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7/18/04: Of Meters and Men Here's the thing about meter-vaulting: to do it right, which is to do it without cracking open your balls or skull, you don't need to be the strongest guy, or the tallest, or the best leaper. You just need to be some reasonable combination of all that. I'm certainly not strong. I don't jump very high. I guess I'm fairly tall; my height varies anywhere from 72 to 77 inches*, depending on various factors including temperature, humidity, environment, present company, and mood. And I can vault over any small to medium-sized parking meter you put in front of me. The first person I ever saw vault a meter was D. Lee in maybe 6th grade. We were walking down MacDougal Street one day and he just went, bwoop, right over the top of that thing with no problem. I was in awe of him that day, and not just for that: I had also recently learned that in 5th grade, he staged a makeout party at his apartment. Hero of the Day Material.**
But like a space shuttle launch, if even the teeniest thing goes wrong during a meter-vault, you are just absolutely fucked. Here are a couple of cautionary tales. Know your meter. Both times I've seen a meter-vault go badly awry it was because the vaulter underestimated the danger/difficulty of the meter he was facing off against. New York City, 1995: I was leaving Phebe's, the charmless but cheap bar that used to occupy the SE corner of Bowery and E. 4th street. Something had me in a good mood that night, because I ran down the block, heading East, vaulting over every meter I saw, bwoop, bwoop, bwoop. My friends struggled to keep up with me, vaulting a meter of their own here or there as necessary. Finally, we arrived on the corner of 7th street and Avenue A. It was there that I saw the mother of all meters, a truly daunting vault. The meter itself was pretty high, although not too high to vault, just on the tougher end of the vaultable meter scale. The real problem was that next to the meter was a "No Parking" sign******* that really fouled everything up (see diagram). You couldn't approach from the side with the sign, because you had no room to get a running start. You couldn't approach from the opposite side, because you might very well smash yourself up against the sign after you had cleared the meter. There was just very little space in which to operate. The only viable option was to approach the meter from an angle perpendicular to the street, and vault towards the street. This was complicated further by the meter's position: your natural landing area, if you approached from this angle, would be right on the edge of the curb, which could potentially mean death. A successful vaulter would have to take a little something off his leap so he could come up safely short of the curb, or give it a turbo boost and launch himself into the street. Not easy. I stood there studying it for maybe five minutes, calculating angles, trying to figure out if it was possible. I probably looked like Sergio Garcia lining up a putt to win the Masters. Finally, one of the local winos came up and got involved. He was probably 55 years old, drunker even than me, and of course he had an opinion. He couldn't understand why I was deliberating for so long; it looked easily vaultable to him. "You just have to go at it this way," he said, angling himself towards the street and giving a mock demonstration of traditional vault posture. As if I didn't know how to vault a parking meter. "I know, I know," I said. "But this one is pretty tricky. I don't know if it's worth it. Sometimes you just need to walk away." Now the guy was getting pissed off. "Nah, you can do it easy, man," he said. He was now excitedly rubbing his hands on top of the meter, probably remembering some particularly satisfying vault from his youth. "I don't know, man. I think I might let this one go." He'd had it now. If this young punk wasn't going to even attempt it, he was going to take matters, and meters, into his own hands. He gave it a little trial push to see if his tired old legs and arms still had the power, and seemed satisfied that they did. He took a run, got a decent leap and a solid push, and he was airborne. He easily cleared the meter. Not bad for 55 and drunk. But. But he hadn't given enough thought to sticking the landing. He should have. His feet landed squarely on the edge of the curb, and his ankles buckled instantly and grotesquely. His legs collapsed, and his torso fell backwards. His head smashed against the meter and made a loud "doink" sound not unlike a Chris Lee scoreboard home run. Novice. He was dazed and definitely in some pain. Nothing too serious, but his hangover the next day was going to be a little more intense than usual. As he sat