I don't get much trouble pulling the late shift at a small ware-
house, which is how I like it. Watching cartoons keeps the nights short,
and if I want to bring girls around every once in a while, well, nobody
notices. I can tell from what cartoons she likes whether or not a woman's
going to believe I'm an earl. Hanna-Barbara shows from the 70's bespeak 
a kind of fixation on the working class; if my date goes in for those,
she'll just think I'm joking. Bugs Bunny fans have the revolutionary mind-
set, so they won't be impressed, but they don't figure I'm a liar. New
stuff, like the Simpsons or Beavis & Butthead--people who like that will
accept me at face value. They want to know if I have a castle or a family
crest. I show them the tattoo on my left arm and tell them our castle got
razed years ago, which is also true.
	Trouble, when it comes, comes from the Woodmans. They've got a
moral problem with interstate shipping. I guess you know about the guys 
who block on-ramps in the midwest every Saturday: same church, different
pew. The Woodmans send sarcastic shipments, like trucks full of water
(ostensibly transporting a sea cow, but trust me, the first thing I did
after I dried off was to check) or empty pallets coated in molasses, and
they make me store them. As conversion efforts go, it's not bad; they 
can't afford more than one or two per month. I'm meant to see the turpitude
inherent in carrying out my duties on a long-term basis. We can reclaim
the space occupied by abandoned materials after a month.
	Last night, four or five toughs pulled up in a limo. Nothing that
fancy pulls into my parking lot on purpose, as a general rule. I left
Helen enjoying The Critic and grabbed a city map from the pile. The driver
didn't take the map, though; in fact, he didn't move or speak for several
minutes. Sensing a bad scene, possibly one that didn't involve me at all,
I hung back, playing my flashlight over the ground near me in a meager
gestural version of doing my job.
	An eighteen-wheeler rolled in as I was starting to get bored. My
first thought was: clean. Chrome detailing isn't the oddest thing I've
seen on a truck, but this looked like a brand-new job with, no joke,
jeweled highlights to boot. Both drivers got out in unison, followed by the
bare-knuckle types from the limo.
	Helen had gotten curious and come out to look. With a level-head-
edness I found attractive, she silently pointed to the crests revealed
under the bruisers' rolled-up right sleeves. I drew a long breath. Con-
tenders. Usurpers. Whatever you called them, my father had demolished his
home rather than leave any wealth for them when my side of the family fled
Europe. I had no quarrel with them or their liege. If only I could have
convinced them of that.
	I broke about half as many of their bones as Helen did, and yet
they never laid a finger on her if they could help it, which makes me
think they came straight from the old country. And yet, I wonder...
	When I came back this morning from the hospital, the truck was
still parked. Curious, I pried open the back and was immediately buried in
leaves. Two tons of beautiful, autumn-red leaves, complete with shipping
manifest. I found an invoice in the hand of the driver, whose sawdust body
fell apart as I touched it. The Woodmans! You really just have to laugh.

written for Marie Hicks in my bathrobe 10/7/01

If you're reading several of these you may have noticed I have a fascination with people who willingly perform duties they don't really understand. Part of this may be sloppy storytelling; part is definitely the result of a fondness for dream-logic.

Speaking of sloppy storytelling, the thing with the truck driver is sort of a weird continuity error. That's supposed to be a decoy at the end.

- everything is by Aaron Mandel; please ask first if you're about to steal something -

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