The bearded old Mexican operating the levers of the yellow forklift sings, “Tomás, ooh-ooh-ooh.” He is singing to me even though my name is not Tomás – first or last. But I am a bit of a doubting Thomas. And a peeping Tom as a kid. But not a Tomás. The jovial codger – he’d probably prefer cowboy caballero – has a frail voice. Still, it carries the feel-good Latin tune from the 1970s well for someone off a ventilator and Covid-19. He coughs mischievously and chuckles behind a leftover light-blue hospital mask like a joker chistoso bandit(o). “Tomás,” he continues, a sort of serenade in Spanish. But really, I have no idea what he's saying.

Instead of the romantic story serenade of Cyrano courting Roxanne standing on a balcony, I'm standing and shivering in the back of a replacement twenty-six-foot box truck. Thieves broke into the yard overnight. I want it to sound biblical like Jesus returning like a thief in the night. But the bastards cut out the catalytic converters with a reciprocating saw, crippling much of the fleet. Talk about organized crime. I imagine surgeons amputating limbs swiftly as lions biting the balls off of sleeping or incapacitated bulls. Who knew an auto part that filters exhaust could be so valuable. It's composed of precious metals like platinum, I'm told. So, I get this truck, which does not seem reciprocal or valuable. It’s a piece of junk with no racks or fridges for perishables. It's certainly not precious or worth a jitney nickel. I don't know where anything is in here – like the switch to the overhead light for starters. I don't even know if the light works or if the truck will start and go. Plus, I don't know where anything will go while waiting for my cargo pallets of sodas and snacks in milk crates and bins stacked six high. I'm blinded by the forklift’s fog lights big banging through an almost primordial predawn mist. Just great. I'm afraid it's going to be one of those days, a jungle of a day – probably God's day off. There seems to be a logjam of those.

“Tomás,” I hear. “Ooh-ooh-ooh.”

Time and again, I remind him. Still, I lower my Covid mask, feel the cold air rush between my teeth – spare as worn flat tires. “My name is James.” Then I try in Spanish, “Conoces Jimmy? Tomás es my middle nombre.” My Spanglish is worse than my Spanish.

But “Tomás,” he mantras, insistent as Cyrano in love while the forklift rattles closer and bottles clank. Hydraulics groan, shiver, and rumble from cavitation while tines rock and balance a ton of product for thirty-two vending machines I will service today. For ten hours, I'll rotate the older items up front, put the new ones in the back, remove the expired. An evolution of sorts but always the same story. The only change will be in the coin changer in exchange for paper dollars housed in the bill feeder. Folks need change via nickels, dimes, quarters, and dollar coins shiny as gold so they don't feel ripped off. But coins get jammed and gum-up the works. Recently, I found a plastic, buttered knife in the coin slot left by a customer trying to remedy the problem. Made the vending machine and the whole situation toast. Think that’d be a catalyst to convert to credit cards. But those get ripped off too, easier and quicker than catalytic converters.

The forklift inches closer, and I inch back in steel-toe boots. The old man raises the load and sets the pallet even with the bed and lip of the truck so I can slide the crates in without straining my back too much. I do wear a brace resembling a black corset or bullet-proof vest for support and protection. The old man gets out to check because I don't know how to say up or down or straighten out or try again. Pointing doesn't help, though his old eyes see better than mine. So, he checks.

“Perfecto,” I say.

“OK,” he says with a lilt. He doesn't understand much English, and I speak even less Spanish. Perfect.

Still, we communicate. Often, he honks the horn on the forklift. Not because he's warning or approaching a blind corner, although that is muy importante. He does it like a Harpo Marx clown with a horn on the hip, a fun reminder of my previous truck whose horn had an electrical issue and didn't work well. It made a funny noise no motorist would take seriously or heed.

I harped and nagged to get it fixed. But like Marxists, Catholics, Methodists, publicans or republicans or anyone dealing with big picture issues, the mechanics couldn’t fix it or get it right. Or solve the check-engine light.

“Que paso?” the old man asked often about the horn, well before today anyway.

“I don't know,” I said, not knowing what to say or how to say it.

“¿Está enfermo? Gripa?” He gripped his nose, indicating a cold or allergies or some sickness that alters the sound of one's voice.

