A Nickel for the Meter

My name is Joe Canon. The story I’m about to tell you is true. You are not likely to believe it, and I don’t blame you, but it is true.

In 1970 I tried to get on the police force, but the only job they had at the time was a job as a meter maid. Most of the time the job as a meter maid was given to a woman, but no women applied, just me. I took the job as a temporary position until I could get a place on the force as a regular policeman. I thought that if I were already on the force I would have my foot in the door and have a better shot at getting hired on as a regular policeman. At least that was my plan. That was fourteen years ago. During that time I was offered the job as a regular policeman, I turned it down. This story is why.

Chapter 1

Meter maids were first used in 1964 in Australia on the Gold Coast. The city hired bikini clad young women to put nickels in the parking meters during tourist season so no tourists would get a parking ticket.

As a meter maid if you‘re not a bikini clad young woman you are not the most popular person in town. At first I took a lot of flack for being a male meter maid, but over time the people of the town got accustomed to a male meter maid, or maybe I just got better at letting the comments roll off my back.

At first, my fellow officers would pull pranks on me and give me a hard time by making jokes about me being a male meter maid, but the pranks eventually stopped and now they treat me like one of their fellow policemen.

Because I’m not allowed to carry a gun, most people didn’t think of me as a real policeman, but technically I was a real policeman. I could enforce the law just like a regular policeman, but without a gun. It’s not to say that I didn’t own a gun, I owned a gun, I just didn’t get to carry one as a meter maid.

One day when I was about twelve years old, I was riding my bike through town and I saw our town Chief of Police walking down the sidewalk in front of the Piggly Wiggly store. He was all decked out in his police uniform with a badge, a brimmed hat and, of course, his big ol’ gun. Everyone was shaking his hand and wanting to talk to him. He was a tall man, probably six and a half feet tall and big. Not just big, but solid rock big.

I heard my Pa tell a story one time that Chief once broke up a fight between two loggers at the tavern. One of the loggers was not too quick to settle down, so the Chief picked him up by the coat, right off the ground so they were eye to eye, and explained to the guy that he would not tolerate misbehaving in his town. The logger settled right down after that.

Another time I heard a couple of men talking how the Chief pulled over an out-of-town trucker for speeding. The trucker didn’t think he was speeding and told the Chief as much in so many words. The Chief insisted that he was speeding and proceeded to write out a ticket standing right there by the truck‘s driver side window.

Well the trucker got so he was hornet mad told the Chief to step down off his running board so he could get out of the truck and they would settle the ticket issue like men. The Chief looked him eye to eye and said, mister, I ain’t standing on your running board, so you just climb right on out of that truck. Needless to say, that trucker settled right down when he realized how big the Chief was and was happy to have just a ticket.

Anyways, I always wanted to be just like the Chief, having all the respect from the town’s folk and having a uniform and gun. I don’t mean just that. I also just liked the idea of being a man of the law. I liked the idea of keeping my town safe and keeping it a decent place to live. That’s why I kept trying to be hired as a regular policeman.

I am the only meter maid the town has, so you can guess I wasn’t that popular. I couldn’t go to the store, gas station, high school football game or even a party that some wise guy didn’t come up to me and want to complain about their parking ticket. The drunken offenders were the worst. The drunken men wanted to take a swing at me and the drunken women used un-ladylike language about me.

I grew up in our town, or at least since I was five years old. My folks moved us here so my Pa could get a job in the lumber mill. My Ma cleaned houses and did laundry for some of the more wealthy citizens. We were poor by most standards, but my folks tried to make sure we had the essentials and food on the table.

My Pa had a small drinking problem. Well, according to my Ma he had a drinking problem. The problem was that he would spend part of his pay check at the tavern before he got it home. Between taxes and tipping a bottle there wasn’t enough money for any extras, my Ma would say. My Pa was a very serious man most of the time, except on payday. On payday he was fun to be around, so my sister and I didn’t mind that he stopped for a few drinks when he got paid each Friday.

Ma was stressed out most of the time. She worried about everything, but especially, she worried about money. Her stress was compounded by headaches. The doctor tried different medicines, but nothing seemed to help. It seemed like any little thing would set her off when her head hurt. Unfortunately, her head hurt most of the time.

My sister, Claire, was two years older than me and was very popular. She got mostly A’s in school and to top it off, according to my friends, she was very pretty. To me she was nothing special, I mean looks wise, she was just my older sister, but she could attract boys like a dog attract fleas.

She and I spent most of our summers avoiding Ma by riding our bikes around town and around in the nearby countryside. She had a lot of girlfriends and she let me and my friends hang out with them. I think she knew that most of my friends were friendly to me because if they hung out with me, they could hang out with her and her friends.

Growing up I was never more than average at anything and that was on one of my good days. I wasn’t the shortest kid in my class; there were at least four girls shorter. I was probably the skinniest kid and my Ma would say that I could trip over nothing. So, anyway, sports were out for me. I tried, but the best I ever did was water boy on the football and basketball teams. I didn’t mind, and at least I was part of a team.

I was never really picked on, probably because of my smart, beautiful sister. Mostly I was just overlooked. Except when I was with my sister, then the guys would make like they were my best pal. I never had any misconceptions about why they pretended to be my friends and I was fine with it. It was better than having no friends and besides, I liked hanging out with Claire too. She was cool.

In my junior summer and my senior year in high school I had a growth spurt. I grew seven inches in fifteen months. Those seven inches made me six foot two inches tall. I still only weighed one hundred and sixty pounds which most people would consider skinny, but I liked to think of myself a wiry. I got over being uncoordinated, but no one would suggest that I was graceful.

Claire took after my Ma’s side of the family with her prettiness, but I took after my Pa’s side, that is after I had my growth spurt, I did. I have what you would call a Roman nose, ears that were small, but they stuck out a little. Being on the thin side, my Adam’s apple was real evident. I have blonde, curly hair and because I was a meter maid cop, I wore it short.

Sixteen years ago my Ma and sister Claire died in a traffic accident. I say accident, but it really wasn’t an accident. It was more of a careless lack of action. A dump truck driver had parked his truck on the steep hill over on Ferguson Avenue and didn’t bother to set the e-brake. The truck was plum full of gravel and weighed several tons. The truck popped out of gear and rolled back down the hill and through an intersection just as my Ma and sister was driving through it. That’s all I want to say about that.

It was a hard time in my life. I was at boot camp when the accident happened and they let me go home for the funeral. Half my family was killed in one instant. Pa was devastated and he couldn’t even go to work, or for that matter, get out of bed for a week, except the day of the funeral. He drank a lot during that week and didn’t slow down much over time.

The company that owned the truck knew that they were in a lot of trouble, so they offered my Pa a bunch of money so he wouldn’t sue. Pa wasn’t the suing type and truth is that he probably wouldn’t have ever thought of it. But when someone wants to apologize for killing your wife and daughter with a check that is more money than you can make in twenty years of working at the lumber mill, you take it.

Pa retired and bought a nice little home on the creek at the north edge of town. He spent most warm days sitting on the bank of the creek drinking beer, fishing and missing Ma and Claire. I would stop by and see him a couple of times a week to make sure he had what he needed and make sure he is paying his bills. Sometimes he forgot to eat and pay his bills.

Chapter 2

After high school I went to the local Community College and after a couple of years got me an associate degree in liberal arts. I took as many criminal justice class as the college offered.

As I was finishing up my college I was drafted into the U.S.

Army and was getting ready to be shipped off to Nam when my appendix