Loading Dock Days

Shorty is about five and a half feet tall, an ear-to-ear smile on his round face, a diamond stud in his left ear, a Yankees hat turned backward sitting crookedly atop the thin stocking cap on his head. He wears sweat pants, a cell phone and a pager each in its own leather case strapped to his waistband. As he processes work orders through the computer he swivels on his chair, his shiny black jacket — the yellow stagehand’s union insignia stitched across its back — swooshes audibly until he’s fully turned around and facing us. His name, “Shorty,” stitched over the left breast of his jacket is now fully visible. “Batman and Woodman,” he greets my co-worker and me. My co-worker—tall, dark-skinned, thin, handsome, and dressed in black from head-to-toe with the exception of a silver Batman belt buckle—does most of the talking for the two of us. He’s confident, calm, articulate, and at the moment happens to be juggling three iron rings he grabbed off the lighting case in front of us. On his head is a black leather cowboy hat, another part of his daily wardrobe. He catches all three rings, places them back on the four-wheeled wooden case then removes his hat along with his mirrored lens sunglasses before speaking. This is New Jersey. We’re at the lighting warehouse where we’ll pick up a full truckload of stage lights, power supplies, cables and every other imaginable piece of equipment (steel poles, lenses, projectors…) that even remotely might relate to illuminating a stage. We stand about fifty feet from the inner side of the loading docks, the four garage doors down to keep out the winter cold. Overhead, the heater is blasting and Batman, as we all call my fellow truck driver, is standing at my side basking in its warmth. Shorty extends his arm to give both of us good morning fist bumps, then points to two dozen wooden crates, all of them six feet tall, three feet wide and otherwise impossible push if they weren’t on wheels. Those crates are for us to take back to the theater in Manhattan. “They aren’t ready though,” Shorty tells us. “It’ll be an hour.” Batman and I tell Shorty goodbye, we wave to the crew of union men who stand winding electrical cables around their upturned elbows. The labels on the boxes in front them are like a directory of all the shows currently going on around New York. Broadway shows, concerts at Madison Square Garden and the Meadowlands, Disney on Ice shows… practically every major production in the metropolitan area get there gear from here. Like all of the drivers making deliveries for those shows, Batman and I retreat to the truck and begin our wait. The lot offers wireless internet and I have my computer. If we don’t feel like sitting in the truck, we’ll go to the outlet mall next door, or if that’s not keeping us busy, we’ll go out at BJ’s Wholesale Club down the street. Wait, load, deliver, unload, repeat. We continue about our day driving the truck.