him when they caught him feeding the meters
but release him at mid-night before they would have to arraign him.
This did not give anyone the time to start another free Horace
campaign. It did not deter Horace either. He did not get caught
often enough to make the arrests anything more than a minor
annoyance. He also used every open council meeting to tell people of
how many times he was arrested for saving them from parking tickets.
Feeding the meters was
a cat and mouse game. He would lay low for a while. Then he would
feed the meters at random times. He did not have to worry about
citizens reporting him or testifying against him. The public was
enjoying the game too much to interfere, and most of them were
cheering for Horace. Emboldened by the sympathy he received over
feeding the parking meters, he started objecting to a wide variety of
things that the mayor and city council were doing. People who
attended the open council meetings or read about them soon considered
him the best show in town. They were really amused by his efforts to
make things hot for the politicians. This prompted the mayor to say
that their hot sauce was his pain in the ass!
Any city without a town
character to make people laugh or a gadfly to keep the powerful from
getting too comfortable is deprived. Horace was Central City’s
character and their gadfly. He was also their meter angel.
First published in macsbackporch.fictionforall.com on Aug 10, 2011
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