Fifty Tickets to Nowhere – Brian O’Dea

February 16, 2026

Lot 33005 smells like dried piss and street meat you shouldn’t eat. Guys with peeling noses drag girls in boots that’ve never touched dirt from one bar to the next. I don’t have an official quota, but Dale said my shift doesn’t end till I clear two grand in tickets. Comes out to about fifty citations most nights. He always sticks me with the night shift. Says the girls end up all snot-nosed in his office if he gives it to them. If the Hogs lose tonight, the crowd will get angry-drunk. If they win, extra-drunk, which usually ends about the same.
        I lap 33005 twice before I start scanning plates. No rush. Half these cars won’t move till morning, or until someone decides driving home is an act of heroism.
        A Pontiac G-6 with chipped green paint expired five minutes ago. I slip the yellow envelope under the windshield. Only 49 to go.
        A crumpled plastic cup hits the back of my shoulder. I hear someone say, “Meter maid, little bitch.” I keep my eyes low and ignore it, just like Dale told me to during our 20-minute training session. When I asked what to do if they get violent, he leaned close enough that I could see Cheeto dust clinging to his stache. Said just don’t do anything to aggravate them, though everything I do on the job aggravates everyone.
        I say something into my walkie-talkie to look busy. The button sticks and the battery dies whenever it feels like it, but it’s good to appear connected to something. A teenager on an e-scooter swiped it last week and threw it over the bridge before I could stop them. Bounced on the train tracks a couple times. Mostly just crackles now.
 My phone vibrates. I can’t answer, but let it hum in my pocket. Can tell it’s Mom without checking the screen. She cried when she opened my acceptance letter and made sense of the words. Said I’m the only person anyone in Flippin knows who ever got mail with a seal not from the State Department. That college was the best shot for me to get out of a town only known for the old stone jailhouse overgrown with vines.
 A vape cart crunches like a bug beneath my boot, and the pineapple-mango smell follows me for a couple blocks. I ticket a red F-150 with fake balls hanging off the hitch. A baby-blue Prius with more campaign slogans and eco-conscious edicts than I care to count. At this pace I might wrap before midnight when things get real messy.
        An orange Kia Soul with a Garfield plushy on the dash has more unpaid tickets than my scanner can load. I mark it for a boot, a white van pulls up, and out steps Derek. He works on commission and always shows. Somehow, he hates me more than the general public, as calling him interrupts his binge-watching of crash compilations and porn behind the new parking garage where he thinks no one can see him. Boots count triple, so I figure I’m down to 43 or so.
        Near Lot 33006 I’m ticketing an Audi and a homeless man asks if I have a phone charger. I tell him no, and he points at my scanner, asks what the hell that is then. I try to explain but he interrupts me, snatches the scanner, and shout-sings “Don’t Stop Believin’” into it like a microphone. A few people stop to listen. Others laugh and join in for a line or two. Once he finishes the chorus, they start clapping. While he bows, I grab my scanner back, and he slips and topples over. Starts moaning that I pushed him. The crowd drowns me in a sea of boos and tosses him pocket change and wrinkled bills as I slink off to Lot 33003.
        I get my count to 35 with a black Altima that’s been keyed, a rusted Chevy with a busted headlight, and a red soft-top Miata that reeks of weed.
        A white Tesla cuts two lanes and parks in a handicapped spot. The driver leaves and steps inside Los Bobos while I call “Towing the Line” services. It’s just an old vet named Tony who lives nearby and gets paid on a per-tow basis. He rolls in on patched tires wearing the same loose overalls as always, giant mutt riding shotgun, slobbering out the window. People give him the stink eye but nobody ever says shit to his face. His gut sways as he wraps a chain around the axle, whistling a cheery tune that’s kinda creepy. I smile and Tony nods at me before he drives off. I like to think if someone ran me over, he’d scrape up the pieces. The tow counts for five tickets.
        This gig came as a non-negotiable part of my lower-income, reduced-tuition rate. When they said university work, I figured I’d be at the front desk of a bookstore. Maybe driving a bus, at worst. Learned the cushy positions filled up before the registration actually ever opens, reserved for those with connections or friends. What’s left are the dregs, and below the dregs, us parking lot attendants.
        A girl stumbles up to me while my scanner’s printer jams mid-ticket. Red hair, green eyes, breath that smells like something sweet stirred with fresh-squeezed lime. Says I look like Harry Potter if he never got his Hogwarts letter and just kept getting the shit kicked out of him for the rest of his life. She asks where my name tag is. I tell her we don’t wear them, for safety reasons. Says I’m kinda cute, in a depressing way. I say thanks, I guess, then ask for her number. She snorts, spills her drink, then skips back to the bar yelling she actually did it and now someone owes her tequila. The printer spits out the last half of the ticket.
        I spot a local townie named Annette spilling out the back of Brewskies. She blackouts with clockwork regularity Thursday through Sunday. Always says she’ll give me a handy if I get her a lifetime free parking pass that I’ve explained several times doesn’t exist. That’s the closest I’ve got to action since moving to town.
