Parking Cars

A loud screeching noise makes me wince, and the Lead Valet’s face goes red. He walks over to the idling car in front of us, where a New Guy is sitting in the driver’s seat. The Lead Valet leans over and talks into the driver’s window through a clenched jaw.

“If you don’t know how to drive stick, then why the fuck are you trying to learn at this particular moment?” he whispers. The Club Member whose car it is has stopped and is watching to see what has been done to his Mercedes E-Class.

I’m also a New Guy at August Evening Valet services, and it’s my first afternoon on the job. We’re working an “After Tax Day Party” at the Lake Forest Golf & Country Club.

“Jake,” the Lead Valet says to me, “do you drive stick?”

I nod. All the other Valet Attendants are out parking, so it’s my turn. And I’m determined not to fuck it up like the other New Guy. I approach the car with half-hearted haste. My heartbeat is in my ears. I need this job. Or, more specifically, I need some job—any job—to work out. The alternative is unthinkable: dropping out of Webster University and moving back home to my parents’. And if that happens, jobs like this may be my only option, forever.

The other New Guy climbs out of the car sheepishly and I slide in. The Mercedes is easily nicer than any car I’ve ever even been in. I try to get my bearings and look calm. The car’s owner is watching me, a bunch of Club Members are watching me, and the Lead Valet is watching me. I’m trying to concentrate, to anticipate what the feel of the clutch will be in this strange, brand-new car. I’m trying to blame my whole situation on the other New Guy—that Idiot screwed me.

But most of my anxiety isn’t his fault at all. This is the third job I’ve had in the past two weeks, not counting my work study job, and I can barely keep up with my rapidly shifting persona.

I take a deep breath and try to shake the stakes out of my head. I ease off the clutch and onto the gas, and the car jumps forward quickly—it’s got at least five times the power as my little sixty horsepower Civic. But it doesn’t make a screeching noise or peel out—I didn’t totally fuck it up.

I try to remember what I’m supposed to do. There’s been no training at all. My interview, a week ago, was over the phone, and a very short conversation.

“Just show up there at 3:30 sharp, in a white shirt and black slacks,” the woman on the phone told me yesterday as I scribbled down the address. “We’ll provide the vest.”

And, sure enough, a vest has been provided. It is bright red, and it makes me feel like a Crossing Guard. Or, I guess, a little like a Valet. So far, it’s hard to tell what that’s supposed to feel like.

“When they pull up,” the Lead Valet told me ten minutes ago from his wooden podium, “open the passenger door for anyone sitting there. If no one is in there, just take the keys from the driver. Park as far away as possible when we’re slow, then closer when things get hectic. And be sure to fill out this tag.” Then he handed me a small colored tag. “This bit goes with the customer. I’ll take care of that. But this part goes on the rearview mirror, and this bit should be attached to the keys, with a description of the car and where you parked it.”

In the Mercedes, I suddenly panic about not having grabbed a tag. But when I glance at the leather passenger’s seat I see that

65 the Idiot has left the tag sitting there. I look around, trying to find a far spot to park this absurdly nice car. I try not to notice all the fancy, foreign things about it. Instead, I turn on the Cardinals game. It’s in the bottom of the 3rd. Albert Pujols is batting with two outs and no one on. Something about baseball is comforting. Familiar.

When I park the car, I take my time filling out the tag and attaching it to the keys. I linger as Pujols flies out to left field and the radio goes to commercials. “Now you’ve got a friend in the diamond business,” the man on the radio insists. “The Shane Company.”

It’s not until a more experienced Valet pulls in next to me and sprints back toward the podium that I realize I should be going faster. I put the cap back on my pen and get out, jog back. A line of cars has formed.

When I get back to the podium, the tempo is different. Everything is suddenly frantic and uncertain. Everyone is arriving all at once.

After parking the next car, a BMW, I try to figure out how I’m supposed to write on the little slip of paper while I’m sprinting back to the hand-off point so I can help my coworkers prevent an even longer line from forming. And I don’t know what descriptions to write down, either; all the cars are in the same large lot, and most are silver sedans.

