Timid Times in the Seamy Valley
The Kid didn't know what hit him.
It was wet, mildly slimy, and something stank, though he couldn't be sure whether or not it was the thing that hit him that was stinking or if it was the general location in which he found himself. Now that he found himself considerably closer to the floor, which was much more than mildly slimy, he was, at the very least, considering the possibility that it was the general location.
The thing that hit him was a kipper.
"These are the hazards of working down at the docks, Kid," said the big burly man attached to the big burly legs of which The Kid was staring at the business end. At least he assumed the business end of a leg would be the feet, which was what he was staring at, being on the floor. The Kid was quite a runner in his day, and so spent a lot of time thinking about his feet, and feet in general. When he thought of "his day" he generally meant about three months earlier from whichever point he found himself at at the moment. Three months ago he was in school, running track and field events, watching the girls at the starting line, not stretching properly and just carrying on like any school kid. The big burly man, who nudged him just now with a foot, was also attached to the tail end of the kipper, with which The Kid had been ceremoniously smacked. "D'you hear me?" he asked.
"Yes. Yes I do." It seemed safe to get up from the foul fish-smelling floor, especially now that he could see what the big man had held behind his back out in plain view. Track and field, if it did anything, prepared him to move suddenly. Like, for example, when the girls' high jump was on in one part of the stadium and, moments later, the girls' 100 yard dash was about to kick off halfway 'round the track. He crouched, wiped his hands on his jeans, and stood up.
The big man put his arm around The Kid's shoulders, the kipper flopping against his ribcage, and occasionally on the bare skin of his arm. "All this will be yours some day, my son."
"Will it? I just came down to do some packing for the fall season, though. Do you own all this?"
"Well, no. It's just the sort of thing I say." He had an odd way of gesturing about with the kipper, indicating walk-in freezers off to the left and loading bay openings draped with plastic curtains to the right, as if he were but the anchor point for a pendulum made of a kipper.
"I see. Nice place, though."
They made it to the office, The Kid lodged under the armpit of the burly man and his kipper, a well worn kipper, from what The Kid could see, rap-tapping against his t-shirt, which showed a few of his ribs through the now soggy patch where the kipper made time. This puzzle they made, somewhat ill-fitting, squeezed through the doors, which bowed to the sides to let them pass, The Kid's bare arm getting scraped by the cheap fake wood.
The burly man deposited him in the chair facing the desk as he passed with a flexing of his arm, and the fish smell still got neither better nor worse inside, with the door swinging shut behind them.
"Now, I am going to have to start you at three twenty five an hour. Is that all right?"
This is when things got weirder.
to be continued... ?
Summary
disclaimer:
This week, well, let me tell you. This crazy week.
And next week. 'Till then.
Discuss this in the forums
Discuss the horoscopes in the forums
Forum hosting provided by forumthing.