Chapter 10: Hollywood Hersch

1983

Hersch cleaned up his apartment. Judy was coming for the weekend, and she considered him barely above a caveman as far as domestic skills were involved. After he graduated from high school, he lived at home for about a year. That meant Judy couldn’t stay the night with him at the house. Judy talked her parents into letting her live on campus at Albany State, and he did manage a sleepover there about once a month, but that required her roommate to move out for a night or two, and that wasn’t guaranteed. What they really needed was for Hersch to move out of the house and get an apartment.

That took some time. As a Trainee 1, Hersch was on a very short leash and could be fired for almost any reason. Moving from Trainee 1 to Trainee 2 required him to have his Class 3 and then be trained and certified to drive a heavy dump truck. That happened that fall, but to make it above a trainee, he needed a lot of training and more certifications. Almost every piece of equipment the DOT used had specific training and certification. Even the heavy dump trucks had different training. It wasn’t enough to be able to drive the truck, you also had to be certified in driving it with a plow and then be certified with operating the wing plows. You had to be certified as either a one-man operator or two-man operator. Hersch was a good driver and confident he could learn the equipment, but there were so many types!

He didn’t get off Trainee 2 until the mandatory year of training was over, in the fall of 1982. Then he was promoted to Worker 1, which gave him more responsibility, more pay, and more security. That was when he moved out of the house and into an apartment in Halfmoon in the southern end of Saratoga County. It was just a few minutes to the Northway, and it put him midway between Saratoga and Albany State. Judy could visit anytime she wanted to.

Moving out of the house also required Hersch to buy a car. He couldn’t keep borrowing his mother’s car if he wasn’t even living at home. He ended up buying a 1980 Jeep. It wasn’t his first choice, but he could make the payments. It was small and got lousy mileage when it was in four-wheel drive, and in any kind of bad weather it was too light to stay on the road unless it was in four-wheel drive. Still, it got him to the maintenance yard and to Albany State. When he got a promotion and a pay raise, he’d have to get something better.

That first weekend in September had been the best thing he had ever experienced with her. As he had once told her, what he wanted to do was more than just have sex, he wanted to sleep with her and wake up with her the next morning. It just wasn’t the same when he stayed at Albany State, when a roommate might have left for the night but might show up at the crack of dawn the next morning. The dorms didn’t have private bathrooms, and they were noisy. Privacy and romance were decidedly limited. That first weekend was what they both wanted. They went out for a quick dinner and then went back to the apartment. Hersch was renting a furnished apartment, so he didn’t need to scrounge up furniture. That first Friday night, he relaxed on the old couch with Judy, which a few minutes later went from relaxation to recreation. Judy undressed him and he returned the favor, and she had her way with him. Then they went to bed and enjoyed the privacy by making love four more times before dawn.

Living in the apartment was just what the young couple needed. It was still legal to drink at eighteen in New York, though people were trying to raise the limit. Still, he could have a beer or a mixed drink with Judy, watch some television, and then go to bed like a real couple. The next morning, they could just lounge in bed, even if they didn’t greet the dawn with orgasmic cries, which they almost always did. It was almost a practice marriage. Sunday nights they would go to one of their homes as a couple.

That Thanksgiving, Hersch did what he had wanted to do for years. He asked Judy to marry him. Albany State had shut down from the Wednesday before Thanksgiving through Sunday, and Judy had moved out of the dorms to go home. In her case, she now considered Hersch’s apartment her home. Thanksgiving morning, they had enjoyed an excellent wakeup sideways doggy-style fuck, with Hersch spooned up behind Judy and slowly making love while he had his arms wrapped around her. Then, as they lazed in bed enjoying the afterglow, he rolled onto his back and pulled her with him, to rest her head on his chest and throw a leg over his. “I love you.” he said.

Judy looked him in the eye and smiled. “I love you, too.”

“Uh, Judy, uh...”

“What? Again?” she giggled.

“No. I mean yes, but...”

“Hersch, what?”

“I want to ask you something. I’ve wanted to do this for years, but...”

“Hersch?”

“Would you marry me?” came rushing out.

Judy squealed and hugged him and began kissing him feverishly. “Hersch! Hersch! I love you! Yes! Yes! Yes!” Then she giggled and said, “Thank you.” and licked her way down his body. Then she began licking his cock, slowly teasing him erect and then taking her time with the blowjob. Only after she coaxed the cum from his straining cock did she say, “You can thank me later.”

“Does that mean yes?”

