To left of my $10 air bed, stacked on the dark red carpet: books, vitamins, water, a bong, a small white board (with “jerk off” at the top of the one To Do list I used it for). To the right: a laundry basket baring colorful and chaotic scribblings from a bad acid trip, a backpack in the crevice by the middle doors.
Off-white shades and yellow cloth curtains hang along the middle windows. Shiny silver ovals cover the windshield. Mashed sweatshirts plug the sides of the front headrests, shrinking the view from the passenger and driver windows.
About a year ago, an elderly woman, from a retirement home on the street I was parked on, knocked on my window just after I’d gotten up and into the front seat.
I opended the door to a scrunched face.
“Did you sleep in your van?”
“Uh……. yeah.”
“I know times hard are tough but there are kids around. You can’t stay here or I’ll call the cops.”
I closed the door and she leaped at the opportunity. “That’s it, I’m calling the cops!”
I immediately fled because I don’t have a license (couldn’t pay off tickets), insurance, and it’s illegal to sleep in you car. Everything I owned would be towed.
I parked in a lot a few blocks away for a dance class I was heading to anyway. Got the key for the bathroom next door, walked out and saw a cop pulling up behind my van. Kept walking.
“Bitch! One, fucking, break! Fuck!” I whispered into the bathroom mirror.
I walked back, casually glanced at him parked behind my van. The dance teacher’s boyfriend then told me the cop asked if he knew the van’s owner and he told him no.
The couple eyed me warily and I told them what happened.
Luckily, the cop was gone by the end of class and I wasn’t stopped on my way out of town.
The next few classes I parked in a Safeway parking lot about a mile away.
My most recent eviction was from a Marina parking lot. My mom, who lives on a boat, told the harbormaster I was staying with her when he inquired about my van’s appearance.
About two months ago, he peered into the back through my passenger window (hands cupped around his head) early one morning to see me lying down, reading.
My uncle, who also lives on a boat there, happened to be present for the tantrum.
Pat, the harbormaster, pounded the back of my van several times, turned to my uncle:
“I saw him sleeping in the back! Susan said he was staying with her! He can’t be here! It’s not even registered! Tell him he has to leave!”
The van’s transmission is basically shot so I barely make it out of the parking lot onto a busy 4-lane road, right next to a local market on the outskirts of -of course- a rich part of Marin County. My turd-colored ’85 Conversion Van sticks out a bit.
After a few days, the paranoia, embarrassment and stress is overwhelming. Moving around inside, going in or out, changing clothes. Trying to sleep or think as headlights intermittently shoot through the back window and cars zoom by at 40, the draft jolting me (eventually causing almost continual spasms in my right foot and shin).
Or having cyclists, pedestrians within feet of my head, speaking loudly, or quiet and suspicious. The ever-present fear of cops.
My therapist suggests I speak with the harbormaster and I decide to give it a shot.
I smoke some pot, part my hair, then walk up the ramp to his the office.
He looks dazed, feral and constricted as he registers who I am. Around his eyes are pale ovals where his sunglasses usually rest.
“Can I talk to you for a second” I say, like I know I’m an intrusion on his day.
“Yeah, come in” he says, looking friendly enough. “You’re Susan’s son?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh. Yeah, so you can’t park here, man. You can’t live in your van. It’s not even registered.”
I nod, then begin to broach the idea of parking in the dirt lot, away from everyone else, but he cuts me off-
“You reek of marijuana. Did you you smoke before you came in here?”
“Yeah.”
“You need to leave right now. C’mon man, you can’t come in here like that.”
“Ok. Sorry.”
“Come back in a little while.”
I go drop my backpack behind the bathrooms with my pipe and pot in it and walk back over.
I spot him at the boat drop-off ramp. As I approach he’s talking with a couple guys pulling out on their boat and motions for me to hold up, about ten yards away.
He takes his time as I try to look casual while fidgeting, hating that I’m in this position. They leave and he snakes toward me.
“You went and smoked in the porta-a-potty and then decided to come meet me like that! C’mon man, use some common sense.”
I take the blow, apologize again, then ask if I can park in the dirt lot. He asks what I “add” to the place and scolds me for having my mom “lie” for me. I suggest I could do some work around the Marina but he says he doesn’t have anything. Then-
“I’ve had people come up to me and complain, tell me it looks like a rape van.”
“Really?” Trying to gauge if he’s telling the truth.
“Yeah.”
He says I can’t park here again with a sort of finality and I can feel hopeless starting to sink in. Misty eyes.
“I just wanted to confirm,” I say.
I do find a glimmer of hope that my vulnerability might keep him from alerting the cops about where I’m currently parked, still in close proximity to the Marina.