Not too long. Not long at all. Neiman was right, I was in high demand. The first day I got a call from him and it was nice to put a large phone receiver up to my ear for once, although it felt a little strange at first, almost like when you get done reading a large print book, then switch to a normal print size book and your eyes don’t believe what they’re seeing. They say, whoa, hold on buddy, this shit is too small to read, what happened to them easy fat words that you can read from across a room? Them eyes get used to it eventually though after about 100 pages in, then they get all wild again if you happen to pick up another large print book. Fukkin’ body parts. Aleays getting fooled with little changes.

Same spiel as last time, Neiman read off from the red file, although this time I’m a big type business man about it, like I’ve been doing it for ages. “Mm hmm” I say as I jot on my whiteboard “mmm, ohhhh, yes, I see.” Even though it’s just writing simple words down. Nieman says “you got that okay?” I say “yep” Neiman says “read it back to me, just in case, lot of eyes on this one seeing as how it’s only your second time jobbing, they want to make sure it wasn’t a fluke before they open the floodgates on you. Call it a probation period.” I read it back to him “Turkey ice, river run, motor slice.” “That’s it” he says “nice work, now go on out and get it done, make me proud, son.” I say “this is an average one right? Six words?” “Right you are” he says “catchin’ on fast” “also” I say “it kind of rhymes. Does that happen often?” He reads it back to himself, “hmm” he says “you may have something there. I’ll pass it along, I don’t know if they keep track of rhyming red files, but it may mean something. I’ll let you know. Good catch. Bye bye.” He hangs up. Man. I’m already rocking this shit out of the park. Big boss men over there are probably thinking I’m the next coming of Jesus or something. Time to get to work.

I ponder on it. Turkey ice. Do turkey’s make ice? A turkey like a bird turkey, or like a doofus turkey? Like when you say, “that guy is a real turkey?” River run. Rivers do run. That one seems to be taken care of already. One out of three. Motor slice. Do I have to take a slice out of a motor? What do these things have in common? Last time, I only had one job, and the rest took care of themselves. I think this may be the same kind of Deal. I just need to figure out which one I’m responsible for. Motors do slice I guess, they spin some things around in them, not really sure how, but I’ve seen inside the hood of a car once when my neighbor was doing something to his car. I watched out the window and he revved up the car, and I saw a fan type thing spinning around pretty fast. That could probably slice something up pretty well. Do I need to slice a turkey with a motor fan? But where am I going to find a car with a spinning fan in a river?

I think hard. Car in a river with the motor running. A boat. A fukkin’ boat. Aww yeah! Puzzle master! I look at the time. It's been eight minutes. I wanted to break my record of four minutes, but I don’t have a river outside my apartment, otherwise this would go much faster. So I need a river, I need a boat, and I need... turkey ice? Hmm hmm. When are turkeys ice. I look outside, it’s still pretty warm out there, we’re in the late summer and I don’t even know where I would find a turkey, let alone one that’s frozen in the wild... bingo! Grocery store time!

I snag up my jacket and the wad of cash I have left. You know what time it is. Time for a little early Thanksgiving shopping. I make it over to the Savers in good time and start scowering the store for a turkey. I look in the frozen section. There’s some turkey legs frozen in there, but the red file didn’t say anything about legs, just turkey. Not good enough.

I wander to the area where they chop up animal meat into shapes that people recognize for eating. Imagine if they just plopped out a giant half of cow. I don’t think people would be as interested in getting as much meat. It needs to be in shapes. Kind of a square shape for a steak, round shape for a chicken part, squiggly smashed shape for ground up cow meat. It doesn’t look like the cow was murdered and thrown into a wood chipper, it just looks like the squiggles that come out of a play dough press when you’re little. Nothing weird there. Just play dough made out of meat. You can shape it into anything you want, then you can eat it too! I mean, you can eat play dough, but it’s pretty salty and people look at you weird.

