And Red Overalls

There was too much sunlight that I was exposed to there. I felt bleached and scoured by it, solar abrasions. I was grateful when the back of a lady’s hat cast a strip of shadow across my face, giving me a small patch of relief. What a beautiful strip of shadow. From a thin green bottle, I squeezed out more sunblock to cover myself in. Tinted so that it wouldn’t be as insanely white-purple on my black skin as it otherwise would, it spread evenly down my arms, cooling my roasted skin. I let out a breath and looked around, trying for the thousandth time to convince myself that it wasn’t completely ass-brained of me to move to a place where it was literally always summer when I knew perfectly well that I hated the sun.

I hustled along to keep up with my friends. Curse them and their long legs. They were a gaggle of bouncing hats sliding off to the horizon without me. “Guys, guys wait I — ” Tall Katherine grabbed me by my large yellow shirt and pulled me along behind her. “Pick it up. This guy and his kid are going to meet us at the cake shop just up ahead,” she huffed. “It’s not too much farther now.”

Well… ok. I was going to give Tall Katherine the benefit of the doubt. She had a light, high voice that I found oddly reassuring, and I forced myself to match her stride. Tall Katherine was fabulous. Her short, shiny lavender hair bounced as she walked. In the sand that piled up on the beach, her steps left deep pits that I chased along the path. I heard a voice call out from the front: “Where’s the short one? How’s she doing?” I dug around in my pocket for my inhaler, huffing. “I’m average height, Shona.” I called toward the front of the line. “Bitch, I’m damn near 5’5’’!” Shona, the woman with the long black hair, looked back at Katherine and laughed. She would be the one to buy me the dress later, the one that got me in trouble — but that’s a different story. Here in the sun, vans and bikes and taxis zoomed past us, honking their horns and ringing their bells in a dense, warm racket that I took some solace in. It would be impossible to be alone here. We sidled up to the edge of the road, preparing to cross. Speeding green mini-buses rocketed past us, driving up clouds of red dust. I felt some of it settle across my shoulders. The mini-buses were stuffed with squishy crowds of happily sweaty people, some hanging out of the windows with their shirts tied around their heads to mop up the sweat, others nose-deep in their phones, messaging their friends or impatient aunties. A man sitting on the roof of one bus waved at me as he ate a rice ball. Shielding my eyes from the sun, I sneezed and waved back. Just a few days ago a man had been hit full-force by one of these buses and died. Traffic laws were considered vague guidelines in this part of my new little town.

We waited on Tall Katherine, eagle-eyed, to give the all-clear. She waved her hand quickly and we all jolted into action, hauling ass across the road like frazzled turkeys before the next wave of traffic could come.

“Hahaha! Ooooh, look at your hair!” Shona’s friend Hyora reached over and tugged at my bangs. They were frizzing out with sweat, an outcome that I had been waiting for even as I spent that futile hour on the floor of Hyora’s apartment bedroom with a flat iron and a hand mirror. Huffing, I decided that I would find a pool later to dunk my head in, not caring who looked, and let my hair kink out unhindered for the rest of the day. At least it would cool me off. I looked at the shining, bouncing waves of Shona’s hair and deflated a little. Wasn’t I too old to still have these insecurities? I was in my 20s now. I was a woman. Black hair, well my Black hair doesn’t do that. And it doesn’t have to, does it? I rolled my eyes, annoyed to still be having this conversation with myself. I tugged at one of the straps of my red overalls and shook myself back to the moment. The bright yellow and white sign of the cake shop loomed ahead, and Tall Katherine put her hand on my shoulder as our little crowd of six stepped around the waiting line of hungry cake-seekers. They stood, shuffling and chattering loudly, with phones in hand ready to share artfully-filtered photos of their mini tortes. A small cluster formed near the head of the line where a pair of young men, one in braces, held up the drizzled cheesecakes they had just bought. The crowd cooed, impressed.

From the corner of my eye I saw a stocky man with graying hair and deeply tanned, weathered skin push gently through the mass of people. He looked like what I imagined an ancient stone mason looked like, which made his trendy, delicate glasses and expensive pastel suit slightly alarming. He looked like he had money. I clutched my own phone in my hand and hoped he would offer to buy us a cake. After all, I wanted to take a picture too. He got closer, and I could see the little girl holding his hand. Not little actually, because she was about my height, and I’m very likely 5’5’’.

As soon as he got close enough to be heard over the sugar-fueled din of the crowd, he spoke. “HI! IS THIS THE ONE?” His voice was thunderous. I’m surprised the sound of his own voice didn’t shake his thin little glasses right off of his face. He gave us a huge, red-cheeked smile. We all greeted each other formally. I looked him in the eye and smiled. “A pleasure to meet you.” That was good. I did it, I said hello and didn’t disintegrate. He frowned a little.

“Well the voice isn’t right exactly,” he said. “But I guess I can’t expect it to be perfect all around. She’s already closer than I expected.” I gave a dry little smile.

The girl was also wearing overalls, orange where mine were red. She scratched at her cheek and looked me up and down, muttering “Howzit?”

“Hey,” I said. Instant rapport.

I looked at Tall Katherine and the woman next to her who was a bit older than us. The older woman was preoccupied with staring into the window to see the next batch of cakes being brought out. They would not be giving me direction then. Okay. I could. I could do this. I remembered the conversation over breakfast that morning: “Can she handle handouts?” the oldest woman had asked. Before I could speak up to say “Actually no I’ve never really — ” Hyora had piped up with “Totally.” I had tried to be presentable today, so I’d studied the others in the street, rocking and bouncing through the milling droves of people, handing out the endless glossy cards that seemed to regenerate by magic.

