Breakfast Debate

Aggrieved birds were chirping invective at one another as two long-time companions sat at a table on a diner’s patio. A car, truck, or motorcycle drove by infrequently along the adjacent strip of road.

“Odd isn’t it? Most people would think this place doesn’t exist in the morning hours,” Tom observed.

Earl examined his friend’s countenance, trying to decipher any clues as to the sentiment behind the remark. “Yeah,” he eventually responded.

“Sad isn’t it?” Tom pressed before taking a sip of his black coffee. “What's become of our little town, I mean.”

“Oh, sure. I guess.” Earl paused to think the question over. “Well, maybe. I guess these places lose some of the aura they have about them when they aren't doing what they 're supposed to be doing, like theaters in between shows or uh… ball parks in the winter.”

“Exactly. Sad but good though. A good sad. It’s for the best.”

“How do you mean?”

“I mean at least we aren’t deceived about it like the tourists are. I…” A diesel truck boomed past the eatery. “I mean what would change about us and how we, how we thought about theaters if we all saw them being cleaned up with the lights on? Like how employees sees them.”

“There’d be more disaffected children probably. They’re the ones who are usually duped. The tourists though, they just don’t think about it at all. They come here for the night life. But kids—places for children are more special because they don’t make the same assumptions as adults.” Earl rubbed his temples and raked his greasy morning hair with his fingers. “Kids don’t figure everywhere has a cleaning crew. They just figure theaters are automatically ready to play moves anytime.”

“But that’s not right. It’s a bad habit that starts young maybe, the acceptance of ignorance,” Tom lamented.

“That's a harsh way to put it. It’s not so bad. What’s wrong with a little make-believe.?”

“It’s make-believe that’s turning this place into a knock-off Las Vegas. People come down here to make-believe they’re in someplace where they, the travelers, are automatically impressive and important.” Tom looked out at the end of the strip. It was illuminated by streaks from the freshly rising sun. The dimples and cracks in the weathered pavement made the faded asphalt look like elephant skin. “A lot of places would probably shrivel up and die if people knew what they looked like when they weren’t being what you think of them as.”

“Maybe it depends on the sort of place. What places are you thinking of?”

“Take your pick of one of the places up and down here,” Tom said gesturing towards the street with his chin. “That place, for example.” Tom’s finger indicated a rectangular building up the way. It was covered with white siding that grew green from mold in spots. The two windows on the front were covered with alcohol advertisements from inside. Banners with speed boats, white sand beaches, and bottles of beer papered over much of the white siding. The washed out red awning trapped some of the morning rays. “It doesn’t look so great now without the neon signs. Nothing automatic about it, it changing a person. You’re as much of a dope walking in as walking out. More so even.”

“No. It doesn’t look so hot.” Earl raised his mug and smiled to try to get the attention of the waitress who was sitting inside talking with an old man wearing a khaki cap. She nodded to him in acknowledgement and began the process of breaking off the conversation. “But you have to admit unflattering light could ruin a lot of good reputations—of places and people.”

“Yeah.”

“So a bar at sunrise may burst a few bubbles, but so would showing kids what’s behind the puppet show set.”

“Right.” Tom and Earl watched the brown stream fill their mugs as the waitress tipped the coffee pot. Earl looked up at her and nodded with gratitude. She grinned meekly and left without saying a word.

“Knowledge doesn’t solve everything, Tom. I can tell you’re frustrated by this atmosphere, but some people walk off cliffs with eyes wide open, you know? Just adding information to this recipe won’t make it sweeter. People aren't always fooled. Some make mistakes on purpose if they think it's worthwhile.”

“Yeah. It just makes sad to think about what this town makes its money off of.”

“Most towns are no better.”

“I suppose.”

“If you closed down all the bars and strip joints and all the other ‘dens of inequity,’ there’d be a lot more hungry people out there—kid’s too. Some people make good livings bartending.”

“That doesn’t make it right, Earl.”

“No, of course not. It just makes it complicated.”

Tom took a swig of his hot coffee as Earl swirled the creamer into his. “I appreciate your frustration, though. It’s not easy for me coming back here either.” Earl added.