Some of the cars don’t have keys, just buttons or remote lock/starter buttons. Sometimes the owners step out of the car without handing me a key, so I have to rummage around and locate their fobs somewhere in the car. But sometimes checking the glovebox, passenger seat, and various other storage spots proves fruitless, so the only thing I can do is be careful not to accidentally lock the car, and bring back a particularly descriptive slip.

Halfway through our rush, a middle-aged man—by far the youngest Club Member I’ve seen—instructs me to park his Porsche Carrera far away from the other cars and beneath a street light.

“There’s a big tip in it for you,” he tells me. His cologne is overpowering. It makes my head hurt.

When I get into his car, I turn on the game because I suddenly feel like crying. I sigh as a commercial plays instead.

Despite the constant commercials, this becomes a pattern: every time I climb into a new car, I turn on the Cards game. A lot of the cars already have the game on, of course—baseball is the universal language of St. Louisans. We are, after all, the BFIB—the Best Fans in Baseball. Or at least that’s what the Sports Writers in the Post-Dispatch like to say. I feel a little gross about the label, but there is something different about the baseball fans in this town. They don’t have fanaticism so much as appreciation. People here love a good game, win or lose.

And I certainly appreciate it right now. If I didn’t have it to listen to, I’d be even more freaked out by how valuable all these cars are, how fast I’m going while trying to avoid the Club Members thinking I’m reckless. But I am reckless; I turn corners without looking and pull into spots too quickly and open the door without making sure it’ll clear the car next to it. I vow that, when things slow down, I will ask the Lead Valet about my liability for scratches or dents. I’ve worked enough shitty jobs to suspect that it’ll just come out of my paycheck or get me fired.

I watch my coworkers sprint past me and wonder if their job histories make them feel like mercenaries, too.

I doubt it, though. Even the other Attendants seem like a higher class than me. Maybe it’s how nice and well-fitted their slacks are. Maybe it’s their ease in all these obscene cars. Or maybe it’s just that their own cars are much nicer than mine, too. Mine is a ‘92 Honda Civic junkyard rescue with mismatched doors, mirrors, and hood. It’s the most distant car in the furthest lot, but it still attracts stares from the white men in polo shirts and khakis who are handing my fellow Valet Attendants the keys to their BMWs. I don’t like how small their disdain makes me feel. I want to defend my little hatchback, but I’m suddenly not sure it’s worth defending.

67 I get more and more self-conscious as I park the cars, becoming increasingly aware that I’m about half as fast as most of the Valet Attendants—at finding spots, at writing on the tags, at sprinting back for the next car. I simply can’t keep up, and it’s only partially due to the physical shape I’m in. All this makes me grateful for the Idiot—he’s making me look good by comparison. Still, I know my coworkers see the two of us the same way—we’re just dead weight to them. When they look at us, they can only think of the extra work they will have to do to make up for our constant confusion and desperation.

Finally, at about 5:15, things slow to a crawl. Then they stop.

Once things have been quiet for fifteen minutes, the Lead Valet walks out to the lot, drives his white truck up next to the podium, and parks. He rolls down the windows and turns the radio to KMOX. He climbs out and sits on a nearby curb, his truck still idling. We all, suddenly, have nothing to do but listen to the game.

But the Cardinals game, too, is at a standstill. Nearly fifteen baserunners to this point, but it’s still scoreless in the top of the 7th. All the Attendants get comfortable on a curb or some grass and listen to the Pitchers throw zeroes. I try to avoid getting my new, ill-fitting Walmart slacks dirty by just sitting on my heels.

It only now occurs to me—at an event like this, it’s just a bunch of waiting surrounded by two short bursts of absolute madness. Suddenly the nearby truck with the game on makes a lot more sense to me. I have nothing to do now but reflect on my failures from the past two hours. I worry that my fellow Attendants won’t be able to read my handwriting on the tags, that I didn’t write down good enough descriptions, that they can see how panicked and confused and out of my depth I am, even now. Just sitting here. I adjust my position on the curb for the eighteenth time. I didn’t even know to bring any water, so the Lead Valet had to grab me a bottle from the cooler in the back of his truck.

I look around at the other Attendants; they don’t care about me. I try to convince myself; you don’t care about them.

