Chris is mad.

June 15, Basking Ridge.

I'm not coming back next year, said Chris, el flechero, as the crew calls him, literally the arrows guy. I'd rather go to Iraq and get shot.
Chris was mad this morning because the lot is small and private trailer and the cook house had to be parked on a field next to it, resulting in the tigers getting two days off (they need to be parked right next to the backstage entrance as their cage is pushed in by the prop crew.) Chris served in the U.S. Army, and told me when I first met him that he had tried to go to Iraq but "they wouldn't let me, I'm too old." He has the swinging, round-shoulders walk of a military guy and always wears black army boots, no matter the weather. On most mornings he sports a neon yellow tee-shirt with "Logistics" written on it. He says that with the old owners things were better; he says that he wishes he could fire a weapon.
His is a lonely job. He parks us in the early morning then takes off to mark the route for the next day and stays on that lot by himself until the next morning. No doubt he misses the camaraderie of the army, if not its brutality, as he proclaims a little too loudly.
This is the guy who goes out of his way to save a sparrow's nest.