there, muttering and trying to pull himself together, I could think of only one thing to tell him. "That's why I didn't want to jump that one." I turned and began heading towards 7B, strangely unsympathetic toward my fallen comrade. But I was confident in my decision: sometimes you just need to walk away. New Orleans, 1996: I was there making a cameo in a film about The Big Easy******** called "Drunk and Not Nearly As Funny as They Think They Are, Volume 18." I played the part of "wasted fratboy type #12,987." Anyway, in the middle of the revelry, I decided it was time to bust out the meter vault and increase the fun quotient for all involved. Well, the New Orleans Department of Parking Enforcement must have known that among the millions of drunken morons who come and lay waste to their beautiful city year after year would be a couple of meter-vaulters, because they decided to make all the meters in town about 5'6" tall. Too tall for me. I don't know if they did this as a deterrent, to discourage idiots like me from even thinking about it, or if they did it so they could laugh their asses off when we creamed ourselves. Well, I gave it a go. But I hesitated a little in my jump, which is one thing you can't do. You've got to commit to that shit and follow through. So I had a bit of a subpar leap, and my balls were definitely on line for a solid whacking across the top of the meter. My ball-protection instinct took over at this point, and I actually got a pretty good push with my hands, which got me right to the top of the meter, balls clearing by millimeters. Unfortunately, my hands kind of got stuck under my legs and I couldn't free myself to get all the way over the meter. I was just kind of perched there like a big stupid parakeet, and then I lost my grip and fell straight down, bruising my verbungle on the top of the meter as I tumbled down. (I fell forward, so technically I did complete the vault.) People must have enjoyed watching that one. It was God's way of punishing me for my callousness towards the Vaulting Hobo the year before. I should have heeded my own advice. Then, last night at 3:49 am, Ambrose, Abby and I left the Abbey Tavern on 26th and 3rd after some good bullshitting and Bud-pounding. The Cicada even made a brief appearance before fluttering off into the night. The bartendress had given us two buybacks, which was pretty cool of her. Maybe it was the fact that I tipped her $5 after the first one that inspired her to give us another at around 3:30. If so, it worked. I gave her another $5. Stupid of me. We didn't need that beer anyway. Whatever. As we walked outside, I saw a beautiful meter that wanted so very badly to be vaulted. After talking about it for a few minutes, I gave it a shot. I cleared it with relative ease and felt good that I had met the challenge. Now Ambrose was interested. You could tell he wanted to do it. He was gauging it with his hands, trying to get a sense for how hard it would be. Abby was getting pretty annoyed. She had been patient, sitting and listening to us ramble about baseball and stuff for about four hours in the bar. Now he was wasting more of her time, and threatening to do himself bodily harm in the process. He definitely could have made it, but it's also possible he might have screwed it up and really clobbered himself. I hopped in a cab as they continued debating. The cabbie and I both yelled a couple of words of encouragement (not "Fuck her, I did," which was actually called for in that situation), and then drove off as the two silhouettes got smaller and smaller through the back windshield, eventually becoming one. I wonder if he made it. Murcer had some tough moments this weekend, but he generally picked up his game and I kind of enjoyed the combination of Singleton and Murcer. Two announcers are really more than adequate to cover the majority of professional sports, don't ya think? * This phenomenon is known as "Giant
Steve." It's been scientifically documented and it can be quite
frightening to behold if you aren't prepared for it. There are certain
days when I look down on men as tall as 6'3". My being basically
inflates with power and I develop a menacing, snarling personality to
match my enhanced size. If you see Giant Steve, just try not to make
eye contact. |
Eventually I learned that vaulting
parking meters is no big deal.*** The biggest obstacle is getting
over your initial understandable fear of ball crushage. There's
really no margin for error; if you don't make it, you may well smash up
your sac but good. But the feat itself is pretty easy: just a
small leap, a gentle push with your hand(s)**** at the peak, and a clean
landing, and you're golden.***** I think I vault meters maybe once
every year or so******, just to make sure I can still do it.