Temp Job

By Russell Bateman

I've worked better places. Most of them never had fish. Not on the menu, the wall, the floor, or a puddle behind the desk, flapping and gasping over your performance review.

And the world is better for it, too.

But today was Tuesday, so I had no choice.

I was in the zone. That is to say, I was crouched neither sitting or standing in an contortion of bone and spleen and the other juicy bits I'm supposed to have, but which I can't feel just now on account of being soaked to the skin under the business end of a forty foot gutter.

Holding a bucket.

Catching fish…heads.

Strictly speaking, that wasn't really my job-you could say I was the point man in the crucial interface between the almighty gutter and the guy who stacked up the trays of fish cutlets to be shipped off to who knows where. But …no. I just caught the nasty bits that survived the ride down the water trough with the fillets, after the dozen or so nattering ladies up the stream from me had done over their piscine victims with knives so sharp and so fast they were only white blurs in my peripheral vision.

Of course, there's no real point in working such a lousy job unless it's done under the most humiliating conditions imaginable. It was not enough that I should just get wet-it was the suggestion that I could open my collar, and then direct my pant leg just so-to facilitate the drain-which suggested a fundamental lack of respect for my dignity.

It was not a good job. But then, it was Tuesday, as I said. Fish day. Thursday was landfill day, where the temp office dispatched me to a back corner of a suburb better left unnamed. Here in a Post-Apocalyptic landscape better consigned to Mars, or the Sahara, or to the Bikini Atoll- shortly after a really good one-it was my job to throw myself in the path of caterpillar tractors the size of office blocks. Why? To rescue old coat hangars, shower faucets, and any other bits of scrap metal that could be recycled for-oh…my coffin nails, for example-before they were buried forever beneath the shifting sands of Rich-oops! the suburb better left unsaid. This was taxing enough, but the hardest part was to stand in this moonscape and watch the endless convoy of dump trucks roll in, packed to the gills with the demolished homes, hearths, and memory of lives lived long ago.

Where did they go? What had happened to them?

You had to ask.

But that was Thursday. There are other days. Swamp-delousing Fridays, train de-railing Saturdays, and every other Monday I stand in the middle of a highway under a rocky overhang for some reason as yet unexplained to me.

But enough for that. Suffice to say it's hard to make ends meet for a detective in the dawn of the new century.

One who made a little mistake.

But we don't have to talk about that just now.

So it was Tuesday, like I said. The water is gushing down. The fillets are plopping into these plastic trays that I whip under the flow, one after another. Every now and then I pluck out an eye, a head, a bit of tail or some other swirly, tissuey, visceral bit. Each tray fills in seconds, and I must both hand off the full tray to the packer on my left, and put a new one in its place, at precisely the same time. This is actually impossible, and I can't figure how I manage it, but I hear quantum physicists have the same problem about quarks or something, so I am in good company. This annoys Lotho, my name for the unsmiling, unfeeling henchman standing over me. I'm sure I've seen him in an early Bond film, but now he controls this hopper the size of a Honda which, predictably, is suspended over my head. When he sees I'm managing just fine, he lets tip the hopper, and an avalanche of fresh fish tumbles into the trough. A happy shout goes up from the ladies, the knives fly, and the fillets and spare parts come spurting my way with renewed vigour. They're so fast I actually can't turn my head for fear of missing that one eye-ball which might bring on Auntie's coronary somewhere.

So riveted in slime and place, my spirit's only recourse was catatonia, which some say is a province of Spain, but I've always thought looked like home.

Until today.

I see something different

Boots.

Not rubber boots, work boots or galoshes. But old fashioned trail-stomping boots of ruddy tanned leather, flecked and stained with mud and grit and better times than the one I'm having now. That is all I can see in my little square of the universe, bounded by the floor, the gutter, stacks of trays-this pair of boots shuffling in place, the smooth tanned legs they came with, and the wool socks that connect the two, pulled just so over the heel.

Did I mention the socks? I have a little thing for-but no need to-no, don't even mention it.

Just as I process the socks angle, several things happen at once. I see the evil black clodhoppers of Lotho stomp into the frame. They confront the trail boots. Shouting, indistinct over noise of water, warehouse.

