He walked toward the exit and opened the inner screen door to the outside. “We start tonight,” he said, turning back.

“I…I have work tonight.”

“Yes,” he said. “For me.”

And with that, he left.

There were questions, of course, and the questions would be answered. But only the pertinent ones; not the hundreds of others that could be asked. Those would be answered later, or not at all. The pertinent questions—the ones that must be answered to start any job—were answered by Damon.

He arrived at my apartment an hour after Vince left. His knock was sincere, and his smile was calming. He was there to help.

“Been workin’ for Vince for over a year,” he said. “You and I will be workin’ together, sorta. I’ll be gettin’ you up to speed.”

What exactly was the work?

“Just drivin’, plain and simple. Moving freight. Small amounts. Vince has a big inventory of goods he buys and sells, and it’s our job to get them where they need to go.”

What kind of goods?

“Everything. I’ve moved all kinds of stuff before. T-shirts—big boxes of ‘em—furniture, sports equipment, lab supplies. Anything and everything.”

What should I wear?

“Nothin’ special. A long sleeve shirt and pants. It’ll get chilly later.”

When did the work start?

“Sundown. Always sundown. Just the way it shakes out.”

I didn’t have a commercial license.

“Not a problem. Me either. Loads aren’t big enough to need it.”

It was a New York license.

“Hmm. Not sure about that one. I’ll talk to Vince.”

What about tax forms? W-4? 1099?

“We’ll handle all that in the future.”

What should I tell my current job? I’d miss my shift at the Lounge.

“Vince already has it taken care of. You’re no longer an employee of the Lounge.”

At all?

“At all. Shouldn’t bother you, either. You’ll make more in a few hours with us than you did in a few days there.”

I tried to think of other questions, pertinent ones. I knew there were more, but drew a blank.

“Great, then,” Damon said. He had light skin and bright eyes. His brown dreadlocked hair was pulled back and hardly seemed to move. “I’ll pick you up here at sundown. Be ready to go. We’ll ride out to the western slope, and that’s where we’ll grab the loads. Simple, simple stuff.”

I thanked him, and he left.

In the evening I sat by the window, providing a partial view of the parking lot through the trees. I watched the sun dip behind the mountains, burning yellow turning to orange, then red. That afternoon I’d fought anxiety, mentally retracing how I’d so quickly found myself in a job I knew nothing about. I knew these people, but not well. The old me, the one still in New York, would’ve turned the job down and run the other way. He would’ve embraced the familiarity of the status quo, no matter how much of an illusion that was in the mountains. The old me was the one feeling anxious now, worrying about the unknown. He tried to convince me to bail. Cut and run, get in my car and drive somewhere else. He assailed me with apprehension; you hardly know them, the job sounds too good to be true, something just seemed off. You’re being stupid.

The old me spoke, and the new me listened, until the new me felt more like the old me. Then I remembered why I’d chosen to ditch the old me in the first place, and the new me shut him up. These were good people. Hospitable, welcoming, generous. Friends. I was going to work with them, and the work was as simple as driving a car from one point to another.

The anxiety was stupid, and I felt ashamed.

Just after nine, Damon pulled up in a silver Jeep Grand Cherokee. I locked my apartment door and got in the car.

20

The drive was quiet, mostly. The sun was down now, gone behind the hills and slowly extinguished, the road lit only by streetlights and the Jeep’s dim headlights. It was an older model. The leather seats were cracked, the paint faded. Damon kept his eyes on the road.

He explained the process early on, just after I’d buckled my seatbelt and we headed toward the freeway.

“It’s really simple,” he said, wearing an industrial gray button down. He smelled of loose tobacco. “We grab the cars at the start point and drive them to the destination. There’s a GPS in your car with the address already plugged in. Rides are usually around an hour and a half, sometimes longer.

“When you get there, leave the keys in the car an’ get out. Someone will be there to give you a lift back to town. And that’s it.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it. Easy money.”

“I don’t need to help with unloading cargo?”

“Nope,” Damon said. He lit a cigarette and cracked his window. “Vince’s got people for that. We’re just the drivers. We never handle cargo.”

Damon drove us west on I-70, the same route that had taken me to Vail and Glenwood Springs. But we passed these towns, hardly recognizable to me in the darkness of night, and continued on. I looked out the window as we drove through Vail, only a soft glow from the village making its way to the highway. The buildings were lit, the foot traffic about town seemed nonexistent. Everyone was in for the night. Glenwood Springs was dark.

“Just make sure to keep it under the speed limit,” Damon said, on his second cigarette. “You’re a professional driver now, and speeding tickets ‘r real frowned upon. I knew one guy who got busted doin’ eighty in a sixty-five on a run, never saw him again. Use your cruise, you shouldn’t have a problem.”

“What about my New York license?”

He took a drag, on his second cigarette now. “I talked to Vince about it. Ain’t a big deal. Just keep it under the limit.”

We stayed west on I-70, and the highway pitched down and we lost elevation. The road was dark now in a dead period between civilization. We drove for another half hour and I saw lights.

The road dumped us down into what looked like a miniature metropolis, with hundreds of buildings pushed up against each other, none taller than a few stories. The lights were plentiful but dim. The air smelled of rural America, with hints of hay and manure and machined steel. It was smaller than Denver and poorer than Breckenridge or Vail, and it all seemed out of place.

“Grand Junction?” I asked.

Damon nodded. “Most of the loads come out of here. Place ain’t worth a damn. But we never gotta stay.”

Another twenty minutes and we were outside a warehouse at an edge of town. It had a factory feel; dark, dirty and grease-stained. Every town had them. Damon parked the jeep and we got out. He left the keys in it.

“Aren’t you going to lock your car?” I asked.

“It isn’t mine.”

He motioned for me to follow him and walked through an alley so dark I almost reached for his shoulders to guide me. On the other side was a yellow street light, and beneath it two cars. Sedans, nondescript. One black, one blue. Damon handed me a key.

“That one’s yours,” he said, pointing to the blue one. “Like I said, GPS already has the destination plugged in.”

“Which is where, exactly?”

He shrugged. “A place in the hills. Back the direction we came.”

I nodded and looked at the car. It seemed almost new, its clear coat glimmering in the dim streetlight. There was nothing in the front or back seats. I peeked around at the trunk, but it was closed.

“You should have what you need,” Damon said. “You good?”

I nodded. As good as I would be.

“Cool,” he said. And in one smooth motion, he got in the other car, started the engine, and backed out.

I was left standing there in that vacant industrial lot, alone with a single car and streetlight. A dog barked somewhere far away. The temperature was cooler now, but still somewhere near seventy. I wondered briefly what I was doing.