The Lobster War

“What is that?” my sister said pointing toward the car. She was 8 then: thin, awkward, and quiet. If it were possible to be a credible Indian goth in middle school, she might audition for the part. We were all walking back toward the car parked amidst a row of others in front of a small convenience store. My sister and I, walking ten yards ahead of our mother and father, had gotten to the car first.

“What’s there?” My father’s eyebrows lifted and scrunched; his eyes narrowed in mid-amble. He’s short, already balding at 37, but still skinny with a rapid gait and intensity that felt out of place in the American midwest.

Now, he was walking slowly, munching on muri - a peculiarly Bengali snack that tastes like popcorn but with puffed rice - from a little packet made of recycled newspapers. He’d bought that from a street cart further up Devon St which runs through the heart of Chicago’s Little India district. Devon St is a place of pilgrimage for Indians living in the midwest. They come for shopping, groceries, community and nostalgia. We had come over 400 miles stock up on spices not available near our home in northern Michigan, and for our father to drop the of us at the airport. We were off to India for the summer. I suppose we could have just bought the spices in India, but American immigration and customs agents were not especially receptive to brown people with exotic powders in their luggage long before the extra scrutiny of post 9/11 scrutiny.

Earlier in the afternoon, we’d gone into an Indian grocery store overflowing with both spices, smells, families and a wide selection of Indian movies on videocassette.

“Why do they sell Indian pots and pans here?” I asked in the Indian grocery store looking at the shiny aluminum cookware I recognized from my childhood in Calcutta. “Are they better than the kind you get at Kmart?”

“I don’t know if they are any different. They are just familiar”said my mother while placing a little bottle of cumin into the shopping cart. “They remind me of home.” She was in her late thirties then. Still beautiful and hopeful.

“And a lot of people leave India physically, but mentally? They are still there,” my father added.

By this time, my father had finished his snack and caught up to my sister and I at the car. The June sun was high overhead and a few clouds hovered lazily and without import. The colors of the street were overwhelmed by yellow and blue. A hazy heat rose off the asphalt of the parking lot, and the people walked quickly from their cars to the convenience store or back. Those walking by on the street moved slowly powered by ice cream or the cold coffee in their hands.

“What is that?” my father echoed my sister.

“Looks like a mechanical lobster has surfaced from the parking lot and is eating our car,” my sister observed.

“That’s a big lobster,” I contributed failing at levity.

“Dammit. Dammit.” said my father eyeing the signs on the parking lot and testing the contraption attached to our family car and designed to immobilize it. The boot as it’s sometimes called was definitely attached tightly. It’s orange color and the way it gripped around the back left tire did give it a lobster like look.

We all turned to the signs; the ones we’d ignored before: “Parking for Customers Only” it declared. “Violators will be immobilized and/or towed at the owner’s expense. Boot removal fee: $100. Call 312- if immobilized or towed.”

“Dammit. Dammit,” my father repeated.

“I told you not to park here,” my mother said.

“Well I didn’t think you were going to take so long in the grocery store,” said my father.

“It wouldn’t have taken so long if you hadn’t started exploring the movie selection.”

In an instant, elements of a happy afternoon had morphed into arrows of fire restarting the civil war, but now opening a new foreign front against the lobster.

“We can’t afford to lose a hundred dollars now. Not before going to India. That’s 5000 Rupees!” my mother said. She sounded a bit hysterical. My father, had recently finished graduate school and started work as an assistant professor. Assistant professors weren’t rich, and going to India meant expensive tickets not to mention gifts for a large extended family.

“Dammit” my father said in a staccato clip a third time, his voice rising. My mother didn’t respond.

“How are we going to get rid of it?” I asked pointing to the lobster and attempting diplomacy. I looked at my father and paused. He didn’t meet my eye. Instead seemed to be trying to memorize the words on the sign: “Violators will be –” Then, he looked up at the sky in contemplation.

“Come with me,” my mother said to no one in particular walking towards the convenience store. My sister and I dutifully followed her. My father didn’t move.

My mom walked into the store and bought some bread and other small items, altogether about $7 worth. And after checkout, she addressed the woman at the customer service counter. Her name tag read Cindy. She was short and squat, middled aged, and tired. Her dirty blonde hair was tied up in a bun, and she wore an uniform but it was a different one than the cashiers were wearing. She looked more important.

“Hi. I wonder if you can help me,” my mother began.

“Hi. Sure, what can I do for you” Cindy replied casually.

“Our car has been stopped in the parking lot, but you see we are also shopping here - do you know how to free it” she said lifting up the bag of things we’d just bought.

“Your car has been stopped?”

“Yes stopped. Not free. There is something on the back wheel.”

“A lobster” my sister whispered.

“A boot,” I said thinking correctly my American accented English would help at this moment, “there is a boot on our car.”

“Oh.” Cindy said in comprehension. “Maam, our parking is run by a different company. You need to call them to remove the boot.”

“But, we are shopping here,” my mother said in protest.

“I can’t help you with that ma’am. I’m sorry. You need to call that number. They don’t put the boot unless the car has been there for at least a couple of hours. Has the car been there that long” She paused.

