Lessons in Parallel Parking, with Reggie the Homeless Vendor

Before I begin I'd like to apologize to my mother, who also reads this blog. I realize that the events that are about to follow are the results of my deliberate disobedience. Sorry.

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It astounds me how many extremely stupid and dangerous situations I've put myself in, and yet escaped unscathed. Looking back on them I shake my head, and have to laugh at my level of ignorance and disregard for my own safety. I like to treat each of these as life lessons in the school of hard knocks; I mean there's nothing like a little blind terror to hammer the point home.

One of these such occasions occurred in the Fall of 2005. I was in my junior year of High School and had just received my driver's license, I had my own car, and life was pretty good. For the most part, I was a very responsible young woman. I Worked 2 part time jobs, got good grades, I didn't do drugs or party…..I was pretty lame. There are of course a few exceptions, most of which have their own stories which will be told in due time. But the big one, the one that I look back on in such amazement, was the night I learned to parallel park.

I'm not sure how many of you are familiar with St Louis, but it is home to 2 of the greatest things in the world, The first is CITY MUSEUM. Easily my favorite place on earth; an ex shoe factory turned playground. From basement to rooftop this building has been transformed into a fantastical world of caverns and forests, ball pits and tunnels, slides, ferris wheels, circuses, aquariums, and more. This ever expanding, always changing fantasy land is made of recycled materials, and is open till the wee hours of the morning so red faces children and adults alike can run and jump and sweat and fall and laugh the night away.

My second favorite place in St Louis is Mauritzio's Pizza. There isn't much reason for this restaurant to be my favorite; in fact the average person would walk in, take a look around and deem it, to be quite frank, a shit hole. But despite the dark and dingy interior, the pizza is just the way I like it, a good New York style pie in a city that for some reason prefers their pizza served on crackers. It's down the street from city museum, and it's open all the time.

At the time of this particular adventure I'd been to both City Museum and Mauritzio's pizza exactly once; having never driven to either, but having been completely blown away by both. I craved the adventure of city museum, the wonders to be marveled at, the fun to be had, and being the foodie I am I yearned for a hot slice of a good pizza. Now realizing that there was no way in hell my parents would allow me to drive to St. Louis city on a Friday night, my best friend and I concocted a plan….

I realize now that there was a good reason my parents would not want me driving to St Louis City on a Friday night, the city is a hodgepodge of one way streets alternating between numbers and names, the traffic is unpredictable, the locals…unsavory. To those of you that don't know, St Louis is to this day one of the most dangerous cities in America, and in 2005 was deemed by MSNBC, THE MOST DANGEROUS CITY IN AMERICA! I'm not lying, look it up. So it's not really all that hard to understand why they wouldn't want an inexperienced 17 year old driver gallivanting around. But I was 17 and I was master of my universe and I knew everything about everything, and my best friend and I wanted to go to St Louis so goddamnit we were going to St Louis.

It started with the age old switcheroo; I told my parents I was spending the night at her house, she told hers that she'd be at mine. Classic. Foolproof. We then decided that we'd use her car, since mine was a 1992 Plymouth Acclaim and hers was slightly less god awful. It was also decided that since I am fearless I'd be the driver and she would be my copilot. Such plans we had. We then took off around dark to experience the wonders of St Louis City.

I see now that this plan was doomed from the start; in 2005 neither of us had GPS, or google powered smart phones, all we had was a vague sense of direction and a lingering recollection of the last time we'd been to the city. Neither of us could remember the cross streets of our intended destinations and had no idea how to navigate the endless one way streets. We spent hours going the wrong way down the wrong streets trying to get to City Museum, which we could see thanks to the huge school bus perched on the top of the building. Finally we arrived, paid for parking in the secure lot, and proceeded to spend the next few hours having fun.

When hunger pains finally started to make themselves known, we abandoned the relative safety of city museum for food. Bypassing the closer food options that surrounded City Museum, and the pizza restaurant that is actually INSIDE, we took off for "that one pizza restaurant we went to that one time".