Female.

Something to the effect of: I'm not here to-I'm looking for-no, you misunderstand-what?-- work here? are you insane? Wait! There's a leech on your shin! I'll get it! Trail boot lifts, swings, connects with evil shin. Exit Lotho, stage right.

Funny, I didn't see the leech.

There is a clatter of a body falling through a stack of plastic trays. At the same time a shadow falls over me. I look up involuntarily. I think it is a beautiful girl, but she's a bit blurry on account of the geyser of water and fish bits I just stuck my head into.

But not to worry. She grabs me by the collar and jerks me to my feet. My vision clears a little. Hoo boy! As good as the socks! Better even, and-

But she interrupts my reverie. "Are you the detective?"

I sputter in the affirmative, and ask, "how did you find me?"

"The temp place said you work for nothing."

"That's not strictly true-"

"I can offer you next to nothing."

"Er...okay."

"Then lets get out of here. What a place! Everybody's packing a blade!"

True. We beat our retreat to the exit, as our pursuers slipped and skidded in the burgeoning pile of fish heads.

Outside a '71 blue Fairlane was parked with the motor running. She got behind the wheel, and swept a pile of books off the passenger seat. "Get in!" I did. Even before I could close the door she'd gunned the accelerator and we'd taken off in an explosion of dust and gravel.

In seconds we'd escaped the warehouse district, my only home since-that little mistake we don't have to talk about. I was startled to see all the green stuff again. Trees…Grass….Shrubs. That's what they called it. I remember.

My rescuer did not share my pleasure. She was crinkling her nose violently. "You…you…smell-bad…." She wrenched the crank to her window.

"You should have waited till Thursday. I just smell like fire and brimstone on Thursdays."

"Couldn't wait. No time. Do your window. Can you reach for the back? It's the books, you see. I don't want them to pick up your-"

"Sure." I twisted back in my seat. Only then I saw the books. Kids books. A ton of them. In the window. The seat. The floor. Suddenly she cut a corner a little too quick. The car went flying. So did the books. Into my face.

"Lie-bwearwy closing?" I said, massaging my nose.

"No. I am."

"What?"

"I am. My store. Our store, I mean, my grandma's and mine. Lookity Bookity. A bookstore. For kids. We're finished. I mean, all washed up. Done. By Friday, if…."

"If what?"

"We don't stop them!"

"Stop…who?"

"Stop-ow!--itchy all of a sudden." She slipped her hand under her sock, and scratched.

My heart stopped. Sock! Sock! I had to turn my head away.

"Lice? Where did this come from? Weird. What was I-yes! Stop the Perishing Publishing Group! The evil conglomerate of corporate-driven motivational book sellers. You've heard of Scam and Eggs: Cooking the Books for Fun and Profit?"

"No."

"Or She Steeps to Conquer: World Domination for Teetotalers?"

"No."

"Or The Banana Zone: Giving Your Competitors the Slip?"

"No. But I do detect a common theme…it makes me kind of…hungry."

"The food angle? Oh yeah. Cozy images of luv-ely comfort food, to disguise their evil intent to control and commercialize your life into four-square, itemized, down-sized, objectified, itinerized packets of empty space. Oh, you should see the title list we have…Gruel to Rule, The Apple of Your Aisle, The Pudding and Dumping Marketing Book…we have it all."

"But you don't want to?"

"No! We're a children's bookstore. Kids should have fun! Not be…inventoried."

"But if it's a kid store…what's the problem? You don't have to carry those books."

"Oh, but that's where you're wrong. You see, it's like this-"

"Yes?"

She paused, hopped a sidewalk, knocked over a paper box, returned to the road, before continuing. "We…owe them money. Not only are they the most despicable publishers on earth, they've become our slumlords as well-they buy up and pull out the ground right under the feet of every independent store that opposes them. If we don't start carrying their books by Friday, they're going to turn us into another Charlee Chicken Vixens drive-thru."

I briefly pictured my beautiful client in the infamous Chicken Vixens get-up, banned in eight countries. I erased it immediately. Disloyal thought. Distracting too.