To me the horn sounded like a duck swallowing a powered-on silicone sex toy and was trying to clear its throat. Doubt Google could translate that into Spanish. So, I gripped my throat instead and would beep the horn back in short bursts or clicks. He’d know it was me and not some other truck. It was our unique sort of Morse code or whale sounds in the sea of life.

But that horn and truck are out of commission, like 97% of previous species in the history of the planet. Except for the old man. He’ll live and work another 97 billion years, the geezer, and probably sing at his own funeral.

The old man is our best worker. He stocks and organizes the warehouse space. He unloads the big rigs and Mack trucks and forklifts the product in the rafters. He empties the baler and ties the smashed cardboard like a cowboy roping a calf. He directs the pickers on the assembly line. But no one bins snacks like him. Neat as folded clothes – like items with like items. The others’ work is unkempt as a sock drawer, scrunched and mismatched, turned upside and shaken all about. He repeatedly demonstrates orderliness to no avail. So, we often get chaos in a box. Drives us drivers crazy but especially the old man. Sometimes I wonder if he is crazy because he repeats things over and over and talks to himself. But so do I. Yet, he wears expensive white earbuds so he could be on the phone via Bluetooth.

“Quien sabes?” he might say about it. Who knows?

As I pull stacks of crates into the dark cavern of the truck, he stands aside the forklift, skinny as hell, mask lowered, beard like a Santa scarf, drinking from a battered thermos.

“Tequila?” I ask.

“Cafe.”

“Con creama y azucar?”

“Solo negro.”

“Black,” I say.

“Si.”

I understand that and could use a belt – booze or caffeine. Santa’s belt might help; mine’s about to tear. Or maybe Santa's sleigh ride instead of this jalopy.

The old man reapplies his mask and sticks the thermos back behind the seat in the forklift and then gets in.

His son, the paunchy foreman, approaches with a John Wayne swagger as if he's about to bust into a two-step dance. He's macho as a gunslinger with no gun or gun belt. “Tomás,” he chimes in. His cell phone is ablaze as his boss eyes in the dark. Also, he has earbuds like his dad which makes them buds in a way. He hops up into the back of the truck and eagerly shows me what could be an inventory change or error of mine on the app. Or more debriefing about the sabotage and theft and where I'm going or rerouting. Instead, it's a video of a clown singing “Tomás, ooh-ooh-ooh.”

The title in bold says Cepillin.

“He has no teeth like you,” the foreman says and lovingly laughs. He puts his arm around me. Ah, shucks. His English is better than his dad’s. Just.

I smile wide and precious as a pet orangutan to play along, showing pink pearly gummy gaps, COVID mask like a chinstrap – every which way but loose. Also, my one front tooth held together by a dental pin is turning blue. I was so afraid when it was drilled in as a kid. Now it gives a new old meaning to Bluetooth. The nerve has died. Hurts so bad, I don't have the nerve to use a toothbrush.

“Di le,” the old man says. Then he says something else I can't comprehend.

“Oh, my dad says the guy in the video was a dentist. A dentist with no teeth!”

Too ironic. Perhaps something is lost in translation. Who knows? But I guess no teeth is worse than a dentist with cavities. Or forklift cavitation, I non sequitur, trying to equate and associate a theory of everything or anything but not getting the big picture

We all laugh at my expense. I ask, “So, what's the story? Why is he dressed like a clown with a painted face and singing about Tomás?”

The foreman says, “The dentist didn't want his young patients to be afraid. Like Tomás who had no teeth and was ugly as you!”

We laugh again but I can't stave off ugly.

“Cepillin his name?” I ask.

“Stage name. It means something like toothbrush. He was so entertaining and inspirational to his patients, he became a TV celebrity and entertainer in Latin America during the 1970s. Got a bunch of albums.”

Never heard of Cepillin, or had a brush with the brush, but I wonder if any of his albums went platinum. Still, he's no clown; the records must have been golden or precious to be that popular.

The foreman says, “Anyway, you have a new stop today. I texted you the address. The machine I.D. numbers, and inventory are already on your phone app. The locks have been changed so your keys will work. Oh, make sure the back gate on your truck is padlocked. It's in a bad part of town. Muy malo.”

“Apparently so is our warehouse,” I say, feeling my back pocket. There must be ten different keys and fobs for my machines and markets. But none to keep out thieves or entropy.

