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victor woke up the next morning. it was almost eight o’clock. it was a gray, rainy day outside.
he made himself a cup of store brand instant coffee and checked the news and weather on his phone.
the main story was about an 83 year old woman living in an assisted living facility in nevada who had won 3.7 billion dollars in a lottery. she did not have anything to say about it, at least to reporters.
this reminded victor - if he needed reminding - that he had lost fifty dollars to willie the night before betting on the redskins.
now he needed money more than ever so he decided, hopeless as it sounded, to go over to see mr green at his deli on wherever street - he checked the note on his phone and it was 11th street - per willie’s information.
*
it was still raining outside. victor did not want to pay for bus fare and he never wore a hat or carried an umbrella because those things were for girlymen so he got kind of wet.
he found the deli - green’s deli. he had never actually been in a deli before and was not sure what they sold, especially at nine o’clock in the morning.
the place was small - smaller than it looked from outside. there were no other customers. a chubby old man with thick glasses and a mop of white hair was behind the counter. was this mr green?
“what can i do for you?” the old man asked.
victor saw some bagels in the glass case, so he said “a bagel.” for some reason he expected some kind of sarcastic response, but the old man just said, “any particular kind?”
“um - plain.”
“anything on it? you want it sliced?”
“yeah - sliced. nothing on it.”
“you want coffee - something to drink?”
“coffee would be good.”
“large, small, medium? how do you want it?”
was he expected to say something like columbian vanilla, or sierra leone five bean? victor hated coffee shops. he said, “medium, black”, and braced himself for a sneer.
the old man just said, “coming right up.” what a friendly, unpretentious place! maybe i should start coming to these delis, victor thought.
“are you mister green?” victor asked the old man, who had his back to him pouring the coffee.
“that’s me.”
“wil - parker schofield sent me.”
“why didn’t you say so? you looking for work?”
“yes.” victor picked up the coffee and the brown bag with the two slices of plain bagel in it that mr green had placed on the counter.
“you done this kind of work before?”
“i don’t even know what the work is.”
“ha ha. no problem. but i’ll pay you the rookie rate.”
“i guess. what might that be?”
“one hundred.”
victor had been hoping for two hundred, but he said “o k”.
mr green looked at victor as if expecting a question, so victor said “what do i do? what is this job?”
“oh, a little bit of this, a little bit of that, but you travel to another dimension. you got a problem with that?”
“no.”
“ever travel to another dimension before?”
“uh - not so far as i know.”
“ha ha, good answer.”
just then another customer came in, a teenage girl with a big ring in her nose, and mister green broke off his conversation with victor to serve her.
so far, victor was pleased with the way things were going. one hundred dollars was not much, but it was a start. and this other dimension stuff, somebody must be doing it, so how bad could it be?
7. assignment - cruise ship
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