Chapter 16: All in a Days Work

Walter didn't hear the alarm going off. He usually didn't hear it, and so it didn't do a very good job of waking him up. After about 15 minutes, he finally became aware of the alarm, but it wasn't because it had awoke him, it was because his bed was on fire. A more accurate description would be that the fire awoke Walter but the fire alarm was still going off. "Geez not again!"

Walter rolled out of bed, getting out from underneath the burning sheets. This wasn't the first time his bed caught on fire and so he grabbed the easily accessible fire extinguisher out from underneath. "One of these days I'm going to have to figure out why that keeps happening. Maybe the candles I keep lit on top of the sheets are attracting whoever keeps lighting my bed on fire. That's probably it, because the nights I don't light the candles, no one sets my bed on fire."

He looked around, it was light outside already. A quick glance at the clock and he started to panic. "Crap I'm late for work!" Walter started to get dressed quickly. His job was important, and being late to work meant not getting paid at all. His position was very time critical. One could equate his job to having to press a red button at exactly the same time every day to avoid a nuclear plant from melting down. Too soon, and nothing happens, a minute too late and you're out of a job, and your hair starts falling out, and your face melts off, and you glow. Yes, Walter's job was pivotal and he was not going to make it on time unless he hurried.

"I'll have to take the glide wire out my window to get to the street faster. No time to walk down the flights of stairs, and besides its fun." Walter hadn't quite mastered the glide wire that was installed at his bedroom window. The wire worked simple enough, you attach a little mini rig to the wire, hold on tight and glide down to the ground. It was a pretty safe device with automatic shock dampeners and braking capacity, no one should get hurt using it. But this was Walter.

As he approached the window and the descent device, he tripped, missed the device and fell straight out the open window. He fell a couple stories into a garbage dumpster filled with razor blades and used needles in the back alley behind his house.

Actually usually it was filled with razor blades and used needles. Walter was surprised to find that today it was filled with fluffy pillows apparently stuffed with twenty dollar bills, non-sequential and untraceable.

Two of the gangsters standing near the dumpster fished Walter out. "Walter our dearest friend, on behalf of the family, we would like to apologize that your normal dumpster filled with razor blades and needles could not be available to you on this the day that is most commonly known as Tuesday. We deeply regret to have put you at a disadvantage as to not be able to rely on our dumpster services. There was a mix up our warehouse and we were on the way over to correct it this moment."

Walter dusted himself off, pulling a couple 20s out of the folds of his uniform and placed them in one of the gangster's hands. "No problem fellas, I'm not going to say anything to your boss."

"Thank you Walter, you have done us a great service this day. But aren't you're late for work?, you better get a move on." And with that Walter hurried off towards the street and got on his little motor scooter. With any luck he'd be able to make it to the market district in time.

After a quick ride across town, Walter arrived at the market district with a couple minutes to spare. He parked his scooter and locked it up to a tree with some duct tape, wire, a sledge hammer, and some chewing gum. He found his balloon and creme pie vendor cart and wheeled it over towards the main road. Checking his watch, he noticed he still had a couple minutes left.

Finally being able to take a breath, Walter looked around. The market was already filled with activity. A glass moving company was unloading a long pane of glass off their truck. People selling baskets and other cheap imitation items were spread all around with a decent crowd of people pretending to browse the items. Off to the side, a group of market workers were piling up some crates filled with goods from a wagon filled with similarly marked crates.

Curiosity overtook Walter, and he wheeled his cart in the direction of the market workers. "You guys here for the job?" he asked.

"What, oh yes, that's right" one of them responded back to Walter not even looking up for more then a glance.

Walter looked at one of the boxes reading the side, "Marbles? Must be an expensive client."

"Yeah, we get them every once and a while. We also have some chickens too to go with the marbles." Walter looked confused. The worker added "Don't ask me, just bringing what we're told where we're told. We should get back to work though. Well good luck."

Walter nodded. "You too." He then wheeled his cart over a little bit, and checked his watch one last time. The glass movers were crossing the road now heading for a shop which had lost their window a couple days past in a robbery. "Alright, here we go." Walter started to cross the market place announcing the sale of creme pies and balloons.

Then he heard the revving of motors and some loud crashes. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a beat up silver Cadillac and a yellow HUMV come crashing through the pile of crates and the cart that was also holding crates. The crates burst sending marbles and chicken feathers everywhere. Walter dove hard backwards as the vehicles took out his vendor cart next splattering pies all over both vehicles and releasing all of his balloons into the air. Then of course there was the sound of shattering glass as the two vehicles raced through the pane of glass because the workers were midway across the market square. And in another moment, when all the dust, pies, marbles, glass, and feathers settled, both vehicles were long gone.

A man came out of one of the buildings and announced "Thank you all, pick up your checks here and we'll see you next time."

Walter grinned picking himself up off the ground and headed towards the man with the checks. He was happy he made it on time because he really needed the money. Sure the job was dangerous and sometimes infrequent but it suited him just fine.

Walter reached the man and received his check. The man looked at Walter as he handed him the check, "All in a days work, right?"