The smile I had on my face was well-composed. I had built it, muscle by muscle, in my hand mirror.

I remembered the week before when Shona had shown me the message. I was never more glad to be told that I looked like that damned Riki. That cartoon character was apparently going to be my meal ticket. Riki had a short, fluffy puff of black hair on top of her head, punctuated by a shock of fuzzy bangs. She wore a bright yellow shirt and red overalls with tiny shorts, her standard uniform for running around on adventures with her gang of friends, all of whom were made of food. Riki was silly and wily and and usually meant well, but she had an unfortunate habit of eating one or two of her friends when she got really hungry or sometimes in her sleep. Her friends often got mad but it was okay, because they always forgave her in the end. After all, Riki just couldn’t help it. Then she and her friends would be back to frolicking through lightbulb forests or floating along on rivers made of umbrellas. You might expect me to say that I hated Riki, but I didn’t, even though I had been getting compared to her since I was 14. She was charming in her own way. She was slightly terrifying if you thought too long about her, but who isn’t?

The man in glasses ran a local team of card-passers. For 12 bucks an hour, young people in striped suits and neon-colored dresses handed out flyers and cards for psychics and churches and electronics kiosks and fried meat chains. And I was going to be one of the lucky few. This is how I would contribute to the group, to this new little clan I had joined. Tall Katherine and our friends had made a pledge to find me a work opportunity out here, and they took it seriously. Clearly. A whole network had been thrown into action, gears turning while I slept or looked up directions to the bus depot (“She’s moving out here,” “We gotta get the girl out here,” “Tommy he says he might be able to find her something”). And somehow, magically, someone had made it click. And Hyora convinced this guy that a Riki-look-alike was the perfect attraction to pull in customers. He simply wouldn’t be able to print enough flyers, people would be grabbing them out of my hands so fast. Everyone loved Riki, right?

I needed to make sure this went well.

“My name is Juan. Nice to meet you young lady. So what questions do you have?”
“Uh, well. How often do we get breaks?” No. No why did I ask that. That would just make me seem lazy.

“HA!” That laugh again. I was growing to like it, actually, even if it did make me give a small, awkward twitch of surprise. He continued, “You don’t. No breaks. You get a pee run though, usually best to time it for when you run out of cards. Pass out all your cards, stop at the loo on the way to grab more.” Lovely.

“How long does your average employee stay with you? What’s your — ”

He blinked at me for a moment. A small pause followed before he laughed a little, nervously.

Slapping a hand onto the top of my head, Tall Katherine suddenly appeared, her mouth full of cake. “Ha! She’s from out of town! Here, eat some cake.” A slice of sticky strawberry cake was suddenly shoved into my mouth. I grumbled and chewed.

“That’s perfect! Wow, she really looks like Riki when she eats.” Juan the Boss handed me my papers and a fat stack of cards advertising a new chicken stand.

“Sell well!” he shouted, pumping his fist. He marched off, “And take good care of Felicia! Drop her off in two days.”

Felicia? I turned around and realized the girl was still standing there. Right. Hyora and Shona had agreed to take charge of Juan’s kid for a while. Say what you would about us, but we had plenty of hustle. They had seemed eager to talk about it over breakfast:

“If we don’t come back in 2 days, we’re probably dead.”
“WHAT?”
“Think girl. Why would you give your kid to semi-strangers for two days? He’s probably gotten some kidnap threat. And it will definitely be cheaper to pay us a babysitter’s fee than a ransom. So there we are.”

The older woman of our group — I didn’t know her name yet since she had a talent for never quite mentioning it even when I’d asked — walked up from her post at the shop window to stand in front of me. She straightened my stack of cards and patted me on the butt. “You’ll be great. Off you go.” She turned. “Take good care of the kid,” she muttered to Shona and Hyora. “I’m off to run that errand. I’ll see you at 6.”

She melted into the crowd, scratching the back of her neck.

Well, better start now. I scoped out a street corner where a couple of other card-passers were working. I didn’t care about the potential competition. I figured that my Blackness — and my cartoonness I guess — would help me stand out. Besides, standing alone on a street corner had its own risk. Better to start a little smaller, a little safer. I turned and waved at the other girls as they walked away, winking and mouthing “good luck.”

Then I did what I had told myself I would never do. I started singing Riki’s theme song. “Come eat with meeee, come find a tasty treeeat…” I did the small, stupid pirouette that she does in the show, one foot out and a hand above her head. The passersby snorted and smiled at me. One woman pointed her popsicle at me as she and her friend walked by. The first pair of people to come up to me was a tall middle aged woman and her child. The little kid pulled off their baseball cap and looked up at me, grinning while their mother pored over the deals for reduced-price chicken wings. I turned slightly to move my backside into the shade. I couldn’t wait for the sun to set.
“Hehehe,” the kid laughed. They held up a slice of chocolate bread in their fist and pushed it toward my face, eyes wide in wonder. I stared at the kid for a moment. “Ahhh what the hell?” I thought. I took a huge bite of the treat and the child shrieked in delight, clutching and half-hiding behind the mother’s leg, laughing.