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I talk to the man behind the counter. “You have the turkey meat?” He’s wearing a blood drenched white lab coat. If he wasn’t behind that counter everyone would run from him. “Ground turkey? how much, sir?” “No” I say “like, the whole thing. I mean, not the feathers and stuff I don’t think, but the fat real deal that hasn’t been too chopped up yet.” He looks at me “kind of early for thanksgiving, no?” I say “no such thing. I’m constantly thankful. I just want to celebrate the fact. That’s all.” He says “I see. Well, I think I saw one come in this morning, but I have to check to make sure Rob didn’t run it through the grinder yet.” He turns swiftly and walks out of view behind stainless steel tables covered in gore. An old lady stands next to me, waiting her turn to buy some dead animal flesh. It’s taking the guy a while and the lady starts to get nervous. Oh great. She’s going to say something n... “I sure do like the way they slice their meat here. Sometimes they cut too much on purpose though, then expect you to say, oh that’s okay, I asked for one pound of chuck, but 1.17 pounds is fine too. Not like I wanted an exact amount or anything. Forget that the recipes asks for one pound of chuck, not 1.17 pounds. I’ll just throw away the .17 pounds into the trash I guess.” she rolls her eyes. I try to match her enthusiasm. “Yeah. How about that. Always with the incorrect chopping. Did you notice the guy that just walked back there? One of the tips of his fingers was missing. I bet he gets parts of his fingers in the meat he’s cutting for you, that’s probably why you get more than you’re asking for. In more ways than one.” I chuckle. I think that’s how you talk to people at the meat counter. She edges away from me and looks intently at something at the very end, side eying me the whole time. She reaches her hand into her far leather purse. Probably has her finger on the mace button. Oh well. I didn’t come here to talk meat with strangers.

I mean, I did, but I came here to talk about meat to strangers that actually give meat, not just complain about it.

The guy comes back out with his hand behind his back. “Good news, I caught it right before it went into the grinder.” He pulls his hidden hand out and it’s clutching the leg of a large blubbery turkey. It looks like the man is holding the hand of a small child without a head. Or legs. A fat headless legless child. He heaves it up on the scale and the numbers climb. “17 pounds. That's a whopper. I hope you have someone you can share it with.” I say “nope, but I can eat a lot. Are you charging me for the bones inside too?” The man says that’s the way it goes, unless I just want chunked up pieces after all. “No, that’s fine” I say “how much?” He hits a button and a sticker pops out “$67.27” I’m shocked. That’s about the last of the money I made from the last red file. Hopefully I can expense this. “Can you freeze it for me?” I ask. He looks at me weird. “If you’re going to cook it, then you have to defrost it anyway, this’ll save you time, just put it in the fridge and it’ll be okay for at least a few days if you don't want to eat it today.” I sigh. “Fine, let’s have it.” I carry it home. this might take longer than I thought. I pop it into the freezer, crank the temp as low as it goes and lay down on the couch for a nap, setting a timer for four hours. Hopefully that’s enough time for it to freeze, otherwise I’m not going to be able to finish this today. I don’t want to get fired. Fukkin’ butcher with his thawed ass turkey.

I drift off almost at once, then am awakened by my alarm. I run to the freezer and that baby is as solid as a rock. Hell yeah! Time to get a move on. I check the time again, I have about two hours to get this done.

I tuck the turkey under my arm and head out again. The river that runs through the city isn’t too far from my house as the crow flies or as the car drives, but this is going to take me the better part of an hour to reach it. Fuck. Nothing to be done about it. Maybe this job will give me enough money to pick up a bike or something.

I reach the river in 45 minutes with only a few weird looks along the way. I cross the bridge and stand in the middle, looking over the edge into the murky water which is about thirty feet below. I look behind me at the river. There’s a boat coming. I toss the turkey over the side and there’s a terrific splunnnnge as it hits the water, then I get a bad feeling that maybe a frozen turkey doesn’t float, because I don’t see it on the surface. I start to sweat. I think I just fucked up. There it is! I see a flash of pink white flesh bobbing all up and down there, taking its time. The boat gets closer to it. My eyes go bright. The boat hits the frozen turkey dead center. There’s a chunk chunk chunk chabbbbbbbbuuuuggggg sound coming from the boat, and now it’s dead in the water after spewing chunks of mangled frozen turkey flesh out it’s backside. Turkey ice, river run, motor slice. Done! now to keep a lookout for my fat ass payday.

I walk back to my apartment slowly, scanning the ground for bits of green.