Meter Maid Marion

Bill had writer’s block. Day after day, he sat at his computer, opened up Word, and stared at a blank page on his screen, until his itchy mouse finger took him to Twitter where he could react to one question or witty observation after another, and forget his deadline.

He needed to clear his head and get ideas to flow as they always had before. Twitter and email and news were easy and tempting distractions. He could lose himself online and another day would disappear. He turned his computer off and went for a walk, from one end of the High Line to the other, then cross-town to Fifth Avenue and up to Central Park. The whole way, he didn’t have a single idea. He looked without seeing. He counted his steps. Two thousand steps per mile, he remembered. He lost count at six thousand, but continued walking, zombie-like.

Three blocks south of the Met, he encountered a meter maid, in a freshly starched or brand-new uniform. Wide-eyed, she turned her head this way and that, scanning up and down the street, as if, for her, this was a new adventure, the start of a new life. He guessed this could be her first day on the job. This was now her domain, her beat, and she was proud of it.

Twenty feet away, he stopped and stared. Physically, she was very attractive, but that wasn’t what caught his attention. On this long walk of his, he had passed dozens of women who in a technical sense were more beautiful than she. But she had an aura of freshness and enthusiasm that was contagious. The cleft in her chin. Her green eyes. Her freckles. How would he describe her to someone else? How would he describe her in a story? He was good at dialogue and weak at descriptions. He needed a life writing class, like life drawing, with a woman like this posing naked for him to sketch in words.

She was a meter maid and he wanted to meet her. He had to write that down.

He reached in his pocket. He had a Sharpie, but no paper. Whenever he went out, he carried a pocket-sized pad of paper in case he got story ideas. But it had been so long since he las had an idea that that hadn’t occurred to him when he left his apartment today.

He felt this was, at last, the onset of a story. He needed to jot down what he was thinking before he lost the thread. His imagination was working again. He needed to record this scene right away and find out how far this idea could take him. But he had no paper.

He couldn’t return to his apartment. That would take too long and the distractions along the way going there by foot, by cab, by subway, by any way at all, would kill the idea. He couldn’t look for a store where he could buy paper. That too would kill the idea. Meter Maid Marion, he repeated over and over to himself.

Then it occurred to him that he had cash in his wallet. Money was paper. He could write on money. It was worth it to sacrifice money to keep the inspiration alive. He ran to a bench on the sidewalk across the street. He took a one-dollar bill out of his wallet and started writing on it with his Sharpie. When he had filled that with text on both sides, he took out another bill, then another, then another.

That’s when he realized that he wasn’t alone. The meter maid who had triggered this wave of inspiration had followed him across the street. She was standing in front of him, staring at him with a look of disbelief and concern.

He looked up. Their eyes met. That gave him still more ideas. He opened his wallet again. Fortunately, he had a stack of ones. There was no telling how long this story might be, and he had to write this down immediately.

Arms akimbo, with a look of authority, she addressed him. “What do you think you’re doing, sir?”

“I’m writing a story,” he said, waving her off, not wanting to be interrupted.

“You’re writing on US currency, sir. You are defacing US currency. That’s a crime. Do you realize that that’s a crime?”

He chuckled and kept writing.

She pulled out her cellphone, did a quick search and announced with authority, “Violation of Title 18 Section 333 of the United States Code. Punishable with a fine and/or imprisonment for up to six months or both.”

“Interesting detail. Thank you. I’ll work that in.”

“On the contrary, sir. You have to stop. Immediately. I cannot allow you to deface currency in the presence of, with the full awareness of an officer of the law.”

“Great. Thanks again. Deface. Officer of the law. I appreciate your help.”

Marion was new on the job, her first after graduating from college. To her, this was the start of a career in law enforcement. Starting at the very bottom, she would work her way up. But here was someone challenging her authority. If a supervisor were to chance upon her here with someone blatantly breaking the law in her presence, she would be humiliated. What could she do? She couldn’t handcuff him and arrest him. She didn’t have handcuffs, and she had no more authority to arrest than an ordinary civilian did.

She sat down on the bench beside him and buried her head in her hands. She took a deep breath and tried to put this into perspective. Was she making too much of this? Was she making a fool of herself?

She picked up the stack of bills on the bench between them. If she was going to do anything about this, whatever she could do, this would be the evidence.

She started reading and did a doubletake. He was writing about her. He described her as a vision in blue in her barnd-new uniform on the sidewalk across from Central Park on Fifth Avenue. In the story, seeing her had triggered an uncontrollable urge to write about this moment and to use the only paper at hand, US currency. The story moved quickly from a physical description of her to a one-sided conversation as he tried to get her attention, walking in lock-step with her as she went about her rounds, until she finally agreed to a first date, the next day, Saturday. They met at the Met. Then they got together half a dozen times for walks in the park when she got off duty. They went to a couple of movies. They spent a night together at her place, then a night together at his place. She moved in with him. They married and had three boys and a cocker spaniel.

This guy was totally whacky. Stalker at first sight. Probably dangerous.

She should run for it.

Then, as she was putting the stack of bills back down on the bench, slowly, carefully, so as not to draw his attention, he stopped abruptly. His wallet was empty. His look of despair moved her. Rather than leave, she pulled out her own wallet.

“How many do you need?” she asked.

“One more, just one more. For the title. Before I forget. Thank you. Thank you.”

On it, in big capital letters, he wrote, Meter Maid Marion.

She cringed. That was spooky.

“How did you know my name is Marion? My badge says M. Rodriguez.”

“It seemed natural. Meter Maid. Maid Marion. That must have been in the back of your head when you took the job.”

“And your name?”

“Bill.”

She laughed. “That must have been in the back of your head when you started writing on dollar bills.”

“I guess we have that in common.”

“What?”

“We trust our instincts.”

She grinned.

They kissed.

The wedding was six months later.

They taped those bills to the walls of their apartment.

They had three boys and a cocker spaniel.

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