“Just like RIKI! Hehehe!” His mother looked down at him and smiled, then looked up at me. She paused for a moment as if deciding something, then fished a small bill out of her pocket to give me as a tip while the kid and I sang Riki’s theme song together. She handed me the bill and said, “Have a good night. Eat well.”

The child waved frantically at me as the two of them strode off. Swelling with the pride of my first successful giveaway, I gave a small wave back and turned the bill over in my now-sweaty fingers. I stopped to look closer at some black marks on the edge of the paper. I unfolded it and held it out in the light: She’d written her number on it.

Hearing a few voices getting closer, I lifted my head quickly and looked around, stuffing the bill in my pocket. The first two had attracted more of the people walking by to stop and look at me. I knew I had better milk the moment before their attention wandered. I did the song and dance again, bouncing from outstretched hand to outstretched hand to pass out my cards. A few of them clapped as I spun. I nearly twisted my ankle on the uneven payment. A lot of battered chicken would be getting sold tonight. My stomach growled. I hadn’t eaten since morning, but I figured it was better to stick it out and save the precious time between restocks to pee rather than stuff my face. I couldn’t afford to mess up my one pair of overalls.

A few steps away, a man in a shiny silver and green suit was handing out small round cards advertising a sale at a leather-working shop. Handing off a couple of cards to a group of businessmen, the suited man looked at me and gave a small, odd wave. Once the crowd around him passed, he walked over to me.

“What are you?” he asked. “I’m Riki.”
“OOhhhhh. Well Riki, stay here ok? Don’t go past there.” He pointed to a small strip of little shrubs that separated our patches of pavement. “I don’t want to see any of your cards come past my block.”

Frowning, I looked him up and down. Mostly up. He was much taller than me, with a blast of black hair on his head. I felt like I was staring up at an overgrown scrubbing brush. I decided to bluff my way through this.

“I’m gonna let that slide,” I told him. “Go away tall man, I’ve got chicken to sell.”

Tall man threw his head back and laughed, smoothly holding a card out to a passing elderly woman as he did. Shit, this guy was good. “Listen, some friends from the next block over have this thing going. You could make a lot more money off of this whole thing, if you want to be smart.” I thought about the girls, my friends, how they were all out getting money. Making it easier for all of us to make rent and stay in the town, stay together. I wanted to be smart like them. I decided I could at least hear what this guy had to say.

“Talk.”

I saw that the tall man was surprised that I was willing to listen. He hadn’t thought this far along, clearly. Before I could say anything else to him, a small crowd of college students ran up to us, wanting a picture with me. One of them, a small boyish student in a tank top and plaid shorts, held up a large sweetbread stuffed with strawberries. Oh no.

“Hey Riki! Look! It’s your sandwich friend!” Oh no.

Their friend, a plump young woman with a little bob and a big camera, asked “Can we take a picture? Stand in the center! Hold the sandwich.”
We arranged ourselves in a little line. I could feel one of them putting up bunny ears behind my head as I gripped the sandwich tightly. That was fine. What I was up to wasn’t much better. The sandwich was sticky on the bottom. It was making things difficult. But by the time our amateur photographer opened her mouth to give the instruction that I knew was coming, my teeth were already digging into the soft flesh of that damn strawberry sandwich.

“Wah, seriously though! Just like Riki.” The one in the plaid shorts looked at me and grinned widely, giving me a thumbs up. The taller friend next to him handed me a small bill and scoffed. I smiled widely and handed them the last of my first stack of cards. Their ID cards were in my back pocket. They shouldn’t have stood so close. I would have tall Katherine ransom the cards back to them later. They seemed nice. She wouldn’t overcharge them.

As I brushed off the crumbs and the glitter from my shirt, a fat bespectacled street vendor caught my eye. He was tanned and had his hair pulled up into a tiny little ponytail. Two massive eyebrows sat above his brown eyes, and his glasses occasionally gave a glare that you could see across the pavilion. I watched him as he flipped little pancakes, sweet and savory, on a hissing steel stovetop. Once in a while he would disappear under his counter to grab condiments and fillings that he would whip through the air like sparklers in a light show. His customers, especially the little ones, would ooohh and ahh as he whipped a streak of chili powder or melted butter over their pancake, presenting it to them with a flourish and a reminder that sliced toppings cost extra.

But I noticed something else. I saw the man take out a fat little yellow coin envelope and hand it to a woman in a fine pressed business suit. He didn’t make eye contact with her. In fact, she almost didn’t look in his direction at all. In one smooth motion she plucked out the little envelope from his fingers and slipped it into her bag. Holding a steaming onion pancake in one hand, she gave the vendor a quick polite nod and walked away. By then the vendor was already teasing a young couple with a loud donkey’s laugh and flipping up a fresh greasy batch. As I stood staring, something suddenly jabbed my stomach so hard that the air popped out of me with a loud grunt. There was a child there when I looked down, interrogating me loudly without the benefit of many teeth. Her brother had even fewer teeth, which I was grateful for, since he was chewing on my arm.

“Hey, what’s the point of this all-you-can-eat deal if there’s a one-hour time limit anyway?” their father whined at me as he looked down at the card he’d picked up.

My character voice suddenly reached glass-breaking new heights as I tried to appease him. “I’m so sorry sir, maybe you can ask the service staff when you get to the restaurant? I wouldn’t really know! So sorry so sorry!”

I jiggled my arm a little to try and shake his kid off, but my arm was locked securely between those squishy gums.

“But I really — ” He muttered.

