I’m getting close and I still haven’t gotten my payday. I shuffle my feet. Maybe I took too long on that one. Damnit! I knew having to freeze that turkey first was going to set me back a whole bunch. I should have gone to a different store where maybe they would have had a frozen turkey, all plump and slippery and ready to go. I fucked it up I guess. I really liked this job. I bet when I get home, the phone is already going to be ringing on it’s little table. It’ll be Neiman telling me that I’m not only fired, but they were going to tie me to the railroad tracks or something. Something dangerous. Who knows what kinds of secret things they do at this place? They could be watching me right now. I look around just to be sure. No. They don’t do that I think. Even if they did, they would be trying to watch the wrong dude. I’m sneaky and feisty and can dump a tail as easy as dropping a nickel in a fountain.

I’m sure in a sorry state. Depressed. Neiman seemed like such a nice guy. I even had high hopes that maybe one day, they wold invite me over to their offices for some sort of Christmas party of something. Free Christmas cookies and jawing with the best of them. All of them patting me on the arm and telling me how great I am. Fuck. That would have been awesome. To buy time since I didn’t want to get fired just yet, I stop at the local corner store for a tall can of sweet sweet tea. That’ll perk me up right enough. I bring it home and start listening for a ringing sound even before I get inside. No, I don’t think I hear one. Probably just missed it. He’ll call soon and give me the ‘ol axe. I go inside and heave a sigh, flopping onto my couch and opening the can of tea. I take a glug and something tastes funny and I hear a slidey sound coming from inside the can. Maybe they changed the recipe? I also heard from this one guy that he found a mouse inside one of his cans of corn. Put him of corn right away I expect. I peer inside, I can’t see it in here. I can’t get the good angle for peepin’ inside a can.

I take it to the kitchen to shed some more light on it. There’s a mass of something in there. Fukkin’ gross! I’m going to report this to someone, I have a cool phone now and I’m going to call the company and tell them that by God, they better send me a coupon or something because I’m raging mad and I wanted that tea. One more sweet sip before I get fired. Is that too much to ask?

I stick a finger in there to touch the weird slidey thing inside. My fat finger only goes up to the first knuckle before it stops. I grab a chopstick and poke that inside the can instead. Not much give to that chunk of something inside there. I dump the tea into the sink and shake it around, it rattles, but it’s like a wet rattle. Not something hard like a chunk of metal. I grab up a knife and start cutting away. Those folks were half way right when they said their knives on the TV could cut through a can. Any knife can cut through a can, no one really thought to do it in the first place which was the reason why their knives sold so well. Marvelous. So great you can cut a can with a knife. You can even cut open a can with a butter knife. You could cut through it with a key. Get outta here with that ‘my knife is the only knife that can cut through a can’ bullshit.

I digress. I flay the can open easy as anything, and what comes plopping out is a ziplock baggie with a roll of cash inside. My money. They love me! I did the best! Got my payday! I should never have doubted myself. I cold have done better, but that’s part of jobs, you learn them, then you get slightly better, but not too much better, otherwise the boss will expect you to work that hard all the time for the same amount of pay. I think. I have to count this before I jump to conclusions.

Shit! Right on top of the roll is a $20. That’s a good sign. There’s more underneath so I get the feeling like this is going to be more than my first payday. I count out $1800. What the fuck?! There must be some kind of mistake. How did I go from $87 to $1800? I count it again. Yep. $1800. That can buy me, like, a yacht. What a fukkin’ taste of the good life this is.

The phone rings, but I’m not afraid of it this time. This time I’m triumphant. I answer it after the first ring. “Hyealloo!” I say. It’s Neiman. “Got it done I see. I hope the paycheck is to your satisfaction.” I say “sure as shit Neiman, did you get some sweet cast too?” He says he did and that I got that job done faster than he thought I would. “I couldn’t really piece it together myself,” he goes on “but that’s why you get paid the big bucks, got a brain the can think around corners you do. Froze the turkey yourself. Good on ya.” I say thanks, it was a breeze. He says good, because he has a few more red files on his desk, just waiting for my expert touch. I say “ready when you are, Nieman my man.” I grab up the white board marker. “Nawp” he says “it’s break time for you good buddy. Just take a little snooze and I’ll call you with the deets first thing tomorrow. Give you a chance to see some things in the daylight. Like I mentioned, there are two new ones for you, and one looks like you’ll need to be able to see what you’re doing, otherwise...” he makes a hyunghyeeeeeeeooooowwwwww ka-POW sound. I know what he means I think, I might be in for a plummet on this next one. Maybe I should get some sneakers. Now I’m picturing myself balanced on an I-Beam, way on the top of a building. My boots are good for kickin’ and stompin’, but not for nice easy cat footing.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