And maybe that’s a little bit true. I can’t even remember any of their names. I wasn’t paying attention when they introduced themselves at the start of the shift because I was too busy trying to look as though I was paying attention. I try to pick out the Lead Valet, but I can’t pick him out when he’s not standing behind his podium. He’s one of the three tall, blond guys.

Even though I’m one of them now, all I can see is their uniforms.

None of us talk to each other except after long intervals, and only when the Cards game has gone to commercials. Most of the Attendants go to separate curbs and sit, listening to the familiar voices and names on the radio. A couple guys break out homework to work on. One guy puts on headphones. The Lead Valet gets back behind his podium and studies some papers. But, at one commercial break an hour or so into our waiting, a few Attendants approach to talk.

“I hate these country club gigs,” an Attendant says. “They’re the worst tippers.”

“Really?” I say. “But they’ve got money.” I haven’t gotten any tips yet—we won’t get any until we returned everyone’s cars to them at the end of the night. I can’t remember who told me that. The Lead Valet? The woman on the phone? This guy?

Another Attendant laughs. “Why do you think that is? They never part with a single cent they don’t have to. They’re cheap and mean and rude. The real money is at events with a bunch of poor people who have been where we are.”

“What about middle class people?” I ask the group.

The first Attendant shrugs. “I think it’s all about guilt—the more that people feel bad for making us do this for them, the more they tip. That’s why we always sprint.”

The time passes slowly. And the game won’t seem to end, either. The 7th, 8th, and 9th innings all pass without either team scoring. Then the 10th, 11th, 12th, and 13th. We sit for hours, nothing occupying our attention but the game. Just an occasional “fuck” or “Jesus” when the Cardinals fail to score yet again. It gets dark.

The first Club Member comes back outside for his car

69 at about 8:30, and he’s visibly startled to hear the game still playing. Still scoreless.

“What inning is it?” he asks.

“The 15th,” I tell him.

“Goodness,” he says. “What’s the score?”

“Still 0-0.”

He shakes his head and hands me his slip.

“That’s nuts.”

I nod, then grab his key and run towards the dark lot. It feels strange, after sitting for so long, to suddenly break into a full-out sprint. I don’t like running for this stranger. I don’t like putting on this display of effort for just a little more money. And it seems especially pointless when I reach the lot and look at the slip to see that it just says “silver lex” written in nearly illegible scrawl. No location is given.

Fuck that fucking Idiot, I think to myself. He should have to find all these himself. So I wander the lot in full view of the Club Member, just pressing the remote unlock button, hoping for some flashing headlights to signal that I’ve found his car. It takes me a full five minutes, and I’m seething by the time I find it.

As I settle into the car, fumbling for the headlights, I plot all sorts of terrible things to do to the Idiot. I’m gonna run him over with this “silver lex,” I tell myself. My gratitude for his incompetence has officially worn off now that he’s made me look bad.

When I pull up to the front of the club, the car’s owner is waiting with his wife. He approaches the passenger side door to let her in, but the door is locked. I search frantically for the unlock button, but I can’t find it anywhere. Finally, after way too much time has passed with me looking around like a Fucking Idiot, I just reach across the passenger seat and open the door from the inside. The man grunts and holds the door open for his wife.

When he comes around the car, he hands me a one dollar bill and climbs in, pulls away. I put the bill in my pocket and sit down again.

“Fuck.”

No one looks at me.

I try to slow my adrenaline, to stop beating myself up. But I can’t help it. You Chubby Prick, I think. You Incompetent Asshole. You Empty Red Vest.

The 15th, 16th, and 17th innings pass with no change in the score or the pace of our evening. Every ten minutes or so, a Club Member will exit and hand us their tag, prompting one of us to sprint into the night in the name of the stupidest scavenger hunt ever.

But the longer the game goes on, the more my hostility and anxiety fades. Then, at some point, probably in the 18th inning, when a Cardinals Starting pitcher is in left field and a Shortstop is pitching to a Relief Pitcher making the first at-bat of his career, my bad mood breaks. Maybe it’s because no one on the radio is doing what they’re supposed to.

