The Adventures of Sly Danny
Volume One, Number Three

I was promoted to shift manager for one reason: my 1974 Chevy 11-passenger G20 Beauville van; with the two back seats out, it could accommodate a full-size mattress and all the tools or vacation supplies you could ask for; with the seats in, it could carry almost everyone eligible for trips to Trophy Taco.

"The General," as we called the owner, was never around. Never. He left everything up to the managers. At least he never called unless he was upset. But then, he called several times a day. The car wash was open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. seven days a week. In each of these 84 hours, at least one manager was on the clock, sometimes two.

When I first started there were only two managers, a Latino of considerable girth named Ramon Cortez and Lucky. No one knew Lucky's real name; he was an Asian guy who didn't speak great English, and rumor had it he used to be an engineer at Rockwell or something, and he was now on the run from the Feds for immigration violations. But I never saw any evidence to support that.

Anyway, with the two managers working around 72 hours apiece (both worked six 12-hour days including Saturday and Sunday, so each had just one day off) they decided to hire a third manager. Only they couldn't get clearance from the General, so they decided to just pretend there was another manager on board.

Ramon started taking all but two hours off on Tuesday. Lucky stopped showing up altogether on Thursday. They had no idea who would step up and handle things in their absence, but I guess that had a sophisticated enough view of human nature to know that someone would. Lucky for Lucky and Ramon, not so lucky for me, I was on the schedule for both Tuesday and Thursday, and I'd had some managerial experience back in the day.

Not only that, but as I said, I had The Van. The Van would soon solidify my promotion-by-necessity to the real thing.

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