A Job by: Adam Savage      I was in between jobs. And it seemed that everyone around me was, too. There were bodies everywhere. I hadn't seen them before but there they were. Like some open-air cemetery. Laid to rest on curbs and sidewalk benches. On the steps of churches. They lay in repose, awaiting some appointed hour when they would rise up and become people again. I hadn't seen them before but there they all were. The multitudes of the dead.      I was standing over a bejeweled black man, watching his dreams pitter-patter across his face. Rics pulled up in his Rabbit. His eyes were bloodshot.      "Hey! Let's go. We're losing time," he said.      "Keep it down. He's falling."      "What are you talking about?"      "He's been falling for three minutes. He just keeps hitting the ground."      "So what. Get in the car." The passenger door of Rics' car didn't open so I had to climb through the window.      "Don't you have anything better to do?" He zoomed off madly around the corner.      "Well he just kept falling," I reasoned. "I figured eventually he had to wake up or die. Those are the rules, right? Those are the only two options, right?" Rics was constantly accelerating, madly swerving in and out of traffic. He normally drove like he was on speed but today he was especially reckless. It was invigorating.      "Man, who cares about that. We got a job to do. Tonight we go out and get steaks and au gratin potatoes. To celebrate." Rics was wearing a cowboy hat and a wife-beater. It was as nondescript as he could be. I didn't count the sunglasses because he never took them off.      My relationship with Rics was somewhat one-sided. He was likable enough, a little high-strung, but I didn't even have his phone number. I didn't even know if he had a phone. But for some reason he always included me in his plans. He was basically a good guy.      We drove in silence for a while. Rics jerking his car through the city streets and me flinging peace signs at pedestrians we almost hit.      "Let me smoke your cigarette." I gave him my cigarette. "Tell me a story. I'm getting tense."      "Nina stuck Jerry with a kitchen knife."      "Right on."      "Ya, I saw the hole."      "That raw, man. That's real raw."      The cigarette fell out of his mouth and hit the floor by his feet.      "Shit. Get that, will you?" I leaned over and felt around on the floor mat. My face was tickled by his hairy knee poking through a hole in his jeans. My hand rummaged through the hairy floor mat like my face on Rics' knee.      "I can't find it."      "Wait. I see it. Hold on." Rics dove to the floor for his smoke. The car listed far into the oncoming lane and I thought that was going to be it. "What are you doing? I said hold on."      "Right. Sorry."      "Jesus, man. You're gonna kill us." He took a final drag on the cigarette and threw it out the window. "Oh, shit. Here it is." He swerved to the curb and we came to a stop in front of a pet shop.      "What. This is it?"      "I'll be right back." He jumped out of the Rabbit and ran into the pet store. About a minute later he came out with a little paper sack. He tossed it onto the floor at my feet. It toppled over and tried to squirm away.      "That's it?"      "No, that's not it," he said. "Those are baby mice for my snake. She hasn't eaten in two weeks." I looked at the bag in disgust. There was food in there, and it was moving.      "You feed it mice? Isn't there some kind of snake chow? Like in pellet form?" We were on the road again risking our lives.      "No way, man. A snake needs to hunt. It's in their cold blood."      "I wouldn't call cornering a baby mouse in a cage hunting."      "Well it's got to be alive, anyway. Or at least warm."      I cautiously picked up the bag. I could feel them rolling around inside looking for a teat.      "Don't let them smell you or they'll think you're their mother."      I gently pried open the bag and peered inside. There they were, six of them. Little hairless beans with eyes. They tumbled around and nosed at each other.      "It eats that many of them?" I asked. "How much do they cost?"      "Six bucks. Snakes are cheap. Except for the doctor bills. It's hard to find a good reptile physician. My brother's snake went on Prozac. Man, that was expensive."      This occupied my thinking for about two miles.      "So what happens if they think you're their mother?"      "You start paying attention when they cry."      Rics was leaned over the steering wheel, feverishly planning out his next move. I looked at the speedometer. He was averaging fifty.      In about eight minutes we were on the west side of town in a small industrial district. Rics drove slowly now through rows upon rows of warehouses. They all looked the same except one of them had a number on it that would make sense in his brain. I had the feeling we were driving through some industrial age mortuary. Each one a giant casket built to house the mysterious remains of a lifetime. The mice were squeaking on the floor and it unnerved me. Finally, Rics pulled into a driveway and stopped in front of the oversize garage door.      "What do you think's in there?"      "Illegal arms." He chewed at a fingernail.      "What?"      "It's a warehouse. What do you think they put in warehouses?"      "Books or something."      "No, man. You always hear about a stash of illegal arms in a warehouse in New Jersey."      "Shit," I said.      "That or coffee."       I looked in on the mice again. They seemed cold so I put them on my lap. Rics was tapping the steering wheel with his index finger.      "Goddammit. What do you think they're doing?" he said nervously.      "I don't know. I don't even know what we're doing." Then the massive garage door opened and a guy in a three-piece suit and snake-skin boots waved us in.      "Ok. It's ok. It's good," Rics said to some guardian angel. We slowly drove into the darkened warehouse and the garage door shut behind us. Rics put his seatbelt on and we stared out the front window.      "Why did you do that?" I asked.      "Why did I do what?"      "Why did you put your seatbelt on?"      "I don't know. Forget about it. It doesn't matter." The was a tap on Rics' window. He rolled it down and a dark man stuck his head in the window.      "Shut off the car and open the trunk," he hissed. Rics killed the engine and dangled the keys in front of my face.      "Open the trunk."      "What, me? Why do I have to open the trunk?"      "Just open the trunk." I grabbed the keys, rolled down the window, and slithered out onto the warehouse floor. There wasn't much in this building, just a few pallets of something in the corner. There were a couple of lit cigarettes dancing circles by the pallets. I opened the trunk and waited leaning against the bumper.      "Get in the car," Rics yelled. I clambered back through the window and gave him the keys.      "This is dumb."      "Steaks or no steaks, Frank? Potatoes or no potatoes?" I was silent. "That's what I thought."      I looked through the back window to see what was going on.      "Don't do that." He swatted at my face. Something heavy was put into the trunk and then it was shut. The warehouse door opened and Rics quickly backed out onto the street. Once we were away he turned on the radio.      "What's going on, Rics? Is there a dead body in the trunk?"      "So what if there is?"      "What do you mean so what if there is? People don't drive around dead bodies."      "Sure they do. How do you think they get to the cemeteries? The dead bodies don't walk there."      "Ok, you're right. So what if there is. I just want to know who it is. We should know who it is, right? We're driving it around."      "No, I'm driving it around. You're just going to help me get it out of the trunk." It was good to have a purpose. "Now light me another cigarette and tell me another story."      "Jerry hooked up with some other woman," I said.      "Who?"      "I don't know."      "Was it Julie, again?"      "No."      "Was it Julie?!" he yelled.      "No! This woman is probably back in Virginia by now."      "Son of a bitch."      Rics was driving very cautiously, leaving his cigarette in the ashtray when he wasn't smoking it. This made me more worried than before. The thing in the trunk was like a great, hazy mystery and I could tell Rics would protect it like his life. We were out of the industrial district and on the freeway, blending in with hundreds of other cars. Their trunks were probably full of hedge trimmers and groceries and other things mundane. I felt very tender to Rics now, though I didn't know why.      "Was she hot?"      "I guess so. I only saw her topless and then Jerry made me leave. That's why Nina tried to stab me, too. Jerry was passed out, that's how she got him, but I was still conscious."      "Oh, you're lucky man," he said. "I seen the way she uses knives, she made me lasagna once."      "Ya, she felt real bad after that, to Jerry cause she got him, but not to me. I think she's still pissed that I got out of the way."      We drove for another twenty minutes and then Rics exited the freeway at Twilight Avenue.      "Hey, how are the mice doing? Are they still moving?"      "Ya, I'm keeping them warm." We drove around the south side then. It seemed like we were going in circles. When I mentioned this to Rics he said it was just in case. I looked in on my mice. I could see they were dreaming like the guy on the bench.      We drove around some neighborhoods for a while and then Rics stopped at a service station and put some gas in his Rabbit. I got out and bought a Suzie-Q because I was hungry. When we were back on the road we got to talking about boats. Rics dreamt of retiring offshore on a clipper and drinking up each storm like it was champagne. That sounded like a fine idea to me.      "In fact, after the steak and au gratin potatoes, the rest of the money is going to my boat."      "Me, too," I said. "The rest to the boat." I didn't know how much money it would be but we had a connection then and this was the right thing to say.      Rics kept checking his watch and eventually his driving became more directed. He finally came to a stop in the half-circle drive of a rest home.      "This is it?"      "This is the address I got. And it looks right. Come on, we got to put it in one of these apartments." He pointed to where there was a row of patio doors.      We pulled the car up to as close as we could get it and got out and opened the trunk. Inside was a wooden box. It was approximately two by two by five and had no markings except for a post-it note that read "gladiolas". We stood and looked at it for some time in wonderment. The intricate pattern of the wood seemed to be trying to tell us something. We just didn't know how to understand it.      "Ok, time's up. This place don't make me feel good." Rics spit in his hands and crossed himself.      We reached into the trunk together and lifted out the box.      "Holy Christ, this thing must be two hundred pounds," he said.      "What do you think is in it?"      "How should I know? For all I know it could be full of shit." This intrigued me. The fact that we could have been carrying around shit this entire time. I almost liked the idea. It absolved us of responsibility.      "Let's go," Rics grunted. "We've got to put it in the place with the gladiolas."      We staggered over to the patios and found the right apartment. Rics opened the door with his foot and we set the box down next to a recliner. Rics reached under the couch and brought out a manila envelope.      "All right," he said. "Let's get out of here."      "Wait a minute. I gotta pee."      "What do you mean you gotta pee? Let's go."      "I'm nervous so I gotta pee. I can't pee outside."      "All right. Hurry up."      I found the bathroom and was amazed by all the mirrors in it. Looking at myself there I got to thinking about how much I'd peed in my life. I could see it all streaming down into a huge drain and it seemed like a lot.      When I got out Rics was standing with his back to me, facing the patio door. He was holding his sunglasses and staring at a man in a business suit. The guy was a monster. His eyes were deep-set in his head like chocolates and his teeth hid wetly behind his lips. It wasn't natural the way he filled the room with his earthy scent. He made me worried because some people have that effect upon you and I cursed myself for having to pee.      The first thing he made us do was sit down. I got the recliner; Rics got the couch. Then he paced back and forth, circling into the kitchen a couple times. He didn't say a word and his face didn't move, either. The next thing was he took off his shoes and socks. I thought that meant the end right there because I knew of a guy that always took off his shirt before he killed someone if he had the time. But he only got a drink of water. After that he just looked at us for a couple minutes. I didn't do anything but stare at the coffee table and breath in the earth smell that was floating off his body. I could hear Rics breathing in jagged wheezes. It alternately got faster and slower. I felt bad for him cause he knew he was going to die and he had told me about the boat.      Finally the guy pointed at me and thumbed me out the door. I didn't wait, I just walked out with my head down. I sat there waiting for Rics or a horrible sound and wishing I knew how to hotwire a car. The sun was shining and it was very warm coming through the windshield.      Rics showed up ten minutes later, pale and shiny with sweat. He sat down behind the wheel and stared through the windshield without blinking.      "Thanks for waiting." He rested his hands on his legs.      "What did he say?"      "He didn't say nothing, man."      "What did he do?"      "He just breathed in my ear, man. It was so warm."      When we got back out to the freeway I opened up the manila envelope. Rics counted the money while driving and gave me two hundred dollars. I don't know how much he got. So we went to Woolly's Steakhouse and got steak and au gratin potatoes. It was the best meal I'd had in a long time and I was glad Rics invited me on the job. Then he and I spent the rest of the money on some good stuff he knew of, though I think he hid some of his share. But it was ok because it was probably for his boat.      The next day when he drove me back to my place, I slipped the bag of mice into my pocket when he wasn't looking and climbed out the window. Two of them got crushed but the rest made it so I thought it was a pretty good showing.