He smiles and says, “And I brought straps to fasten your load.” He flings the yellow bundle on the stacks like a cosmic string to tie everything together in space and place and time as if connecting thoughts and theories in a vending way.

But then I think of dental floss for a horse and it makes my blue tooth hurt.

“Before you go,” I ask and point. “Where's the light switch?”

“In the cab. On the dashboard, next to the cigarette lighter.”

“Horn work?”

“Creo que si.” But he quacks like a berserk techno duck…

He hops down, says, “So andele. Drive careful but step to it. Hurry up.” He walks back inside the warehouse, and his dad returns with yet another pallet of drinks, jabbing the forklift horn a little, hunching a little, hiding a little. I can tell he's smiling a little behind that little mask.

“What the hell?” I say. “What's the story? Why so much product? Why so much trabajo?”

“Mucho trabajo,” the old man says.

“Too much work.”

“Mucho dinero for you on payday.” He holds a hand out like gripping a fat stack of folded dollar bills or pesos.

In rhythm I say, “Mucho trabajo. Mucho dinero. Mucho me duele,” while grabbing my lower back.

He gets what I'm saying, incorrect syntax and all, and has a belly laugh. Nothing little about that.

As I load the second pallet, he’s already repeating my little diddy:

Mucho trabajo,

Mucho dinero,

Mucho me duele.

He playfully grabs for his back. Then he sings, Tomás, as he drives off.

I remember hearing about Tomás forty years ago, long before the internet, YouTube and videos. Much less smartphones and 5g speed like godspeed. The Mexican cook at the zoo sang it to me at work. I manned the fry station and didn't have teeth then either. But I couldn't hide behind a COVID mask like a chancroid whore behind a medieval merkin. I'd lost my dental partial falsies after a drunken night. When I showed up to work, the cook started right in with Tomás but never explained the story. Also, I was seminary bound. So the cook, who was Catholic, called me Friar Padre-cito or little priest. It also made me Friar Fryer, saving the world from El Diablo, his evil lies, and bad fries. But that calling didn't work out; religious life was a washout. Like so many things in life for me and most people.

Then more life happened along the way and continues to happen. Like COVID-19, wiping out so many souls like a silent global title wave. Nearly took the old man. Still, we've learned to stave off the inevitable for the species, the inextirpable superbug virus that will exterminate us all, but for how long? That is, if we don't nuke ourselves first.

Or from left field or outer space, for instance, an asteroid named Apophis is on track to soar in and jolt the earth in 2036. A real possible apocalypse, it may cavitate the Pacific and cause a global tidal wave, washing away the humans of the world. Or, if it strikes land, it’ll dustup another dinosaur-type extinction. Either way, don't think Elon Musk and SpaceX and Mars missions can get us safely off the planet in time. Even with galactic-friendly catalytic converters. Or build a bridge to drive electric Teslas to the moon. “Quien sabes?” Maybe nukes to blow Apophis out of orbit or the asteroid belt. Who knows. Maybe Santa’s belt might help.

The back of the truck is a black hole. I'm trying to organize the payload but can’t see a damn thing. The flashlight on my phone is not enough. So, I step and tread carefully in slip-resistant soles on the dewy plank floor. I maneuver between a jungle of stacks and snacks, mind by back. But invariably I clip or kick something, feel the jolt along my spine. For safety, I grab onto the braided rope hanging from the roll-up tailgate, glide a foot down to the bumper step, then the ground. The door lowers and it sounds, I imagine, like a T-Rex, Godzilla, or a squeaky squawky pterodactyl in need of WD40. I release the rope and the gate crashes back up just as noisily.

I head to the cab to see about the light switch. I test the horn first. Yep. It works and the forklift answers with a beep beep from inside the warehouse. I waggle my phone as if striking a flint, see the target next to the lighter, and flip the switch. Viola! The indicator illuminates. Might be two for two! Baby steps I caution and recall Hemingway's six-word story: “For Sale: Baby shoes, never worn.” Some souls never get a chance to step.

With an even keel, I’ll check the overhead light. Still, maybe, there’s a chance I won't be so afraid about the day after all. Could be worse and I find myself singing, “Tomás, ooh-ooh-ooh,” but not nearly as well as the old man.