“Yeah,” Tom replied with a hollow voice. He rubbed away a drop of coffee that had dripped onto the wooden table. Almost on cue, the flow of traffic increased with the eight o’clock hour. 

“Do you think ignorance is bliss, Earl?”

“It can be.”

“No it can’t! It never can.”

“How do you figure?”

“A person can feel… undisturbed in a state of ignorance, but that’s not bliss. Bliss is more than that.”

“Sounds blissful to me.”

“Then blissful and bliss aren’t the same.”

“Adjectives and nouns aren’t the same, no, but they’re related.”

“Not identical.”

“Most of the time they’re indistinguishable. How are you going to tell the difference between a blissful person and a person in bliss? How would you know in your own case?”

Tom slightly wrinkled his nose. “Well, I guess there’s… Are you just being a contrarian here or do you really value stupidity this much?”

“Who said anything about stupidity? We’ve been talking about ignorance.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Ignorance is a lack of knowledge. Stupidity is an inability to acquire it.”

“Ah. So all stupid people are ignorant, but not all ignorant people are stupid.”

“That about right.”

“Hm. Well, that’s all fine and well—but it’s besides the point. Why are you defending ignorance so much?”

“Because you’re so offended by it.”

“And?”

“And I don’t like seeing my old friend so upset.”

“You’ve got an odd way of calming people down.”

“What? Setting them straight?”

“Straight? Hm. And I though you liked brokenness.”

“There you go confusing ignorance with stupidity again. You Tom, for instance, are not stupid. You’re so far away from it you’re in danger of being ignorant. Some things you know, some things you should know, some things you can’t know, and some things you shouldn’t know. Wisdom is putting the information in the right boxes.”

“And some things you don’t know.” Tom reminded.

“Right. Of course. But you know so many things that you’ve developed a skewed view of knowledge. Knowledge, in general, is not going to make this world a better place all by itself.”

“That’s not true.”

“Yes it is.”

“No it’s not. All knowledge is good because everything is related, if only distantly. It’s like…it’s like gravity, you know? Every body has a gravitational pull on every other body in the universe, no matter how small it is. It’s the same with learning. Learning is always going to make you a better person. It’ll keep you out of bars.”

“Buddy, knowing how to bake a cake doesn’t make you a better driver and knowing what’s a waste of time doesn’t make you any more industrious. That’s got more to do with emotions and motivations… personal history and the like. Character. It’s not as simple as just proving to people the vice is a vice.”

“You’re wearing me out, Earl.”

“Good. Maybe then you’ll give this preoccupation of yours a rest and you’ll try to have a nice weekend despite all the debauchery around you.”

“Hm. So if I just don’t think about what’s wrong with everything down here, I’ll have a better time.”

“Yep.”

“Sounds blissful.”

The waitress returned with a pen in her hand. Her faded brown hair twitched in the breeze.

Earl spoke into his menu. “I’ll have the uh…biscuits and gravy with sausage.” 

Tom looked into the waitress’s brown eyes. “Oatmeal, please. No raisins.”

The Apology of a Parking Meter Attendant

They say that sympathizing with the enemy is the surest way to lose the war. Allow me, then, to invite your sympathy. My name is Brian Zadich and I am, amongst other things, a meter attendant. I have been for five years. I am excellent at what I do. My feet are swift and my vision is keen. Flashing red half-moons excite me. Whenever I spot them atop park meters, I know I’ll soon have another notch in my belt. 

Probably like you, I do not care for my job in general. Still, I try to make the most of it since I have to work more than a third of my waking hours. I accomplish this in large part by making a game out of ticket writing. Every day I try to beat my all-time record of 42 tickets in eight hours. None of the others currently on staff have gotten above 30 in a day.

Two years ago, my fair city—due to widespread backlogs, decided to no longer observe Labor Day as a holiday. The campaign to inform the citizenry that all governmental offices would be open, including my own, was lethargic. After a coin-flipping tournament, I as the loser was the only attendant not permitted to call in sick or schedule a vacation day. This was a blessing in disguise as the people of my fair city overwhelmingly neglected to feed the meters under the presumption that we had shut down. The day proved to be a boon for revenue as well as governmental productivity. I was rewarded with an improved parking spot in the employee lot for my valiant effort. For the two days that followed, however, my numbers declined due to sore feet and a painful callus on my left hand.