“Yes, it means yes.”

“I don’t have a ring yet. I wanted to take you with me. I wasn’t sure what size your fingers are. I have some money saved up.” Hersch said. “It’s kind of why I’m driving that POS Jeep, to save money for a ring.”

“Maybe we can go over to Colonie Center next week some night after work. There’s a jewelry store there.” she said. “Probably more than one.”

“If we find a nice ring, we can probably get it sized and pick it up before Christmas.” said Hersch.

Judy sat upright on the bed and crossed her legs. “When do we need to go to your parents?” They had flipped a coin earlier in the week. They would go to the Caparelli house for dinner and then go to the Roswells for dessert. They would reverse things next year, or maybe at Christmas. That might require negotiation.

“Mom’s at three, your parents’ at five-thirty.”

“Okay, as long as we are out of here by two-thirty we are good. Now, get up and clean up and then we can change the sheets and go back to bed. I think if we get enough exercise that way, we can burn up enough calories we won’t gain ten pounds this afternoon.”

Hersch was still laughing as he went into the bathroom.

Terry Wilson looked around the yard and wondered what in the world he had done to deserve this job. The fact that he had applied for it meant nothing. He asked that question at least once a week. He worked for the New York State Department of Transportation, but not in a maintenance or supervisory role. He didn’t work in the engineering department or mechanical department or in traffic. He worked in the Albany headquarters in Public Relations, and in a gigantic statewide bureaucracy, that meant he only got involved when there was a problem.

NYSDOT had a problem. Just south of Clifton Park a heavy dump truck had managed to sideswipe a school bus, forcing it off the road and into a barrier. On the plus side, the only person on the bus was the driver and he wasn’t injured. On the bad side, it had been a slow news day, and photos of the mangled bus were plastered all over the Albany stations. Terry Wilson was assigned the mission of tailing the WTEN reporter and cameraman around the Saratoga maintenance yard.

The reporter was Samantha Hunley; she was twenty-six, tall, blonde, beautiful, and had a Grade A set of knockers and even better-looking legs. Buck the Cameraman (which was the only name Terry ever learned) was following her around and shooting video of the parking lot where the heavy equipment was parked, undoubtedly trying to find the damaged dump truck so she could take video of the ‘killer truck’, even though nobody was even hurt; the truck was actually being stored at the maintenance yard in Schenectady. What neither Samantha nor Terry was expecting was to see a big good-looking kid washing a dump truck at the side of the maintenance building.

Nobody else was around, so she marched over to the dump truck, trailed by Buck and Terry, as the young man turned off the water and began coiling the hose. “Hi! Can I speak to you?”

Hersch Caparelli looked around for who had called him, and when he saw somebody who looked like a TV reporter, he looked around for whoever she was talking to. She kept walking towards him to find out why he was washing the evidence off the dump truck in the crash. “Uh, okay.” he said. He was hoping his boss might show up to tell him to go somewhere else, but that didn’t happen, and he was smart enough to know that a video of a DOT employee running away would be a disaster. Still, nobody could just wander onto a yard without being seen, and she was being followed around by a guy in a suit, so she must be legit.

“Why are you washing that truck?” she asked.

“This truck?” he replied. Why in the world would she care about a dump truck?

“Yes.”

He smiled and shrugged. “We had a litter situation up by Fortsville and it got messy. I had to clean it up.”

“Litter?”

Hersch nodded. “A tractor-trailer blew a couple of retreads and there were shredded tires all over the place, and then a honey wagon hit some debris and honey sprayed all over the truck and crew.”

“Honey?”

Hersch grinned. “A honey wagon is a septic cleaning truck. Do I have to explain what the honey is?”

“Yuck!” Hersch laughed and nodded. “So, you got assigned to the cleanup?”

“Normally a crew cleans their own truck, but they were caught in the spray and had to get cleaned up themselves. I got the job instead. I think I prefer this to getting sprayed with, well, you know.”

Samantha smiled and agreed. “I am guessing you are the low man on the totem pole. What’s your regular job?”

Hersch answered. “Maintenance Worker 1. I can drive almost any of the equipment here.”

“Wait ... you’re a truck driver? You look like a teenager!”

He grinned. “Thank you, I think. I started working here as a teenager. I’m twenty. I’ve been here a couple of years.”

“And you can drive one of these things? They’re huge!” Samantha was dwarfed by one of the trucks.

“They get bigger. When it begins to snow, we mount plows on them and a salt spreader on the back. That’s when it’s really fun!”