        Cheers erupt from the bars and I gather the Hogs won, a fresh reason for another round for a crowd that never needs one. Even the stone-faced bouncers perched on stools outside give people high-fives and back pats. While slurred fight song chants fill the air, I find a cache of cars on a faculty lot that’s a goldmine in citation value. Gets me down to single digits.
        I’m ticketing a lime green Honda when a couple comes up. The guy’s got a cig in his left hand, a movie star grin, white blazer, and red pants. Next to him, a girl in a tight black dress with hog decals on her cheeks hops along on crutches, her right foot in a cast.
 “You can holster that thing, buddy,” Blazer Boy says. “We’re just about to leave. Haven’t even been drinking. Scout’s honor.” He gives me a mock little salute.
 I tell him I already put it in the system. He tells me to un-put it, drops his cig and snuffs it under his boot.
        “Don’t die on this hill. Just fold that ticket into a little paper airplane and let it sail far, far away.” He twirls his hand toward the sky and claps.“Problem solved.” 
 I tell him even if I don’t stick it on the windshield, it’s still in the system. Ignoring it will just mean a boot down the line. Blazer Boy scoffs and says he doesn’t even live here, that the writ of campus authority does not extend across state lines or some shit.
 Crutches tilts her head. “This what gets you hard? Giving people tickets?”
 My face burns, and Blazer Boy laughs. “I bet it does. How about she shows ya some tit if you forget the ticket? Hell, she’ll blow you right here, right now if you fuck off.”
        She slaps his shoulder, says “Ew”, and almost drops her crutches as they both laugh.
        I take a deep breath to say something, but before I do, Blazer Boy steps close and rests a hand on my shoulder. “We’re just messing, man. Relax. Hogs won. We’re having the best damn night. All we’re asking is for you to be cool. You can do that, can’t ya?”
 I shrug his hand off and tell him I don’t have an undo button. Even if I did, it probably wouldn’t work. His smile fades, so I apologize, like always, and hand him the yellow envelope. He shakes his head, slides it in his chest pocket, and says it’s going the same place I am: nowhere. Starts poking me in the chest. Asking for my badge number, telling me how I’ll be canned by the end of the week and sent back to whatever bumfuck shithole I came from after his dad makes some calls.
        I tell him that’s enough. First time tickets usually get waived if he just calls the office tomorrow, so let it go. I push his hand away. He looks at me like I broke the laws of physics by touching him.
        “Big mistake.” Blazer Boy rubs a knuckle on his nostril and loosens his cuffs. I don’t move, just point the scanner at him like an idiot. Yellow light glows on his face as he starts breathing hard.
        “Not again.” Crutches pulls at his elbow, but he brushes her off. “Let’s just go home.”
        Cherry lights and a siren swing around the corner. Blazer Boy ducks like a bomb went off, pats his pocket, and slinks away. Crutches hobbles fast to keep up. The cop rolls right by.
        I keep my gaze low, muttering curses, as I cross Dickson. They act like I’m the one taking their money when really I’m just the university’s fingernail.
        A lifted Ram blows by going double the limit. A sweaty guy with a backward hat wearing chrome ski goggles hangs out the window. He rocks the cab back and forth with his weight while he squeals ‘sko hogs ‘sko through the night air and slaps the door like that might make it go faster. Almost clips my toes. I stagger back, heel catching the curb, and hit the pavement in between the Chipotle and hot dog cart.
        I stay down for a second to wonder: if I’d been hit, would the crowd gasp or cheer? Would Dale even wash my scanner before handing it off to the next poor bastard stuck with it? Where in Flippin they might bury me? Probably the graveyard behind the Pizza Hut where I had my birthday parties every year before coming up here.
 A couple people chuckle as they step around me, like I’m an overturned trash bin. I push myself up, opening and closing my hands a couple times while pebbles fall from my palms.
        I sit on a bench and watch the upstairs patio across the street. People lean over the railing, swaying in a tight pack, plastic cups tipping, dripping through the grate onto whoever happens to walk by below them.
 I ask the hot dog cart guy if he has water so I can wash the blood from my hands. Show him my palms. He whistles, digs in his cart, pulls out a bottle, and hands me a hot dog with it. The warmth of the foil makes my hand sting a little less. Says the bread is old on this one, but it won’t make me sick or nothing. Says he sees me out here all the time and that learning to take shit young’s a good thing. To keep my head on a swivel and eventually, it’ll all get easier.
        I tell him thanks and wipe the mustard off the corner of my mouth with my sleeve. Text Mom I’m fine, and that I’ll call tomorrow. It’s past midnight now, single digits left. If I get back to it, I can finish before the bars close and the streets clog with the last call crowd. Dump the scanner in the lock box outside Dale’s office and head back to my dorm. If I’m lucky, my roommate won’t be there, and I’ll have the place to myself for a few hours. Take a warm shower, crawl into bed, oscillating fan at my feet. Listen to that little click as it rocks back and forth. I used to hate the sound, now it helps me sleep.
        Dale said most don’t last a month. I’ve been here six. It hasn’t gotten easier, but my legs don’t tire so fast now. Couple more years, they might get me somewhere.