by Tom Molnar

(Last episode Duke found someone had boldly parked in 'his space', causing him to have to park way down at the other end of the parking lot. Enraged, he charged into the driver's room ready to read someone the riot act, only to come face to face with an unexpected new driver - named Candy.)

Duke is momentarily speechless - a rare occurrence. He checks out the short blonde hair, the great body, and the smile he interprets to say: "C'mere big boy".

Duke catches his breath, quickly finds the perfect words to say, and offers his hand.

"Well hello baby. My name's Duke. Duke Slade. You sure look like Candy to me."

Duke takes her hand and shakes it, careful to show just enough manly grip so she knows he's a real man.

"Yessir", Duke thinks. "Things are definitely looking up around here. Maybe it's time to look into one of those team runs after all."

"Listen Miss Candy", Duke quietly says. "You have any questions about anything at all, why you just feel free to ask me. I probably know more than the management around here." Duke gets a big grin on his face. He reaches up and takes his cool mirrored sun glasses off. "Yep, you just ask me anything."

Duke can't believe his eyes and ears. Finally management has decided to catch up with the 90's and hire some women - and what a woman they've hired... Visions of teaming up with this resplendent beauty well up in his quickly overblown daydream. He imagines walking into the Iron Skillet at the Petro truck stop, arm in arm, drivers gaping and gawking as they pass. He imagines running into drivers he knows, casually introducing his co-driver. He sees everyone looking at him with wonder and envy. He could even marry a woman like this, he thinks. What a sublime life it would be too. A woman this gorgeous actually knowing how to drive and his wife to boot. Yes, Duke was going to see to it that his dreams come true. He would quickly nurture this into a real relationship. He'll show these idiots around B.S. that this woman knows class when she sees it. Duke's head spins as he quickly tries to figure out how he's going to get the jump on the rest of the drivers. He knows the rest of them are going to be hitting on her as well.

As he's thinking, Candy speaks up.

"Why thank you, Duke. I'm sure we'll have all kinds of questions in these first few days as the new guys on the block.

Duke's entire thinking process, including his daydream, screeches to a halt as the words 'we'll' and 'guys' catch his attention. Did I miss something?, he wonders. We? Guys?

"Ahem"

Duke spins around quickly to see where the sound came from. He'd not even looked at the tables to the right of the door as he came into the room. There sat a linebacker of a guy, probably twice Duke's size. Probably twice the size of anyone at B.S. Trucking. He looked like he stepped straight out of a Joe Weider muscle magazine.

"Does that go for me?", the big guy asked, smiling. "I just got hired today too. In fact, Candy and I signed on as a team. She's my wife".

The big driver got up and walked over to Duke, holding his hand out as he got closer. He walked as if he was more at home on a bench press machine, and he probably was too.

"My name's Bruce" he said. "Bruce Kane."

Duke's vision of walking hand in hand with Candy popped. So did his vision of all the other drivers gaping and gawking at him. In fact, his whole daydream seemed to vanish in his last heartbeat. Duke reluctantly reached out and took Bruce's hand, trying to appear manly. Bruce felt Duke trying to squeeze his hand and gave him a quick but deadly shake.

"Jeezus!", Duke thought. "He's gonna crush my hand."

Bruce smiled at Duke. "Thanks for the welcome, man..."

"Yeah, no problem", Duke said as he retrieved his throbbing hand, faking a smile. He spun on his heel and headed out the door, toward the dispatch office.

Duke thought to himself, "How am I gonna tell these morons to stay the hell out of my parking space?'

(Check out more of Duke next month.)