Samantha wasn’t sure if this kid was real or if he was punking her. “Show me!”

Hersch looked at her oddly. “What do you mean?”

“Can you really drive this truck?”

He answered by going to the passenger side door and opening it. “Climb up there. Find out.”

“Really?”

“I have to move this to the line. With or without you?”

Samantha was intrigued. Who was this kid who didn’t seem old enough to drink but said he could drive these trucks. “For real?” Hersch smiled and nodded. She handed her microphone to Buck and went to the truck. “How?”

Hersch laughed and went behind her. He grabbed her by the waist and lifted her up to where she could climb in. Then he closed the door and went around to the driver’s side. She had great legs, but Judy wouldn’t appreciate him saying that. Chuckling, he climbed up behind the wheel. “Ready?”

“Hold on.” She lowered her window and yelled to the cameraman, “Make sure you get shots of us!” He nodded and when he flashed her a thumbs-up, she said, “Ready! By the way, what’s your name?”

“I’m Hersch Caparelli.”

“Samantha Hunley, WTEN News.”

Hersch started the truck and put it in gear. Samantha marveled at the ease and confidence he had driving the gigantic truck. He drove it around the yard and then backed it into its assigned slot in the lineup. Along the way, she stared at the dashboard and all the knobs and levers. “Those are for the wings and the plow and the spreaders and the dump, all that sort of thing. Most are disabled right now.” Hersch explained.

“And you can do all that stuff.”

“You have to. That’s my job. You can’t even work here at my level without a commercial driver’s license and certification on a truck.”

“Wow!” Samantha decided she had a better story than an accident where she couldn’t take pictures of the truck, and nobody was hurt. “Come on. We need to do an interview.”

“Wait ... what?”

She opened her door and climbed down carefully, though everybody around got a great look at her legs. She waved to her cameraman and motioned him to come closer. Terry Wilson followed along. Then she went back to Hersch and when her cameraman gave her the go-ahead., she started the interview.

“This is Samantha Hunley for WTEN News. I’m here with Hersch Caparelli at the Saratoga DOT Maintenance Yard and we’re talking about the heavy equipment here.” She knew that Buck’s footage would be able to be cut and put into whatever she came up with. “Hersch, you’re not even twenty-one yet, but you can drive all this equipment.” It was both a statement and a question.

“It’s part of the job. I’m what we call a maintenance worker, and we have to be able to drive and operate any of the trucks, tractors, and equipment we have. I’ve been working here since I graduated from high school.”

“And that was two years ago.”

“Ballston Spa Senior High, Class of ‘81. Go Scotties!” he said grinning.

“When I met you, you were washing one of the big trucks. What was that about?”

“A commercial truck had an accident and sprayed a couple of our trucks. We need to keep our equipment clean. It lasts longer and runs better when it’s properly maintained.”

“And that’s important.”

“I pay taxes just like everybody else, and it’s important to the taxpayers. These trucks cost a fortune. The better we take care of them, the longer they last and the better they run.” Hersch was just repeating what Mr. McKeegan had told him when he started at the yard.

Samantha asked, “What’s your favorite job, Hersch.”

Hersch grinned and slapped the side of the heavy dump truck. “Plow duty! I love it!”

That was the end of the interview, and Hersch went back to work. Samantha and Buck headed back to the news van, followed by Terry. “Samantha, can I get a copy of the footage?”

“Forget it, Terry. Freedom of the press.”

“I’m not looking to stop you. I just want the footage of that kid.”

Samantha shrugged. “I’ll ask, but don’t hold your breath. Maybe after the broadcast.”

“Thank you.”

Two days later, Terry got a call from the news director at WTEN. If he still wanted the video footage, he could pick up a videotape of the interview. Uncovering a scandal at the DOT had been a bust; the State Police had arrested the bus driver for drunk driving. Instead, they edited the footage into a human-interest piece, the young kid who was driving a snowplow.

The next day Terry Wilson had the senior managers of the Human Resources department meet him in a conference room, where he played the raw interview footage. “Gentlemen, we have been working on programs to increase recruiting. We need more people at DOT, and it hasn’t been easy. The work is long and hard, and a lot of kids would prefer something in a nice warm office.” Then he pointed at the screen, where a picture of Hersch standing next to the reporter was showing. “That’s the face of the new DOT! That kid not only works for us, he wanted to work for us! We can build an entire recruiting campaign out of him and other kids like him. We can make him the new face of the DOT!”