“DON’T YELL AT RIKI!” His daughter yelled, turning her attention away from me to grab hold of her dad’s large stomach. As she spoke her tongue poked out from between one of the gaps in her teeth in a little spray of spit. “It’s not nice,” she scolded. Still clutching a handful of his belly in her fist, she reached out her hand to take one of my cards.

“Thank you very much Riki.” she said, and curtsied. She pulled her dad away by the stomach and as they moved away her brother finally detached from my arm to chase after them into the crowd.

I was exhausted. How long had I been at this? It had to have been 3 hours already.

“Excuse me?” I asked the hunched old women walking past with bulging shopping bags. I did my best to use the most polite words possible, straining my still-shaky vocabulary.

The two of them turned to look at me almost in unison, one squinting her mascara’d eyes to get a good look at me. “Hm?”

“Do you know what time it is?”

“Oh. Oh yes, uh…” She fished around in her bag and pulled out a pink sequined phone almost as large as her head. “It’s…7 o’clock.”

It had only been an hour since I started. This was going to be a long night.

I glanced back over to the pancake stand, where the pancake vendor seemed to have four cakes in the air at once. Another customer walked off, looking down, and I wondered if they had another one of those little envelopes too.

I thanked the old woman and drifted toward the stand, trying to not look too eager or draw too much notice. I didn’t need to bother with that, though. No one was paying attention to me, and no one else was there looking for what I was looking for. That’s always the best.

I wrestled my way through, accidentally stepping on more than a few people with my scuffed bright yellow shoes. A pair of long nails scratched my elbow as I tried to crab walk my way over a stroller, and a smattering of ginger sugar hit my face as someone tossed a pancake overhead to their friend. I choked on it a little as I finally dragged myself out of the mass of people and scooted around to the exposed backside of the stand. The owner, with his eagle eyes, was on me immediately like blood rushing to a bug bite. He scowled at me as the steam evaporated from his glasses, revealing small, squinty hazel eyes.

He blinked “Excuse me, miss, you can’t be back here. Please wait in front with the other customers.” His mouth stretched into a beaming smile and the fat under his chin jiggled.

Someone out front called out: “I need a two dozen cakes!!”

“ARE YOU CRAZY? What kind?” The vendor yelled over his shoulder.

I piped up: “Oh! I’m not a customer.”

He spun around. “Then please exit immediately. And don’t get that hair of yours in anything. People start finding dark, curly little hairs on their pancakes…They wouldn’t put it past me.” He shuddered as he reached down to stick a cigarette between his large teeth.

Fluffing my “bangs,” I resisted the urge to smack him. I needed to know first.

“What are the envelopes for?”

The cigarette fell from his hand and he scrambled to pick it back up. A smear of ash marked his hand. He rose and peered at me “What now? What envelopes?”

“The little yellow envelopes you’ve been passing out. What’s in them?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

My mouth twisted into a sneer of frustration. I scratched at my temple as I looked around at the tiny shelves and cubicles of powders and batters. We were cramped too close together, his big stomach was almost poking me. I backed up and tripped, almost toppling a rusted purple basin of…..well, it smelled like something pickled.

“For God’s sake will you get the fuck outta here huh?” he pleaded as a few strands popped loose from his ponytail. He reached out to catch a falling spice can.

I wasn’t paying attention — I’d gotten distracted by some family that I’m pretty sure wasn’t his, smiling in a tattered photo pinned to the side of a shelf. One of the kids in it reminded me of the older brother I’d left behind at home, and I twisted to the side to look at it, stretching over a cubby heaving with open jars of food. I could hear a side seam in my overalls tear a little as I craned my neck to look. Fuck.

“Hey hey that’s private,” he yelled at me.

Meanwhile, the hungry crowd outside was getting louder. “What’s going on?!” “I ordered my seafood pancake five minutes ago!” “I think the stand is closed?”

“SHIT!” the vendor muttered, turning his head to look as some of the people at the edge of the crowd started to amble off, “listen girl, can’t you see I’m — AAGH!”

I’d moved onto inspecting up some of the nozzle bottles and little booklets he had on the shelf, scratching my head as I snooped around.

“Is this hair dye?” I wondered out loud.

“No no no! STOP SCRATCHING. Damn it! You’re gonna get that hair of yours everywhere. Give me that!” He snatched the bottle out of my hand and something black and inky sprayed out, splattering the opposite wall. Eyes bulging, he took a huge gulp of air in a sharp inhale. He didn’t let it out. He stood with his hairy arms on his hips.

I scooped a little of the goop off the wall and said “I’ll stop if you tell me what those envelopes are for. Or…me and my woolly hair can just go drop a little tip to the police.” You couldn’t pay me to even sneeze in the direction of a police station. But he didn’t have to know that.

“Come on,” I said, nudging him conspiratorially with my elbow, “Just tell me! Please. Your secret’s safe with me, pancake man!”

“Don’t call me that.”

“What should I call you then? What’s your name?”

“HA! Kid there’s no way in hell I’m gonna tell you my NAME,” he balked, eyes narrowed to thoughtful slits. He looked at me for a few seconds, and spun his head back and forth quickly to check if anyone was listening. “Okay brat — ”

“ — I’m 24.” He snorted. I might as well have told him I was 12.

“ — I tell you, you work. Got it?” He wiped his hand on his dirty apron.

“I’ve got a job already.”

“That wasn’t a request. Give me your phone.”

