Port Mag_Ad 27.indd 1 3/28/18 12:13 PM AA AFFILIATE BOSTON RED SOX Fiction 102 p o r t l a n d monthly magazine side. Red white and blue only.” “For Chrissake,” he growled. “Just park ‘em.” But what’s the fun in that? Anyone can fill up a parking section. It takes an artist to create a color-coordinated canvas of ve- hicles. That’s what I am. I’m an artist with pickup trucks. The rest of the crew began to talk about me. They were just parking cars in rows, one after the other. But I was making peo- ple park all over the place, leaving gaps un- til a truck of the right color came along. You have to work with the materials at your disposal, after all. T he final straw for Dick came when I was attempting to create a row of piano keys: two white trucks, then black-white-black, then two more white ones, then black-white-black-white-black, and so on. The problem was, there weren’t enough white trucks, so I had to fill with light silver and gray, and it didn’t look much like a piano. And the other side of the sec- tion was a mess of mixed-up reds and blues and greens. Meanwhile, I’d started a new section up the field. We were getting a lot of black trucks that day, and I didn’t have plac- es to put all of them. Still, I had almost completed my first oc- tave when Dick strode over and asked me what the hell I was doing. “I’m trying to make it look like a pia- no,” I explained, indicating an empty space I was holding in reserve between two black trucks. “I need a white one right there.” “You can shove your piano up your ass as far as I’m concerned,” he said. “Just park them where they fit. Goddammit, this isn’t rocket science.” No. It’s art. But nobody appreciates art anymore. The next day, I was reassigned to the walk-in gate, stamping people’s hands as they entered. It was a boring job, until I started stamping every female on the left hand and every male on the right. When I wasn’t sure, I took my best guess. The day after that, I did it by eye color, and the day after that, height. There were a few awkward moments when people held out the wrong hand. Yesterday I saw Sherry, my new super- visor, give me a funny look. I’m afraid she might not appreciate art, either. n