PART 1
Yes, it's a tough beat, but then, I'm a tough parcel delivery person. United, some call me--others just call me Jack Shiv. I live my life on the shiv's edge--some days you get life, sometimes life stabs you. My truck maintenance guy tells me shivs don't have edges, that they are just some kind of cobbled-together pokey thing, but I don't take any heed--what is Johnny Zipgun going to be able to tell me about improvised hoodlum weapons as tough last names?
Anyway--getting back to my area of expertise--the streets. There's no one else out there in short dark-brown trousers who knows them better than me, Jack Shiv. I know The Glorious City like the back of my hand, and then some. I know each and every family on every single avenue and byway. Like the song says, "You gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, and know when to hide things under trashcan lids."
My name is Jack Shiv, and these are my adventures.
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PART 2
11:04am, woken by the telephone again. It sounds like my romance with Sunday being a day of rest is on hold again. As I suspected, on the other end of my rotary-dial receive is Donald "Pug" Perkins, my boss. I could almost hear his teeth chewing his ever-present cigar (by which I mean, stick of spearmint gum), as he told me that Keith was out sick.
"Just admit it, Pug--you guys are lost without me. You need Shiv on the job or this whole town goes straight to hell, do not pass go, do not collect $200." I think to myself, while saying, "I'll be there in 26 minutes." Pug and I squabble about the amount of time it will take me to shave and eat Toasty-Os, and we settle on 20 minutes.
I clap the phone onto its receiver, causing a loud jingle that makes Muffin wake up and yawn a whiskey yawn of concern, as if to say, "Be careful out there, Jack. You're not as young as you once were. Know your limits--don't get caught in another Insured Package hidden right below the sprinkler fiasco." My tabby's yawn continues to imply other dark memories from my shaded past. Eventually, I have to interrupt her with a gentle scratching behind her ears, or else I won't have time to shave my jowly kisser before putting on my fudge-colored work togs.
I stride into the package loading docks, and take a deep breath of gritty reality and oily grit. Johnny Zipgun looks up from where he's busy cajoling some sparkplugs out of one of our bulldog-nosed trucks. "Jack!" he cries out, his nasal voice turned into a hideous parody of its normal self by his epiglottis, "I thought you had today off."
"You only wish," I shoot back. "That way you could screw things up and make them not work well, and there would be no one to know about it," (because I am more observant than other drivers). He laughs in a way that makes me want to kiss something. BUT NOT HIM, seeing as how I'm not gay.
I find my way into the break room, and dispense myself a cone of cooled cooler-water. In doing so, I cross dangerously close to the coffee machine. I can feel every ounce of my old ways trying to guide my hand to my change purse, but fight the demons back once again. I can hear my shop teacher's mocking voice: "Once a coffeehead, always a coffeehead." But it's what you DO that counts, and today, I've got a job to do.
I unclasp my brown uniform hat from my belt and apply it to my head like a metal. Now it's down to business. I go to the motorpool, Deidre hands me the keys to my truck ("Lucky 173," more about her later) and a grin that seems to say, "You are working on Sunday again, Jack, instead of playing 'Super Mario Party 4.' What an ass you must feel like." But I like Deidre--she seems to convey calling it like it is. None of that false cheerfulness, like on QVC.
I jog down the length of the garage, to the darker edge of the tracks where I park. The florescent bulb chirps like a light humming; I become aware of my truck before I can see it--the thick smell of diesel gasoline and that ham sandwich I accidentally let rot in the glove compartment last month. Then the behemoth shape of Lucky 173 comes into view, by virtue of me looking in its direction.
Man, this hunk of tin & I have seen some times in this town. That time that those kids opened all the fire hydrants on Cleveland Boulevard & three blocks were flooded for over 2 hours? We forged that without losing a package. The great 'up to 50 lbs for the price of 25 lbs' shipping rate fiasco? Lucky 173's steely belly got through that with minimal hemorrhaging. If only all of us could say that, we'd be a much fitter delivery force.
I leap nimbly yet masculinly into the driver's seat, using the three steps to achieve this feat, and gun the engine. She springs into life with a cheerful growl, and I ease my toe onto the worn-down accelerator peddle. We wheeze down the garage drive like a bat waiting in line to get out of hell, while remembering to use all the correct signals. I give Johnny my traditional "Shave-and-a-hair-cut" honk, and he good-naturedly yells at me "never ever friggin honk in the god damned garage." He's a good man.
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