Now it is very easy to get to Mauritzio's from CM on foot, you just go down and over a few blocks and you are there. It is much harder to get there by car, especially when you don't know the cross streets, the name of the restaurant, or which road is one way or two way. Also it helps to know how to parallel park, since you know…almost ALL of the parking in STL is parallel.

But since we aren't STUPID we weren't about to walk around the city at night by ourselves. We'd just figure it out as we went along.

Hours wasted driving the wrong way around the city- Take 2!

Officially lost, but in the general area of the restaurant, we decided to park and commence the rest of the adventure on foot. The problem being I had never parallel parked a car before. I'd seen it done a few times but I'd never attempted it and I'd certainly never attempted to do it in my best friend's car. But seeing how no problem is insurmountable I gave it my best. Over. And over. And over. I was beginning to draw a crowd. Namely an older bedraggled looking African American fellow. After my 15^th or maybe 16^th attempt to get this car into the space he approached my window.

I rolled it down just a crack.

He stuck his whole face in the crack of my window and proceeded to tell me I was doing it all wrong. Followed by how to do it right.

"Now back it up there sweetheart! Yeah, that's right. Now yous needs to get this ting in front of the space….so bring it forwards a bit. Uh huh now bring your wheel allll the way to the left….NO MORE! Ok yeah just like that. Now back it up juss a bit, and start turning your wheel back around. more more HARD RIGHT! Ok. Good. Now forward. Straighten it out there sugar. Ok. Back just a bit. You got this shit!"

A flawless parallel park job.

Hesitant to get out of the car, but desperate to get where we were going I rolled the window down a bit more and asked him, "Hey, we're trying to find a pizza place around here…you happen to know where one might be?"

He scratched is scruff in consideration for a moment then responded, "Muh muh muh- MAURITZIOS!!!!!"

I looked at my friend and we burst out into shouts of glee, "YES! That's the place! Where is it?"

"it ain't far" he replied, "I can take ya there if ya want. My name is Reggie, I'm a homeless vendor for the city of St Louis." He told me as he shoved a laminated permit badge in through the window, followed by his whole hand for me to shake.

I shook his hand and gave him back his badge. Then with a look at my friend climbed out of the car.

"Don't forget to lock the door there honey," he reminded me as we shut the doors, "Now follow me".

AND WE DID.

Down the block, and into an alley we followed this homeless vendor, at two in the morning we followed him into the dark heart of St Louis. This is the point where I realized how incredibly stupid I was. This is also the point where I realized I was likely going to get mugged, or worse. The panic began to well inside of me. I looked to my friend, she seemed unconcerned. I know now she was terrified, but she hid it well.

Through a dark alley Reggie led us, then up another block and there we were. Mauritzios Pizza. Brightly lit, crowded, Mauritzios Pizza. I breathed a sigh of relief.

"Ok ladiesss, now as I was sayin, I am a homeless vendor. I am homeless not helpless, now I'm selling these here magazines and if you could find it in your hearts to help me out as I helped you out tonight, I'd be greatly appreciatin that."

And there I go nodding along, so happy to be alive that I just whip out my wallet, full of money, and give him $5.

Out of nowhere appears some other "homeless vendor" right next to me. He gets right in my face and asks, "Can I has some money too?!"

Terrified and ready to be done with this whole mess I shove a couple dollars at him, thank Reggie and bolt into the restaurant.

Where my friend and I proceed to break down.

Hands shaking, in panicked voices, we freak out. And then marvel that we are still alive, with most of our money, at the restaurant and not in some gutter somewhere. We order a pizza, scarf it down, and haul ass back to the car. The whole ride home laughing at our stupidity, and marveling at our luck. We decide that since we are the luckiest girls in the world we should buy some scratch off Lotto Tickets; my friend buys them and proceeds to win $2, we are the luckiest girls in the world. Except now it is 4 am, and we have nowhere to go since both our parents believe we are at each other's house. So we head to an older friend's apartment, and after waking him up and telling him all about our near death experience, pass out on the couch. Happy to be alive.

 

To this day I am an excellent parallel parker, and I guess I have Reggie to thank for that. And for you know…not raping me.