FRESH YARN PRESENTS:

Cheese Mover
By Jeremy Deutchman

PAGE TWO:
"I don't think that makes sense," I pointed out, struggling to find the right Spanish words. "These things are supposed to be on sensors. It has nothing to do with how quickly you drive through."

"Son of a bitch," he said to no one in particular. He circled the car to assess the damage. "I don't know what to tell you, my friend," he said after a minute. "What I mean to say is, I don't know where we go from here."

This was an obvious tactical shift; if I wouldn't respond to stern and disapproving authority, he would refashion himself into an empathetic and commiserating ally.

"I think we have to go upstairs and let someone know," I said.

He turned so that his left side was directly in my line of vision, as if he hoped I would see it and reconsider. "Oh, he only has one arm, so let's not make a fuss." I was having none of it.

"Escuche, amigo" I said. "Necesito hablar con su…" I trailed off, suddenly at a loss. My Spanish chose that moment to fail me, and now I was drawing a blank. I could not come up with the word for "manager," or even "boss." I fumbled through my mental dictionary, to no avail. I could remember "scabies" and "vengeful ass licker," but "manager" was just not happening.

I blurted out the first thing that sprang to mind: Necesito hablar con su dios. For lack of a better option, I had just told the parking attendant I needed to talk to his God. I figured he would get the idea that what I meant was someone higher up.

Had he not been a religious man, my linguistic misstep might have gone unnoticed. As it was, it took him several seconds to process what I'd said. He looked stunned, then scared, then pissed. Then he came up and pushed me.

"What do you know about my God?" he asked.

I had not meant to be offensive so much as to convey a general idea. And while I understood why he might have been upset, his reaction struck me as slightly out of proportion. I wanted to tell him that resorting to violence was not the answer, but got stuck on the command form conjugation of "resort." Instead, I pushed back.

Before I knew it, we were fighting. I had never been good at following through with a punch, but remembered from 7th grade soccer that competitors were much less fierce if you forgot about the ball and just kicked them in the shins. For his part, the one-armed man (who, after all, only had one arm) was also relying on his legs, but was aiming his kicks slightly higher. With Michelle our only audience, we looked like a pair of miscast Rockettes, though in our version of the stage show the goal was to bean each other in the groin.

As we bobbed and weaved around the parking kiosk, Michelle followed after us. "What are you doing?" she asked me. "Stop it right now. This is ridiculous."

I knew she was right. I was proving myself to be thoroughly incapable of taking things in stride, and in two minutes flat had allowed him not just to move, but to completely melt my cheese. It was like Michelle had held up a mirror and showed me the person I was at risk of becoming. To continue down my current path was to resign myself to a lifetime of beating up on handicapped people in basements, wine cellars and other subterranean structures. From there, it was just a small step to drowning baby pandas and twisting old people's nipples.

"Look," I said in English, dropping my fighting stance and trying a more conciliatory approach, "I don't want to make any trouble. Just tell me how to get in touch with someone and we'll leave."

The parking attendant seemed as fed up and exhausted as I was. He moved away toward the kiosk. "Okay," he said, speaking for the first time in English. "Just hold me a minute."

I knew he had misspoken, that what he meant was "Just hold on a minute." But his faulty preposition had a drastic and immediate effect; in spite of myself, my animosity faded away completely. Suddenly, the one-armed parking attendant seemed like an ascendant Buddha. "Why all the hostility?" he seemed to be asking. "Couldn't we all benefit from a little extra love and affection?" Just hold me a minute. In that instant, it was all I really wanted to do.

The parking attendant didn't seem quite as moved. "Here, jerk," he said, handing me a small business card. "Take it up with Eduardo."

As we climbed back into our car and drove out of the garage, I began to gird myself to do battle with Eduardo. I gathered from his card that he was some sort of supervisor -- and if the company's first line of defense was a hot-blooded one-armed pugilist, I could only imagine what else might be in store. One thing was for certain: I would have to be on my guard. Assuming Eduardo had two good hands, it would be even easier for him to move my cheese.

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