I was driving with Adrian Stock, filming some additional footage for his fundraiser. He had the idea to drive up to the top of East Rock and film a little bit up there and I was like, sure. It was a gorgeous fall day; the leaves were on fire and we were one more cold, rainy night away from the trees being nothing but their wintry, bare bones.
On the way back into town, I said I just wanted a ride to Willoughby's. Adrian said, "Great, i need beans," so he parked his Volvo station wagon on Temple Street and asked if I had any change. I reached into my pocket and discovered that I had a Barcade token in my pocket. So I thought to myself, F it. Let's see what happens.
I had put a nickel in there, so there were 2 minutes on the meter at that point. After the Barcade token plunked into the meter, the number rose to 40 minutes. I said to Adrian, "Holy crap, it worked! You have 40 minutes!" Then i said, "Wait, how many minutes does a quarter give?" So i put a quarter in there and the meter said 52. Barcade tokens, which are the equivalent of a quarter in value when you get them at the arcade, are wroth a dollar each when you put them in a New Haven parking meter.
I was pretty jazzed up about the news. When we got to the coffee shop, I told Gracey. I was like, "hey, just between us..." and dropped the news and handed her a token. She said, "cool we keep that on the DownLow." It then dawned on me that I had to be careful about how I shared this information, because it could potentially cause some major complications. I didn't want to be at the center of those complications because ultimately I wasn't responsible for the problem. I wanted to be on the periphery, and as my mind started putting the picture together, it became important for me to figure out how to navigate this into some kind of filmwork.
To be continued.