Jesus, The Parking Attendant
The Lord Works in Mysterious Ways
After school, the teacher pulled me aside.
Even as an adult with kids, the concept of a teacher singling me out for “a talk” was endlessly terrifying. I stood amid the parents and kids - sweating and nervous, unsure of why she needed to converse. What had our wonderful, mischievous son done at preschool school that day to warrant a conversation? Leo, then three, was a happy member of our neighborhood Jewish school. While my wife and I grew up more on the secular side, our kids were in an Orthodox setting, where the cause of, result of, and answer to almost every question was “It’s all God’s doing!” Practically, that meant he came home with his handmade challah filled with snot and chocolate chips on Fridays, and endless stories about the Maccabees, Moses, and mitzvahs.
While the school was religious, the teachers were never too doctrinaire with us. They asked us about our plans for endless Jewish holidays, some we knew and others that we had to look up. We were always welcome to come to the synagogue and the rabbi invited me to study Torah after drop-off. I usually politely declined, but every once in a while took him up on his offer. Meanwhile, Leo grew more religious, wearing his adorable yarmulke and reminding us that every blessing and misstep was the result of a higher power - “It’s all God’s doing!
Our sage still in diapers.
The only thing that Leo loved more than school was our walk there each morning. After long negotiations to put on shoes and a coat, we would race to the elevator and out the building for the short walk. As soon as we crossed the street, Leo would sprint to the parking garage, duck his head into the entrance ramp, and scream out, “Hey, Jesus!”
And, whether he was squeezing a minivan into a distant corner or sleeping in the passenger seat of someone’s Volvo, he would jump up and scream, “What's up, Leo?!" and come running out.
While Jesus (pronounced Hey-Zeus) was the son of God, he was also a middle-aged parking attendant who worked the day shift on the Upper East Side. A man with a million stories, he knew every inch of the neighborhood and spent his days negotiating cars and customers. Always with a quick joke, a funny facial expression, or bit of juicy gossip in his thick Nuyooork accent, he was the mayor of the street. His face carried scars from knife fights and his body was layered in tattoos of scantily clad women and dates honoring friends lost to the streets. Underneath the rough exterior were a set of kind eyes with a soft spot for neighborhood kids, especially Leo. That Jesus didn’t always know or, more importantly, care what might be appropriate to share with a three-year old, made Leo love him even more.
“Yo, Leo! You checking out those babes at school?” he inquired with a wink.
“Hey, little man, did you rough anyone up at the playground today?” he asked while shadow boxing.
“Leo, you better listen to your Dad or I’ll throw you in the trunk of this car and drive you to the Bronx!” he added, as I sought to discipline Leo with the failed advice of a New York Times bestselling parenting book suggesting that boundaries were simply a means of passing settler colonialism onto the next generation.
With each ridiculous question and playful threat, Leo responded with an appropriate response of trying to punch Jesus in the balls or sharing some witty comeback like, “No, Jesus, I’m going to throw you in the back of a car and drive away!” They would escalate and chase each other around the sidewalk until Jesus’ boss, who looked like a man who knifed people like Jesus, would bark orders and force him back to pulling a SUV from upstairs.
“See you later, fart face,” Jesus said as he ran back into the garage.
“No, your face is filled with farts!” Leo retorted.
After school, Jesus waited for Leo to come down the street and jumped out from between parked cars to scare the daylights out of him. Leo responded with a flurry of kicks and karate chops that playfully overwhelmed Jesus until he relented and they’d go back to hanging out. Sometimes, they would ask each other meaningful questions - “Why do cars need houses?” or “Does God ever sleep?", and other times they would just shoot the breeze on the bench by the garage. When Jesus was around, I mostly played the role of chaperone, as they had their own relationship and I couldn’t quite fit. Any attempt to rib Jesus felt like it might get me knifed. While playful, he also gave off a distinct “Nobody over the age of three fucks with the Jesus!” vibe. Meanwhile, my attempts to get Leo not to punch him only made Jesus laugh and say, “Don’t worry, I carry brass knuckles!” I nervously smiled and pulled Leo a little closer to me.
Back they went to being besties.
When Jesus wasn’t working or out sick, Leo was inconsolably sad. He stood outside of the parking lot, asking when he’d be back or hoping he might be hiding behind a car and playing a prank. Even when the other parking attendants tried to channel some of Jesus’ playful energy with Leo, it was never the same. Leo just parked himself on the bench, waiting for the second coming of a humble parking attendant who could turn water into windshield washer fluid.
It was Leo’s fascination with Jesus that got me called in by his teacher. As the other students and parents left, she invited me in with a smile to show me what Leo and his class had been working on in school. Everything seemed fine and normal - finger painting, popsicle sticks, and pipe cleaners, until we got to the wall where the kids shared their family trees. Across the display were pictures of smiling three-year-olds named Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah - a real who’s who of Jewish namesakes.
And there, amidst the matriarchs and patriarchs, written in huge red crayon on Leo Harris’ family tree was, arguably, the world’s most famous Jew - Jesus. Leo had lovingly shared his family with his Hebrew school as two parents, one sister, and his best friend/neighborhood parking attendant/son of God. The teacher hovered over the family tree, pointing to the letters in red - “J-E-S-U-S”. She didn’t have to say anything, as I got a similar look when Leo went to school with his favorite socks with patterns of scrambled eggs and bacon.
“We’re just a little … confused," she said.
“I know, I know, but it’s not what you think!” I responded.
At that moment, I thought through all of the stories or spin I could tell to make sense of our three-year-old including Jesus in our family tree at his Orthodox Jewish preschool. Should I tell her that Jesus was simply a misspelled Joshua? Dare I attempt to explain why Leo’s best friend was an ex-felon covered with scars and tattoos? Need I lean on calls for co-existence in a world of growing strife?
Fortunately, I didn’t have to, as Leo came storming through the classroom and jumped into my arms. He saw us looking at his family tree and said, “I’m so thankful to God for our family and, especially, for Jesus! He is the best car parker in the world and tells the funniest jokes.”
His teacher replied with a smile, “Yes, we are grateful for all of God’s creations.”
“Even Jesus’ stinky farts?” Leo asked - a retort perfected after hours with his bestie at the garage.
“Yes, especially those!” his teacher said, as she patted him on the head and walked us out the door.
Leo scrambled out of school and ran down the block to find Jesus. He sat by his side to hear inappropriate jokes and learn how to punch below the belt. As I asked myself how it was that my son’s best friend was a street-savvy parking attendant with pin-up girls on his arms and a well-used bat, not for baseball, by his desk, I channeled Leo and reminded myself that it must all be God’s doing.
If I Can Make It There is a collection of stories about the things and people, including me, that move through New York City. A celebration of the characters who crawl through endless traffic, slog through the subways, and stroll under the shade of scaffolding.
Like our fragmented and broken transportation system, some stories race with enthusiasm to a red light and others remain hopelessly stuck behind a double-parked Mercedes with New Jersey plates and blinkers on as the driver screams over the honking, “Just hold on for a minute! I’m only stopping in for a quick dinner at Sardis.”
And, all of these stories could occur nowhere else but the greatest city on Earth - New York Fucking City.