One of the Announcers, John Rooney, can’t stop laughing. The other one, Mike Shannon, sighs loudly and mutters to himself after every blown opportunity. They’ve both exhausted every bit of diverting conversation they’d prepared for the evening and are floundering in the unknown, improvising and marveling at the absurd spectacle on the field in front of them. They can only describe in tedious detail the atmosphere of the now-crowded dugouts, where every member of the bullpen has pitched and joined the position players. They too are in shock, and all they can really do is shake their heads in disbelief at their new view from the mound, from the batter’s box, from left field.

And we feel the same way when, at 9:30, our exit rush comes.

Everyone emerging starts looking us in the eyes and talking to us, asking us what the score is, what inning it’s in. I’m surprised they’re not asking about the Lead Valet’s truck, idling right next to the podium. But I guess they want to hear the game as much as we do.

When, in the top of the 19th, the Mets score a run on a sac fly off Joe Mather (the Fifth Outfielder on the Cards’ depth chart), everyone groans together.

“Damn! We can’t lose this one!”

“Joe Mather is pitching? That for real? I thought he was an

71 Outfielder.”

“Who’ve we got coming up in the bottom half?”

Even us Attendants have cheered up about sprinting towards the far lot—the faster we go, the sooner we can turn on the game. I find myself enjoying the burning in my chest, my generous gulps of the cool night air. Some of the Club Members even tell us we should wait for a commercial break before we run for their cars. And, when we hand them their keys or hold their doors open, they smile and thank us for already having the game on their radio.

One of the Radio Announcers describes the sight of several fans asleep in the stands. He estimates there are at least a dozen, says he envies them.

The other Announcer asks “Does this game even count? It has all the semblance of…like, a fairy tale, doesn’t it?”

And, when Pujols doubles in the bottom of the inning and then scores to tie the game on Yadier Molina’s single, everyone—Club Members and Valets alike—start high-fiving and laughing with each other.

“We tied it? I thought for sure it was over!” “I don’t even want them to score again—let’s keep this game going!”

And sure enough, the Cardinals fail to drive in a second run. Three Club Members and I actually giggle together in disbelief.

“It’s going to the 20th? Oh my god!”

“I wanna go downtown to see this. Can we storm the stadium and get in?”

One of the Members asks me, “What’s the longest game in Cardinal history? Do you know?”

I tell him that the Announcers talked about it earlier in the game. “Apparently it was also against the Mets. In the 70’s. Cards beat ‘em in twenty-five innings.” I smile at him. “So still a ways to go yet. We can get there.”

And the tips suddenly jump into larger bills. I get three fives and a ten to add to my thickening wad of singles. The Lead Valet even gets a twenty, for reasons I can’t begin to fathom.

The mood holds as the rush slows to a trickle, then to a stop. Finally, the last car has been returned, and we gather to turn in our vests and split up the tips. We’re reluctant to leave with the game still on, even after the Lead Valet hands us our cash. He lingers with me and the other New Guy, giving us our money last.

“So. How was your first night? Any questions?”

The other New Guy shakes his head and departs quickly.

“Was this a pretty typical night?” I ask.

“Not at all,” he says. “The game for one. Christ. I’m surprised no one made a fuss about my truck being parked there. Cardinals magic, I guess. And we made way more in tips than I’ve ever made at a Club. These gigs aren’t super common anyway. We mostly do events at the History or Art Museum and shit.”

He looks at me.

“How does it feel to officially be a Valet?”

I shrug and help him to fold the vests, clean up the remnants of tags, and load up his truck with the wooden key cabinet and podium. And, when everything’s cleaned up, we say goodbye and he drives off. I start the long walk to my car in the vast, empty lot.

When I climb into the comfort of my old car and turn on the game, it’s in the bottom of the 20th. The Mets have scored another run off our Outfielder/Pitcher Joe Mather in the top of the inning, and the Cardinals are down to their last out. They have two men on base. I find myself hoping for just a single run, for at least one inning more.

But, as I pull out of the Lake Forest Country Club facility, Right Fielder Ryan Ludwick grounds out to second base for the last out of the game. The game has ended after just over seven hours. I keep the radio on the whole way home, though—listening to the Announcers try to break down what’s just happened. I even keep listening for a bit after I’ve pulled into my apartment’s parking lot a full twenty minutes later. There, in its designated spot, my car idles rough as the Announcers try to hold onto this new perspective for just a little while longer.