"So where do I-" I started to ask, but she suddenly careened to a stop in front of a small grotto. Pardon me, the bookstore. I pegged it as the smallest future Chicken Vixens franchise the world will ever know. But if you don't mind edging sideways like a crab and reading out of the corners of your eyes, you'll do alright.

We edged through the lavender coloured door, tinkling a little bell, situated, not surprisingly, next to my ear. Fortunately my new deafness dulled the shrieks of the little rug-rats capering about. Miniature clientele have their drawbacks, I find.

My own client capered off to a small, Granny Clampett version of herself behind the counter, hair in a bun, silver-rimmed glasses. I looked down. And the boots.

"Gran, this is the detective who's going to save us from the Chicken Vixens."

"That's nice, dear. Have you seen my crayons?"

"Er, no," she replied, with a tinge of evasion and terror to my trained ear.

"Oh, dear," she clicked. "How will I finish my book at this rate?" With that she sighed and took a brown paper bag at her elbow and squeezed out the contents over a large piece of paper, like so much paint from a tube. It looked more like lunch, but what do I know about art? She prodded it around, looked at it critically, spit, worked that into the mix, and swept the excess pulp off with the back of one hand. She sighed with satisfaction and lifted the page to show me. My gut reaction told me she had something. A grilled chicken burrito, when handled properly and with the right amount of agility, can be a frightening thing.

"Gran was a student of the great Action painter Ballocks," my client said, not quite looking the work square in the opus. "Now she's working on a new version of Grimm's Fairy Tales."

"And this is?" I asked.

"Little Red Riding Hood," the artist proudly announced. "After digestion."

"Marvelous," I said, swiftly turning on my heel. And I meant it.

I had the answer.

"Let's get some fresh air," I wheezed to my client. We bolted to the door.

After we had both sucked in a few barrels of Mother Nature's finest, I explained my plan.

"I have a terrible secret," I began.

"I thought so," said my client. "The way you keep staring at my socks!"

"What! Er, no! I mean, not that. I-I'm a writer. A failed writer. The worst."

"Oh, God, not another one."

"'Fraid so. I was once a famous detective. I had an office, a partner, and a wonderful girl Friday whom I ignored. But then, one morning, while whipping up a bowl of my famous blueberry and crustacean pancakes, I thought, why keep this to myself? Why not share with the world? So I started on…The Book."

"I can see what's coming," she sighed.

"A cookbook, written in that snappy little wise-cracking detective style," I enthused. The madness was coming on again. "It would-will--make millions!"

"Uh-huh."

"Flapjacks for Flatfoots: Hard-boiled Recipes for Gumshoes on the Go."

"Right."

"I slaved on it day and night! It consumed me-my business-my friends-I lost everything! But I kept sending it out, one publisher after another."

"And you got nothing but rejection notices?"

"No-worse than that. Funeral notices! From every publisher. They all went like this: 'So and So Books regret to inform you that our Editor, J.Sourpuss'-or whatever-'expired in agony shortly after receiving your manuscript. For this reason we cannot accept your work at this time.'"

"I see. Hence the temp jobs. But how does that help us?"

"Easy. All we have to do is this…."

Epilogue.

Everything is marketing. Ask anybody. A dog is just a mutt until it stands next to human, and then it's a Triumph of Evolution by comparison. So all it took was to make a few minor adjustments to my book-a comma here, a massive re-write there-and the new title Filleting them Alive: Getting Ahead with Salmonella and other Rapacious Repasts, to make a success of it.

'Course, that depends on how you term success.

After the all-nighter re-formatting the book, and throwing in Granny Client's gorge-raising illustrations for good measure, we fedexed the thing to the PPG and waited.

And waited.

The fateful Friday came and went, and not a peep or a squawk or a single Chicken Vixen in sight.

And another Friday.

Finally Lookity Bookity got a letter from some lawyer informing them that, owing to a mysterious epidemic that swept through the offices of the PPG, decimating the board, the executive, and most anybody left in a suit, the corporation was now defunct, and their tenants were free to do anything they wanted.

Such as flourish, prosper, and forge a new golden age of Literature.

Funny what you can do when you keep your socks up.