Beaming, I straightened up quickly and reached a sweaty hand into the ludicrously large center pocket of my overalls to fish out my phone from the lint and loose stickers. I was glad he’d changed his mind, my side was starting to ache horribly being stretched like that for so long, and I needed to get back to passing out flyers before one of Juan the Boss or his workers noticed I was gone.

He entered his number and saved it under the name Contact 1.

“Ok, so it’s simple,” he rumbled. “You’re a mail person. People pay me — ”

“ — Us.”

“Ugh.”

I smiled.

“Anyway, they pay to have certain kinds of things sent to other people, quickly and without any trouble.”

I nodded furiously, excited. This was so good. It felt just like school. I had been good at school before I had to leave. I wished I had a notepad. I had a couple of questions.

“How are these people contacting you? What guarantee are you giving them that the package gets delivered? Like, collateral and shit? What do you do when they ask you to deliver a liquid, or something really big? And where do you get all these little envelopes from?

He looked at me for a moment, eyes wide open, head tilted to the side, and took a big breath before huffing out a quick “Nope.”

Okay, fair enough. I shrugged.

“But will you at least give me a little hint about what’s inside ‘em?” I asked. “Just a couple here and there. Not a big deal.”

“HELL no. You move the envelopes, you get your cut, you keep quiet. Off with you now. Wait.” He pulled a small envelope out of his pocket and handed it to me. “You might as well get started. Don’t shake this one. Man with long dyed blonde hair in white sneakers. Don’t speak to him, for fuck’s sake.”

“You got it!” I chirped, and ran off to the sound of hot oil splashing onto the griddle. Shielding myself behind a cluster of girls on the other side of the pavilion, I stood next to the steam vent on the alley wall of the launderette. I waited there, hoping the cloud of moist vapor would loosen the flap of the envelope just a little bit, for just one peek inside. I pushed at the tiny gap with my nail to try and help inch it up, but the damn thing stayed firmly cemented in place. Damn it, pancake man. Clearly I would not be peeking into shit today.

I looked up and suddenly realized that the blonde man was passing by, about to miss me entirely. He stared forward intently, scanning the faces of the people passing him. “Fuck,” I muttered under my breath. There’s no way the pancake man could have told this client to look out for me. I would have to chase him down. I all but sprinted up the pavilion to catch up to him. At least I could move fast, if painfully so — these overalls were way too high in the crotch. As I stepped and slid around the countless people crossing my path I saw a few lingering card passers, all cute young stunners in character outfits, moving closer. They shook bells or blasted music from their fanny packs. They’d spotted him too. One girl in a pink sailor costume slapped the flyers out of a teen boy’s hand, sidestepping him to get to the blonde man just a few steps away. She swerved at the last second to set her sights on a pair of guys in front of her — double the chances to lighten her heavy stack of cards. I scrambled forward with a last surge of speed to launch myself in front of the blonde man, almost popping my hip out of place, but another card passer wearing neon green from head to toe sidled up to him with a banner advertising a daytime rave. She honked a horn at him and crowed loudly: “Hey friend you looking to SWEAT?”

His head shot up and he looked her up and down. “Sweat?” he mumbled. He stared at her hard for a few minutes. All of a sudden, he smashed his face right up against hers. His eyes were bloodshot.

“Whose sweat?” He growled.

“Uhhh,” She backed away quickly. I leapt in, my makeup cracking a little with the force of my smile: “Hi there! Chicken time is anytime at Liu Liu Chicken! Here, take a coupon for this weekend only!” clasping his clammy hands in mine, I shoved the garish yellow card for half off sweet BBQ wings into his hand, along with the tiny envelope, and ran off to the other side of the small pavilion to watch him walk off.

What was that noise? A thick, phlegmy wheezing hummed in my ears. I looked around at the surrounding people and realized it was me, desperately trying to gulp down some air. I hated running.

But I was good at getting the envelopes passed quickly. My job meant I didn’t have to waste as much time and effort being stealthy as pancake man had to be. It made perfect sense for me to run up to someone, jumping around for their attention, and put something into their hand, bold as day. With the sun almost completely gone now, the fragrant smoke from food fryers and the canned pop music blaring out of some of the other vendors’ fanny packs gave me even more cover. From my brown little hands, rings were passed to secret girlfriends, confidential wireframes for new products ended up in the hands of a curious competing engineers, interesting photographs found their way to suspicious parents, and experimental cosmetic agents were passed to more than one familiar face from a popular local show. I was technically a smuggler now under regional laws, but really I was just a high-speed routing station with chipped blue nails and blistered feet. The pocket on the front of my overalls had grown fat with the weight of the little kickbacks I was getting: two bills per envelope, plus some tip change from an amused “recipient” or two. I was beginning to jingle when I walked, like a little black market Santa Claus.

Around 1am, the crowds reached their peak. This was a “town” on its way to being a major city, and it had long ago forgotten any concept of night or day. The streets would stay packed with people well until 4am. The tall spikey-haired man from earlier, who had been jumping and flipping his way into the crowd’s good graces for hours now, was finally starting to get tired. The sweat was dripping on his face and he’d handed out almost all his cards. This was not good. He was very chatty when he wasn’t scrambling to chase down new customers. And he was very curious about me.