To say mine is a thankless job would be overstating the case. I was once thanked by an irate significant-other of a baby blue sedan owner I had freshly ticketed. She called over to me while I was inspecting meters across the street. She excitedly explained that the owner was with “his other woman” again and had been in a nearby building for over an hour. She showered me with gratitude as she sat on the hood. She went so far as to invite me to return later in the day, referencing the car’s immanent inability to be driven. Not wanting to encourage rash behavior, I made no promise about returning. She accepted my declination with grace. I left wondering what she would do to the owner when he returned with his tie askew and hair tussled. 

Even if it was convenient for me to go through that part of town, I would not have. There is an unwritten code amongst attendants never to write a ticket for the same car twice in one day. It is the only exception I make regarding the writing of tickets. Some years ago, an attendant was walking away from a car he had ticketed in the morning in another part of town when he was shot in the back of the head without warning by the livid driver. I don’t know if the story is true or apocryphal, but it is frighteningly feasible. 

People feel liberated to act differently when they are dealing with an employee rather than a stranger they meet who’s off the clock. When you have a name tag, you have a role. When you have a role, you receive all the scorn aroused by the playwright. The relationship is regulated by different rules than those binding other social interactions. There’s no more need for decorum, tact, or politeness with an employee than there is with a coffee maker. If you met a person who yelled at you earlier in the day while you were wearing a uniform at a crosswalk later in the day and you called him on it, I suspect he’d say something like, “No hard feelings. That was just business.” I suspect he truly believed as much, too. Let me tell you, though, putting a dress on a doll doesn’t make it a different doll and putting a person in a different role doesn’t make her a different kind of being. 

What I loathe most about this circumstance is that, since you’re forced into being a player, you find yourself needed to play by different rules than those that are ethically legitimate. When I first started being threatened, cursed at, and (occasionally) spat upon—which is to say when I first started this job—I tried to talk with the angry people who came upon me writing a ticket or walking away from writing one. Regrettably, I was never able to talk them down. They’d just keep on threatening, cursing, an (occasionally) spitting. The only hope I had in being treated kindly was during the moment I was just beginning to take my pen out of my pocket. Then people were quite warm to me. I remember one such incident where a man came upon me flipping my book to a fresh page. He said, “Hey, boss man, hey, I like your shoes. You don’t have to do that do ya?” When I kept writing, he said in an unsettlingly frank matter, “I ought to break your mother-fucking neck.” I didn’t respond, though I did have to re-write the license number as I jerked the pen whilst writing. That seems to be the best strategy, though, not responding to people. Meaning is lost whenever I try to talk with them. If they can manage to listen, they look at me with frustration as though saying, “I don’t speak meter-maid.”

I would not go so far as to say my job is dehumanizing. Everyone has bills to pay and most of us have to pay them for ourselves. Being in need and attempting to get yourself out of it is very human. I suggest people—those people who insist upon playing this game—are the ones doing the dehumanizing, not occupations. I assume those same people are less than congenial in their private relationships too, but that is conjecture on my part.

I know that I am setting myself up for a charge of hypocrisy. I make a living making people remit major amounts of money for making minor transgressions. I initiate a process that could lead to less bread on the table. I am not in a position to validate the laws of this place. Let me defend myself instead by asserting I have never written someone up without seeing a flashing red half-moon next to his vehicle. I simply enforce the laws of my city. If you think them unfair, then please stop coming here. If you cannot stop coming here, then please drop in an extra quarter and save yourself the trouble. Though I may play a game with myself, I umpire the game you all play with the powers-that-be. You cannot justly blame the umpire for your poor pitching, as it were. Law enforcers, of whom I am one small member, must abide by the state rules, otherwise confusion and error would reign and chaos would trample order. It's that serious. I am sorry for the inconvenience, but that's the point of a disincentive.