Fans of the Captain Underpants books will remember that each installment ends with one of the boys saying, “Here we go again”. In the books, George Beard and Harold Hutchins, who live in a small town in Ohio, have to deal with the antics of the principal of their school, who turns into a super-hero named Captain Underpants. At the end of each book, some new shit goes off, the principal transforms again from Clark Kent to a diaper-wearing maniac and George turns to Harold, or Harold turns to George and says, “Here we go again”.
I have been scrambling to find a maintenance guy for my park in central New York since I eighty-sixed J.B. last year. J.B. had his good points. He helped me buy a rusted-out backhoe for $5,000, which he kept running for three years. He built a pole barn from a kit I bought for him. He welded flagpoles together to make stands for the solar streetlights that I ordered from Alibaba. He was dependable most of the time, and when he did show up, he went the extra mile.
But then things went south.
I bought J.B. a plow in exchange for his promise to plow the park. He bought a new truck and said the plow would not fit onto that truck. I loaned him money for another plow. He totaled the new truck and did not pay back the loan. He was a slob. His car did not have a muffler. His son accused him of embezzling from me. He sold me a plow truck that became a lawn ornament. In November of one year, he told me that would not be able to plow the park that winter unless I bought him a new truck. I asked him to clean up his act. He did not. I asked him again. It got to the point where, if I did not fire him, I would lose credibility. So, he got a baloney sandwich, a roadmap, thirty days’ notice and a few grand to help with the transition. He was angry, but it had to be done.
I replaced J.B. with a guy who lives in a neighboring park. That guy did a good job, but then he got Lyme disease and had to quit. I advertised on Craigslist. A guy named Allen applied. Guy Two knew Allen and recommended him highly. So, I hired Allen.
I had high hopes for Allen. He cleaned up J.B.’s mess around the pole barn and rehabbed the maintenance guy’s home well. His truck worked. He settled into the work space in the barn happily, hanging a sign on the door that said “Papa’s workshop”. He asked me if I thought a wood stove would be a good idea for the barn, and I said “sure”. He found one and installed it.
Two months after he started, a home transporter who has done work in my other park moved a home from one lot of that park to another. When I called him to discuss the job, he said, “Hey – keep an eye on that maintenance guy of yours”. I said, “Why?”
-I was over there the other day.
-Uh, huh.
-And he and some other guy were over by the barn. When I walked over, they looked like a couple of kids who had been caught smoking weed.
–Were they smoking weed?
-They looked like they were up to no good.
-I’ll keep an eye out.
-Lot of dumbasses in this business.
-You think?
A new resident called me with a plumbing problem at night. I told her, “I can’t be in two places at once. Call Allen for maintenance issues.” She said, “I have called Allen. Several times. I can’t even leave a voice mail.”
-You what?
-I can’t leave a voice mail.
-Have you texted?
-Yes, but he won’t text me back. And I would feel better if I could leave a voice mail.
Nobody listens to voice mails any more, but there is something cathartic in leaving one. It’s good customer relations to at least allow angry residents to record a micro-podcast for management – even if those micro-podcasts go into the void.
So, I called Allen, to ask him to set up his voice mail. Since he had not done that yet, it was impossible for me to leave him a message – but I texted him. He did not text me back. I asked Dee Dee to bang on his door, to ask him to set up his voice mail. She banged; I texted again, “Set up your voice mail today”. After a week, the voice mail was set up.
Allen’s phone went dead. He said he could communicate via email, but messages sent to the email he gave us bounced back. He gave us another email. I got messages from that email when he wanted to get paid, but messages sent to it did not receive responses.
I offered to buy him a Mint Mobile phone to solve the phone issue. He said that his phone was dead because his phone card had been stolen and he did not have money to replace it. He asked to be paid in advance for a rehab job on the home that had been moved by the installer who had narked on him, in order to buy another card. I remembered the plows that I bought for J.B., and asked him to finish the job first.
I visited the park unannounced and found Allen and his twenty-year-old son in the pole barn working on a truck. A pitbull with a neck as thick as my waist and eyes that were just slits jumped up, put its paws on my shoulders, and started to lick my face.
Q: What you do when a pitbull humps your leg?
A: You fake an orgasm.
I said, “What the hell is this dog doing here?” Allen looked sheepish and said, “Oh- she belongs to my son.”
-Well, she doesn’t belong in the park.
-She doesn’t live here. She just visits when he is here.
-Don’t let her spend the night and keep her in the barn.
-She’s the friendliest dog you will ever see. All she would ever do is lick you to death.
-Don’t let anyone else see her. We need to lead by example.
I tried to ignore the situation for a few months. And then, Saturday night, around 6:00, my phone rang. It was Dee Dee. From the time and the medium, I knew that it could not be good news. She said,
-I don’t want to bitch, but –
I have never heard Dee Dee bitch. She is the most level-headed, cheerful person I have met. I said,
-If you are bitching, there’s got to be a reason.
-We had six inches of snow here. Allen plowed a third of the park around noon and then he just stopped. I found the skid steer in the pole barn and a couple of big springs that clearly fell off it near the spot where he quit. He is not home. I have called him, texted him and emailed him, and there is no answer. I had to shovel the snow around the mailboxes by hand, and I had to shovel a bunch of tenants’ driveways by hand. I was at work, for chrissake. He just disappeared!
-I will call the guy who used to do it before J.B.
-You mean S.M. Blakely?
-Ye-ah. But last time I called him, when J.B. crapped out on me at the last minute, he told me that he would have to give priority to his regular customers. I might also call R.R. You know when he is moving in?
R.R. is Ryan Ruby. He is a guy who is going to move into the home next to Dee Dee’s shortly. He plows and landscapes for the local reform school. I like what I have see of him, and have been mulling him as a candidate for Allen’s job when Allen gets the axe.
-April. You think he would do it?
-Only one way to find out.
So, I called S.M. Blakely and left a message on his old-school tape recorder which he would not check until Monday morning. I called and texted R.R., and sent the following text to Allen:
I understand that the park is not plowed. Please plow it ASAP.
To which I received the following reply, within less than half an hour:
John one of the line has a hole in I’m trying to find to find something to fix it I haven’t had any luck yet I’m trying to fix it as we speak
R.R. texted back. He said that he used to have a plow for his personal truck, but he sold it recently. He could ask a few friends, if I needed help.
And then – mirabile dictu – forty five minutes later, I received the following text from Dee Dee:
You can call S.M. Blakeley and cancel with them. Allen is plowing the park with the skid steer.
I called Blakeley and R.R. to tell them that it was a false alarm, and texted to Allen, Make it up to Dee Dee that she had to shovel out around the mailboxes.
Next time I am up there, I will find R.R. I have not met him in person, but he has impressed me so far. He found a local bank that will take untitled homes as collateral for loans. He found a service provider who will supply a replacement for manufacturer stickers if you give them a HUD plate number. Since he works at the reform school, he has passed their background tests. In his dealings with me, he has followed up and gotten things done without being pushy. He says that he is willing to fix the home that he recently bought, and that what he does not know how to do, his grandfather is willing to teach him. He is only twenty, but Dee Dee tells me that he sticks to deadlines, does what he says he will do, and is considerate of other people’s time. With luck, he will be interested in a part-time gig as a maintenance guy and he will work out. Maybe I am just dreaming – but indulge me, and let me dream. And, please, G-d – give me some time before I have to say “Here we go again” again.