“You really laser in on certain people,” he remarked as I waved goodbye to a group of middle schoolers on their way to my client’s chicken restaurants. One of them was also carrying a small yellow envelope, with what had felt like a thick little wad of cash inside. He stared after them and turned back to me, eyes narrowing as he smiled. “How do you know who to go after like that? That chicken place must be up to their chins in customers by now, don’t you think?” I didn’t like the probing look he gave me.

“There’s no science in it or anything, “ I mumbled with a smile, making my eyes wide and (I hoped) dumb-looking. “I just look at people’s expressions and go to the ones who look like they’d think I’m funny.” I gave him a beaming smile and waited for the earth to do me a favor and eat him up before he asked any more questions. When that didn’t happen and he didn’t wander off, I gave a giggle and shooed him away, reminding him loudly that it wouldn’t seem right for little Riki to be seen talking to a man for so long, and quietly muttering “Beat it, fuckwad.” As he ambled off, I was already searching the crowd for the face of a woman I was supposed to pass the next envelope to. I was told to look for a middle aged woman with long, dyed-black hair and small eyes. I spotted her a few feet away, passing by discreetly in a dark green coat. As I slipped the envelope into her hand along with a card for the chicken restaurant, she smiled brightly at me and clapped her hands in delight. In a quiet voice she muttered, “Careful of that one, kid.” She pointed her chin at the vendor. “He’s efficient, and he’s an ass.” She was gone before I could say anything, already slipping the envelope into her pocket.

I saw the time flash in pink on a bright digital clock in a tourist shop window. It was time to take my pee break and grab more cards. I followed a couple of costumed girls into the cramped little storefront and dabbed at the sweat on my forehead with my puffy white sleeve. One of the minders, in a too-loose yellow service uniform, glowered at me as I slapped off the outdoor dust from my arms and knees, hopping from foot to foot in line behind the other girls.

“Rikki don’t sweat, girl. And aren’t you a little dark to dress up like her?”

Saying nothing, I crossed my eyes at him and turned away.

“HEY! I could fire you. Show some fucking respect! And make sure you pee quick.”

My bladder and I felt like a valued part of the team.

I got a text. “Got a better job for you. Get back here when you’re done.”

More work! Maybe this would be even more exciting. Maybe I’d meet a government agent, or one of the international pop stars who needed an extra large package passed. Maybe the package would be full of some super secret poison, or the code for an ultra dangerous hacker program. A big job like that had to pay big money. Bigger than the flat rate this old pancake uncle was giving me per envelope. I would have to keep this from Tall Katherine, I thought with a little thrill of excitement, scratching my hip as the line shrunk ahead of me, girls jostling and shoving to cut each other in line to the rusted stall. Time spent waiting to relieve ourselves still counted against our hours.

This would mean bigger money for sure. Maybe I’d treat the girls to food tonight. And beer. I hated beer, but they loved it. I’d slap the money on the table and say something like “Who’s hungry?” I’d smile silently when Shona shrieked, “Where the hell did you get this? When did Beyonce become your sugar daddy? Which organs did you sell?”

The way I was smiling to myself made the girl next to me back away, keeping her back to the wall. While I was standing there like a drooling idiot, a small but wiry older woman in a bright red wig quickly started to shuffle past me toward the stall, huffing like a linebacker.

I caught her by the elbow and swung myself around in front of her, blocking the stall.

“Two seconds, auntie! You’ll make it.” I raised my fist at her in a gesture of support and shut the door.

I couldn’t miss my turn.

…..

Outside, I met the pancake vendor, juggling a stack of fresh cards in my hand. It had only gotten busier as the night wore on. It was nearly 1am now, and his stall was packed. He was flipping them a mile a minute now, at one point even flicking a hot banana cake straight off the griddle and into a teenager’s mouth, between his teeth. The vendor’s ponytail was a question mark of grease and late middle-aged sweat, and his glasses were thick with the steam from his perspiration.

I slipped behind the counter and picked up a thin metal rod with a little screen attached.

“What’s this for?”

“The people who get to find out aren’t happy about it. Now put that down.” He nudged at me with his foot.

I dropped it as if burned, and waited for him to tell me which top-secret message he wanted me to deliver. Or wait….shit, he wouldn’t would want me to assassinate somebody would he? I’m pretty sure the last envelope he had me pass off to that pair of government looking dudes earlier was poison. Please don’t let this be an assassination thing.

“You been drinking water?” he asked.

I made a face that was something close to a bloodhound rolling its eyes. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“You should be. Take it from me. You’ll get dehydrated girl. Oh shit, I almost forgot, go and give this one here to the guy in the uniform on the corner. He’ll have something for me in return. Be careful with it.”

This was it. Holy shit this was really gonna be big. I needed to make sure to cover myself. I needed to make sure I wouldn’t get arrested or killed or…

“You know if this is the big job you’re giving me then uh I need to be sure that…”

“It’s not, I just need to get this done fast. The big job starts when you come back.”

I was sweating. I hustled the package over to the guy and came back with the package.

“So what is it? What’s this big job?”

“You see that shop down there?”

“Yeah.”

“I want you to go in the back gate. It’ll be open. Don’t go in if it’s not.”

“Yeah.”

“Knock the door three times. Then wait and knock once more. You’ll be let in. “ The pancake man’s neck jiggled as he spoke gravely.

“Wait…excuse me, but why am I going into this store?”

“Hm? Oh you’re going to help me teach my friend a lesson.”

I squinted at him.

