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have to punch in,” I said.
    â€œI’ll sign you in tonight,” he said. “I’m hungry.”
    I walked into the office just to prove something, and then I couldn’t find my time card in the slot with all the Ms, hardly anyone else working on Saturday. The office was empty, desks overflowing, a computer left on, bright blues and greens, amount payable blinking in the lower right. I leaned over to one of the bookkeeping department’s phones. I called my dad’s number and I got his machine, his wife sounding breathless and sexy, sorry they weren’t in.
    It was noon. The traffic was light. Chief shifted gear with difficulty up the on-ramp, the clutch having one of its bad days. The cab smelled of old iron and crankcase oil, the black vinyl seats crisscrossed with silvery duct tape. We both stared ahead through the bug-dotted windshield, a ghost-gray cabbage butterfly, what was left of him, fluttering under a windshield wiper. The rest was grasshoppers, order Orthoptera, undifferentiated wreckage, except for a tiny scrap of Painted Lady, a pretty variety of butterfly, one of my favorites, next to his AAA sticker.
    â€œI bet you didn’t double-check your answers,” he said.
    Chief’s real first name was Bernard, and I had assumed his nickname had been awarded him because of the independent bounce in his stride, a tribe of one. He had tried to tear down my image of him, told me his name had been a family joke because he was “the chief complainer” when any rule was invoked, bedtime, bath time, time to go to church.
    He had nagged at me, telling me how he regretted dropping out of school in San Diego, thinking he was going to be a roadie for rock groups, the Ice Capades, because he had a friend who did the lights for Disney on Ice. He had been driving a truck of one sort or another for fifteen years. His encouragement regarding the GED test was generally indirect, challenging: “I bet you’ll get diarrhea that morning, not even show up.”
    â€œThis is a rich family,” I said. “The family we’re delivering to.” He took the clipboard from between us, the bill of lading addressed to a site in Napa.
    â€œYou aren’t going to tell me how you studied all night, making sure you knew the U.S. presidents backwards.”
    â€œA Saturday delivery, the 9910 Turbo.” That was the top of the line, coral pink, seating twelve people, three-speed jet action to ease pain in the lower back. “They’ll give us a tip.”
    Chief was bouncing around behind the steering wheel, a short man, having trouble sometimes manhandling the truck despite his experience. He was used to me, and he knew I didn’t like to tell everything right away.
    We chose a booth, red vinyl seats you slid across all the way to vinyl padding on the wall. Except the seats weren’t red anymore, dark around the edges. The surface of each table was designed to look like marble, shadowy veins, all the tables identical.
    I asked Chief if he had watched the news last night.
    â€œHarriet won’t let me watch the news,” he said, yanking paper napkins out of the dispenser. I didn’t know if his remark meant that Chief and his wife had a sizzling sex life, or whether she just hated television. He rarely mentioned his wife, preferring to talk about his days playing softball, the time he drove a truck for a skateboard company, how he got a commission because he always sold extra boards.
    â€œThere was some trouble with those kids from Hercules. The ones who cruise the lake, looking for a fight.” I said this with my voice rising at the end of each sentence, like a question, encouraging him to ask. Maybe I wanted to brag a little, how we had protected the pride of Oakland.
    He gave me a look, a little ribbon of lettuce on his chin, full of some kind of good feeling that had nothing to do with me. In a previous life he must have been a very eager dog, or an