”I get ya” I say “say, say, while I have you, do you guys reimburse for expenses or anything like that? That turkey cost me a fat wad of dough today and I almost wasn’t able to cover it myself.” Neiman says “nope, you’re on your own with that one, but I’ll tell you what, by the time you finish these two jobs tomorrow, you won’t be worried about having to pay for anything to get the jobs done. Like I said, I don’t have holes in my shoes and I don’t eat off the McDonalds dollar menu.” “Right, sure, just thought I would ask, no worries.” “Okay then, thanks again, you’re a champ my friend, have a good snooze, nice dreams and all that, you’re going to need all the rest you can get for tomorrow.” Neiman hangs up. I set my alarm for 4am and lay down on the couch. I’ll need time to get some sneaks before Neiman calls me tomorrow.

I can’t sleep at first, today was a fukkin’ weird one. Why would dropping a frozen turkey in a river so that a boat could hit it? Why does a dog need to bark at a seagull? I guess Neiman doesn’t know, otherwise he would have told me probably. Hard to tell. I wonder how much Neiman’s cut was off the work I’ve been doing? It doesn’t matter. I’ve never held this much money all at once in my whole life. I drift off, thinking about buying an island and investing in a big screen TV. For extra big TV watching.

My alarm sounds. Why the fuck did I set it for 4am? That’s crazy time. My head feels muddy and I didn’t have any good dreams, just boring ones where you do the same thing over and over again. Not even one thing cool that turns boring. Just straight boring from beginning to end to where you wish you never went to sleep at all. In my dream, I was flipping a couch cushion over and over, rearranging it, fluffing it, patting out wrinkles. that went on all night. For hours. Jesus Christ but that was boring. I shake my head to clear it out a little and pop on the tube for a little watching before I headed out for some new sneaks. I don’t think the store opens until like 6am anyway so I’m not really sure why I’m up this early. Just excited last night I guess and overshot.

There’s the usual infomercial on channel 4, so I switch to channel three for the yoga people. There’s some breaking news. At 4am? It must be something special. A puffy faced man in a down jacket is getting his hair blown every which way, it looks like he’s on a bridge. I turn up the TV. He’s halfway through a sentence “think that it was here that the turkey was thrown from. It caused massive damage to a boat passing by, tearing up the boat’s propellers and flinging chunks of metal through the boat, nicking a kid on the wrist and causing his grandma to go into cardiac arrest. Police are investigating. Over to you.” The view changes to the news reporters in their warm newsroom with the background of a city projected behind them. “What a sad event this is. Some terrible person throws a frozen turkey off a bridge, causing mayhem and catastrophic injuries to people on board, just trying to celebrate their grandma’s 100th birthday. Our thoughts are with the family. Now back to our scheduled programming.” It cuts to sweaty people stretching and balancing in precarious positions. I turn off the TV.

That’s weird. What are the odds. Oh well. I go to the kitchen and rustle up some breakfast grub. Not much in here, hopefully I’ll have some time to go shopping after Neiman gives me those two red files. I’m scrambling an egg that’s about a week past it’s expiration date, but it doesn’t smell too bad, I figure I’ll just cook the shit out of it and kill anything that might be growing inside. I’m awake now. That breaking news was about me. I cock my head, thinking hard as my egg starts to crust up and blacken. Can you get fingerprints from a frozen turkey? Did I just kill a really old woman? I start to sweat. I look over at the stack of cash on the counter. Looks pretty tasty. It was probably a coincidence that the grandma had a heart attack because of the turkey. I’ll ask Neiman when he calls next. I look down at the busted ass blacked egg and toss the whole pan, egg and all into the sink, rinsing off the pan in little satisfying hisses.

It’s 6am now. Time to get hoppin’ and boppin’. I head to the store and pick out a nice pair of kicks, way more than I would have paid if I didn’t have the red file money, but the salesman assured me that these sneaks were used by all the best rock climbers in the world and you can probably win more climbing awards wearing these shoes because they’re so great. I shrug and pay for them. They cost $287. That would have given me a heart attack if I bought them just two days ago and I didn’t even need a frozen turkey thrown at my boat.