“My best friend named Ivan, he’s basically been trying to sabotage me for the past year and a half. Here’s the thing: I’ve never been anything but nice to Ivan. I actually helped him start that little shop of his three years ago, because I’m a good guy and I believe in helping people out, you know? I think it’s important to help people out when you can and whatnot, because we all go through some shit every once in awhile. But then? He comes out with his new ice cream machine, and his make-your-own-kabobs and teens with big boobs working the counters and his fancy new logo. And then at the beginning of this year, Ivan’s basically like, opening another shop across the courtyard, sending people out to harass my customers or lie and tell them my stand is closing. He’s disrespectful. He has to be taught some gratitude. He was even telling me at cards last night that he might start selling pancakes! Listen, Ivan’s a dear friend of mine, so you’re not gonna do anything crazy, just steal as much of his food as you can, and maybe set his kitchen on fire if you get a chance.”

What the fuck? “Oh, oh no. I’d rather — ”

“I appreciate it. You’re going to get a big, big payout for this one. And hey!” He patted my arm. “Whatever you take, you can eat!

“No no no, wait a minute.”

“Now you make sure you take all the rice cakes. That asshole is nothing without his rice cakes.”

I waved my hands rapidly in front of his face, trying to flag down his flailing attention. “Um hello? HELL NO. I don’t have time for this. I do have a job. I gotta stay out here. And where would I even put all that stuff? I’m not wearing PANTS, dude.”

“You’ll figure something out.”

“Ugh, why do you even want to do this? You could basically just BUY him by now couldn’t you? Or have one of your…one of your friends make him disappear?”

He turned to look at me as he scraped burnt streaks of batter and egg off the burner with a huge spatula. The glare on his glasses turned them into bright pools of light on his face, blocking out out his eyes for a moment. “That’s not the point, little Rikki.”

“How much are you even paying me for this?”

“Oh!” he announced brightly as he wiped his hands on his apron. ‘More. Much more.” He pulled a little bundle of cash from an oil-stained pocket. His fingers were oddly soft-looking, and almost as thick as the band of bills. He plopped them into my hand. “And you know what? Take a pancake!”

I knew the face I was making must have looked more like a pout than a hard-boiled scowl. I spun and walked away with the money. I needed it. A half second later, I whipped around and snatched up a small cinnamon pancake from the side burner, tossing it from hand to hand as it burned angrily in my palm.

…….

Getting into the shop had been easy, just as he’d told me. I knocked and was let in, although I gave a little jump of surprise when the door opened to reveal someone so large. His head and shoulders almost hung down above me like a stooping tree, he was so tall. I fought the urge to mutter “Wrong house!” and run off. But…I was a grownup. I was a fucking grown-up. And anyway, I was pretty close to 5’5’’. When he stepped back to let me in, I realized he was actually younger than me, pretty thin, and I felt a little spurt of confidence as I stepped forward into the dim light of a bulb from the side closet.

I must have become easier to see too. He raised his eyebrows at my cartoon getup, stopping to stare for more than a few seconds at my damp black cloud of hair. It must have looked alive, and he leaned down almost as if to talk to it. I palmed his face like a basketball and held it there. “Too close,” I said, my accent faltering a little.

I could feel his breath coming from between my fingers where his nose was squished sideways across his face.

“HMMNHVFFF” he said.

“Hm?” I took my hand back, though his nose still looked a little disoriented and the city grime from my palm was outlined around his face.

“The kitchen is that way,” with an odd, almost reverent look he pointed down the tiny hallway.

I hiked up my shorts (which was unnecessary since I was wearing overalls but the bravado of the gesture made me feel a little more prepared) and strode towards the tiled room full of shelves and industrial friers. Time to steal me some rice cakes.

“Uhhh… hey.”

I turned around, surprised he wasn’t making a move to leave.

“There’s a dog there, just so you know. He sleeps in the corner.”

“Oh. Thanks.” I turned back toward the kitchen.

“Also — ”

“Yes?”

He was holding his face with my sooty palm mark still on it in both his hands, cheeks blushing furiously and a nervous little smile on his face. “If I give you five dollars, would you do that again later? My last domme — ”

“Have a good niiiiiight!” I crooned in my Rikki voice, leaving a fragrant cloud of sweaty annoyance behind me.

The kitchen wasn’t the state-of-the-art franchise-ready workshop I expected. Instead there were grease stains in places I didn’t even know grease could reach. There was a massive pile of what looked like soiled plastic bags next to the tiny stain-crusted stove, and I noticed a few of the stove’s buttons were broken off. A strange smell came from somewhere behind it and I suppressed a quiet little gag. The only ventilation seemed to come from a tiny half open window high up on one wall, where a few flecks of dust and paper were flying in from outside. I could hear the sounds of the street floating in. I started to look around for a fridge or pantry — oh shit the dog. Where was the dog? I whipped my head around quickly for any sign of the small, hopefully friendly puppy. But where was it? There on the other side of the room…right next to the stock closet. Shit. I was no good at dealing with dogs, I’d never even owned a dog. Meat. They liked meat, right? Maybe I could bribe it with something. But I would have to get into the larder first. Ah screw it, I would just have to be very very incredibly quiet. I sidled past as slowly as I could, but the larder door opened with a squeal loud enough to wake the dead. The dog woke up and barked loudly, twice, and ran up to me, hopping all over me and licking my hand incessantly. So it wasn’t going to eat me alive. Awesome. I was very glad that this dog wasn’t going to devour me.

