Parking, unlimited — Reading Companion

Voice and Character Dynamics

The narrator’s voice is central: he is cautious, observant, and slightly ironic. He says he had 'three hundred and one dollars' and intended to keep a dollar for a haircut, revealing his priorities. Slim, by contrast, is described as a 'diplomat' who 'characteristically insisted on paying for cokes when he probably couldn't have bought a package of cigarettes.' The narrator lets him pay, a small act that establishes their dynamic. Slim’s persuasion method is blunt: he blackmails Richard LaBombard after using the brain-finder to catch him 'holding hands with the mayor's wife at a skating rink.' The narrator calls it blackmail; Slim prefers 'persuaded.' This exchange, along with the narrator’s internal commentary, gives the story a conversational, almost noir tone.

The Shrinking Device and Its Consequences

The invention at the story’s core is a 'reducing stall' that shrinks cars to six inches. The excerpts show its operation: a car comes down the ramp, Slim sets a dial, and the car emerges tiny. The device is not explained technically; instead, the focus is on its immediate, chaotic effects. When a woman drives an enormous car into the garage, Slim moans, 'We can't run that car into the other stall, because it's too big.' The building inspector’s car is also shrunk, leading to a mob that 'tore apart the reducing stall.' The catalog subject 'inventions' is accurate, but the story treats the device as a plot engine rather than a marvel. The narrator and Slim flee, ending up 'on top of a carload of lettuce going east from California,' a detail that underscores their improvised escape.

Setting and Economic Stakes

The story is set in a city's Loop, a business district where parking is scarce. LaBombard’s scheme involves loading lots with used cars to block access, then building a ramp to profit from store leases. The narrator’s initial stake is $300, intended for school. Slim’s plan is to 'run that three hundred into enough to take us both for four years.' The economic pressure is constant: the safe contains $5,000 that the narrator cannot open. The mob scene in the basement, with 'eight hundred people,' turns the garage into a pressure cooker. The final image—riding a train car of lettuce—echoes the narrator’s earlier farm labor, suggesting a cyclical return to manual work. The catalog subject 'parking garages' is present, but the story is more about the social and financial scramble around them.

The excerpts end with the narrator and Slim on a train, the brakeman telling the narrator to 'go back to the farm.' This open ending leaves the fate of the shrinking device and the characters unresolved. Readers should note that the story’s humor and tension come from the narrator’s deadpan observations and the escalating absurdity of the parking crisis. The 'brain-finder' and reducing stall are never fully explained, so the focus stays on the human reactions—greed, panic, and improvisation—rather than the technology itself.

Reading about Loomis’s narrator sweating over blackmail and a shrinking ray, I felt that old itch of desperate cleverness. It reminded me, softly, of the quieter desperation in Excitement for sale — Reading Notes—not the mob or the getaway, but the simple, human ache of wanting something more than the day provides. Both linger like half-remembered dreams.