Plates

Everyone has collections. As kids, we're told to start a collection of stamps, snowglobes, baseball cards, maybe even rocks, for those who spent a few too many hours solving puzzles in the classroom and not enough at recess. James was one of those kids in his childhood, always turning in his tests while half the class was stuck on problem 4. He heard about the idea of starting a collection from a friend, who gathered arrowheads he found in the woods, and James worried for a while over what he could collect that wouldn't involve rummaging around in the mossy, dirty undergrowth that he knew other boys were fond of. James's collection was unique enough to give him a column in the school, neighborhood, even city newspaper once or twice, though no one who knew him as a kid would've expected it to continue on to his adult years.

After childhood, our collections begin to take different forms. Some end up collecting money, some hoard coupons, a few notable people collect pets. James's collection has stayed much the same as it was in his youth, albeit a little more carefully organized. It still occasionally earns him local praise, though if you asked him he would advise against starting a similar one of your own. "Too much trouble," he would say, even as he sat adding to it at his kitchen table. He would also tell you that if you kept any collection for long enough, no matter what it was, it would start to take over a significant part of your day, and that you might as well try to do something good with it.

James always had a head for numbers, they were ingrained in him the way some people have natural charisma or feet for dancing. His head was always filled with them. James could remember phone numbers even if they were whispered to him years earlier, and he never forgot a math formula. So when he started his collection, he knew he had to choose something he would always be interested in, if he wanted it to last.

He was an accountant now, putting his years of exta math worksheets (given after he'd exhausted the usual curriculum) to use. He worked a neat nine hours a day at his office downtown, wearing what could very well have been the same dress shirt, pants, shoes, and button down day in and day out. He drank the same coffee, ate the same soup, drove the same car as he had on his first day, unused to change unless he could graph the line and function of it. If you would have checked his apartment, there was nothing at first glance that would indicate his collection, it didn't cover the tabletops and shelving like artwork, buttons, or shoes did, didn't cost him half his paycheck every month, wasn't something he could pass onto his kids if he had them, but it consumed him to the degree that all collections come to consume their owners. James would be the first to admit that he obsessed over it, that it was automatic for him in the way that drinking water is automatic for you and me. He needed it to function

His collection was in the form of many, many small notebooks filled front to back, enough to take up two storage bins neatly put away in James's coat closet. Every morning after his drive to work, James would make a coffee, settle in front of his computer, and write down in one of these pocket-sized notebooks, pen only. He filled up about five a month.

James recorded every license plate number that he could remember seeing on his drive, park, and walk to work, and keep the notebook in his pocket. He had a mind for numbers, and his coworkers have learned not to type their passwords in front of him if they wanted to ensure privacy. Even on the few days that he was out, James would continue his memorization ritual. Home sick, and he would record the plates driving by on the street below his window. On vacation, and James would write the foreign cars with a note of the country they belonged to. His coworkers were used to his habits, even eager to hear about all the outlandish places he's seen their boss's car, and they'd made peace with the fact that he would often remember their license numbers before their first names. They all knew of his notebooks, assuming it was just his outlandish de-stress routine, not knowing what he did with the books afterwards.

Now, I'm sure you all have seen the scrolling banners, the highway LED billboards, the Amber Alerts on your local news station. Everyone has them a few times a week, but who really takes note of the rapid fire numbers and letters shown day after day? Who even knows their own plate number? Often, license plates are the only solid evidence held by police, and their most trustworthy lead to follow. James was the dream witness to any of these crimes, but he was just as valuable as a citizen. He read through wanted plate numbers daily, going so far as to check a few counties over, crossing the numbers on screen with his notebook, sometimes taking another drive around the city to catch sight of any more plates that had been asked for on the news, phone in hand. He'd tipped in to police lines almost forty times in his years of collecting, resulting in a few identified kidnappers, a few intercepted criminals, a few stolen cars recovered. Every station in town knew his voice, the caller who relayed the location, time and direction of their wanted plates in a short call then ended in a hang up when they tried to get his name. James never checked up on the stories, although the police certainly knew who he was. He scratched off the numbers, tossed the notebooks into the bins when he ran out of paper, and continued doing it. Day in and day out.