My mother didn’t say anything. My sister and I looked at each other knowingly and then at the floor. It had been at least 3 hours if not more, and we’d only been in the convenience store for about 15 min.

“Just call the number ma’am,” Cindy continued, “they come pretty fast” she offered in consolation. She didn’t mention the fee to remove the boot.

Back outside, my father had moved on from memorizing the sign to studying the atmosphere.

“The people in the grocery store can’t really do anything. We have to call the parking people,” I summarized for my father.

“You need to call that number,” my mother said to him pointing to the pay phone.

He looked dismayed, and fumbled for change in the car before walking over to the payphone. We heard him convey the essentials. A bead of sweat rolled down my temple. My sister was idling near the car kicking the lobster. My father and mother waited for the parking attendant person to show up. No one said anything.

At least Cindy was right about the parking attendants. The presumed owner of the lobster showed up within 15 min in a tow truck.

“Are you the one who called?” he said through the driver’s side window of his truck. My father nodded. The man parked to the side and jumped out of the car. He was holding a clipboard and a specially adapted wrench.

He was a well built black man of medium height. He had short cropped hair shaved to his scalp and wore a t-shirt with a company shirt over it unbuttoned with a name tag that read Mark. The t shirt and company shirt hung down over his baggy jeans. He had a relatively friendly demeanor unexpected perhaps for a purveyor of lobsters.

“You need to fill this out, sir. And it’s a hundred. Going to need that in cash.”

“In cash?” my father exclaimed. “Look I don’t have that much cash on me.” He started to whine, “Couldn’t we work something out. We weren’t really gone that long,” he paused, “were you the one who put this thing on? We had just been nearby, buying things from the store.” My mom held up the bag on cue and flushed red. I noticed that my sister did too.

“Sir!” lobster man jumped in, “there is an ATM in the convenience store.”

“We weren’t in there that long –” my father began to whine again. I started to wish that the lobster would just eat me instead.

“Sir,” the lobster owner was unfazed, even polite.”We logged this car around twelve forty-five,” he looked at his clipboard, “and I came by and put on the boot around three.” He looked at his watch. “It’s four fifteen. Are you saying you’ve been in the convenience store this whole time?” He scanned the back of our car, the bag of spices looked up in betrayal.

“Brother, please help us. We’re on our way to the airport. We don’t have cash on us, brother. You know how these things happen. We won’t park here again. It was a mistake. Can you give us a break this one time.” my mother started in with her own whine. I perked up at brother. Was she attempting solidarity? I wondered. “Brother, give us a break this one time –”

Lobster man began to look uncomfortable.

My father had disengaged at this point to resume his study of atmospheric conditions.

“This one time, brother –” my mom continued casting her spell.

I started to have an out of body experience. Floating slightly above my body, I could see my sister was tight rope walking on the little concrete bumps at the head of each parking spot. She was training in gymnastics, and seemed to be practicing jumping from one of these bumps to the other with control. I just wanted it all to end. I wished I had a hundred dollars. I looked at my father pleadingly wondering why wasn’t he putting an end to all this. He appeared to be busy examining the chemical structure of the concrete near his feet.

“Dad!” I had had enough.

My father paused his study and looked up at me. My mother stopped trying to stupefy the lobster owner and gave me a stern look. As if I was the crazy person. My sister, to her credit, carried on her gymnastics training on the parking bumps. But the spell had broken. The lobster owner, used the moment to gather himself.

“Ma’am, Sir. There isn’t anything I can do here. I’m sorry. But it’s in the system already. I gotta go back with the form and the fee or I gotta tow your car. There is an ATM inside the store, sir. Please.” He stopped. His face hardened but his eyes softened; he looked at this watch.

That seemed to make sense to everyone: it was the system that was to blame. What could anybody do about the system?

My father slowly moved toward the store, a hand reaching back to pant pocket. My mother took the lobster owner’s clipboard and began to scribble. And the lobster owner, knelt down beside the lobster and set about free our car from its grasp. It took a couple of minutes. The mechanical jaws gave way, and the lobster retreated to the back of the tow truck rejoining several members of its family. It was done before my father had returned from the trip to the ATM.

“You need to fill out the driver’s licence number and sign,” my mother said handing the clipboard over to my father. He handed her the $20 bills he was holding. She held her hand away from her body, and handed the money to the lobster owner clicking her teeth and shaking her head in disdain.

“Here,” said my father handing back the clipboard to the purveyor of lobsters.

“You all have a good day now,” he said tearing away the carbon copy of the form and handing it to my father as a receipt. He nodded to no one in particular, got back in the truck and in an instant, vanished.

The drive to the airport took forty minutes. We rode in silence apparently taken by the gripping scenes of Interstate 90 outside our respective car windows. Humbled by the encounter with the lobster, a temporary ceasefire was in effect.

At the airport, my father said, “I’ll drop you guys off at the departure terminal and head off straight away.” I nodded. We all did. My father had proven himself to be vulnerable to lobsters. And maybe other things too. He pulled the car over to the curb of the busy drop off area, and put the flashers on. My sister and I looked at each other, then our parents, and stepped out of the car and into the world outside cautiously, together.

Image Credit: Rogerio Granato - Lobsters from Flikr