But something even worse was happening. This dog was losing its mind. It was huffing and giving short, choked barks that made me worry it was having a seizure. Then it started biting itself. I mean, this dog was biting the shit out of itself.

“Oh no,” I whispered. “Oh no don’t do that. Ahhhhh.”

Small pools of foam were dripping from the corners of the shaggy gray dog’s mouth as it continued to snap at itself. I backed up slightly to move around it and toppled a broom that slammed loudly into a metal cabinet. The dog snapped its head around in the direction of the sound and began to bark loudly.

“Shhh! Shhhh!” I murmured to him, trying to settle him. The mutt’s howls subsided, but only because his attention had been pulled back to his butt, which he suddenly went back to gnawing at viciously. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for his poor butt. Maybe I could distract him from it with some food. That was what I was supposed to be there for anyway. I just needed to find where the hell they were keeping it all. It didn’t take too much rummaging around before I was able to find the massive industrial fridge in the side room. I grabbed the door handle and threw my weight back to try to open it. Stupid. I squeaked as a wild ZING of pain flashed along my shoulder and my arm almost popped out of its socket. Maybe it had. I could hear it make a sound like an apple hitting wood whenever I shrugged my shoulder up, and my arm felt like it was on fire. I looked around and saw a large greasy plastic pestle sitting on a small counter on the other side of the room. I had to hurry. I’d already been there too long. I shoved the large piece of plastic between the fridge frame and the door and (more gently this time) pushed forward on it to try and wedge it open. I grunted as I shoved forward, the sweat on my hands making my grip slippery. The plastic mixing tool creaked and squelched in my hands, and just as I was getting afraid that it might snap and impale me in the face, the door gave way with a hiss, and a hazy electric blue light peeked out from the small crack of an opening.

“Yes!” I gave a small giggle and clapped my hands. “Yeeeeess.” I grabbed at the lip of the door and whipped it open with my good hand, and was greeted by piles of pre-assembled sticky rice balls, wrapped in various seaweeds, with glistening pink and brown meats peeking out of their centers like savory little belly buttons.

I couldn’t help but dance with excitement, hopping up and down, voguing a little in gratitude. Where was I going to put all this food? It was even more than I had imagined. I stuffed one into my mouth and then grabbed up armfuls of cakes and dumped them into the box I’d found, chewing happily. But before I knew it, the box was overflowing with food — and there were still so many left. Could I bring myself to abandon them, cold, alone, not in my face? Unacceptable. Besides, I was technically supposed to be here for sabotage. I hadn’t taken nearly enough stuff to ruin this man’s business. I hadn’t even knocked down any of his shelves or unplugged anything. I needed to hurry up and get to the vandalism if I wanted to get the second half of my pay, but I wasn’t seeing anything I could put the rest of the food in.

“Hmmmm” I muttered. Looking around one last time and seeing that there were no other places to put the remaining cakes, I pulled open the side of my red overalls with their ridiculously oversized bloomers. Humming to myself, I tilted up the remaining tray of cakes and sent them tumbling into my overalls. They wouldn’t exactly come out in pristine condition, but I’d have them. The girls could have the rest, they’d be impressed enough with those. Plus the money. Maybe Tall Katherine would slide her hand around my shoulders and smile at me the way she had when they’d first picked me up from the bus depot that afternoon. I was beaming to myself as I skipped back into the main room of the kitchen, knocking down jars and Overturning basins. I threw a rice cake to the dog, who attacked it with slobber and rage I thought he could only muster for his butt. I breezily pulled a few wires out from the back of the electric stove, smashed the frying cages against the floor to snap and dent them, and by the time I was looking for gasoline to start a small fire to smoke out the restaurant, I was singing a little tune to myself. No one knew I was here, and I was already warmed up with the liquor of a job well done.

“Well done, you.” I sang to myself, shimmying my shoulders a little as I unscrewed the top of what had the promising look of a fuel canister. “This one’s in the bag!”

“In here!” I heard a voice call out.

HOLY SHIT.

“In the kitchens,” another voice called out, getting closer. The beams of flashlights sliced through the pungent darkness of the room I was in, nearly blinding me.

“Stop there! Drop that and put your hands up!”

I let out a short, pained moan. Police. Oh no. I immediately threw anything I could lift at them, trying to block their path as I launched myself across the room towards the nearest window, climbing a teetering pile of crates and rusted kitchen equipment to get to it. The damn thing was frosted over with a thick flaking dark grime that cracked and smeared when I grabbed it and tried to push it open. I heard a thunder of feet behind me and broke out in a cold sweat. It sounded like there must have been a whole squad of them. I pushed and heaved at the window and finally wrenched it open just as a hand grabbed at my ankle, and the sound of the people and music from the street suddenly flooded the room.

I scratched at the hand and it let go, and I turned around to see that only two cops had found me. But they looked at me with a grim determination that I knew meant I could kiss my freedom goodbye if I didn’t get gone and get gone fast. I tossed myself out the window, aiming for the dumpster and hoping I wouldn’t shatter the bones in the right half of my body. I landed with a loud crash that almost knocked the wind out of me. I could feel the lid of a can slicing into my thigh, but only had a half second to register the pain before I heard the voices of the officers ringing out overhead, demanding that I stop and informing me that I was under arrest.

Only if they could catch me. I pulled myself out of the dumpster and sprinted out of the alleyway.

I ran down the street, my bloomers stuffed with sticky rice cakes, as the two city police barrelled down on me. I sweated and gasped like an asthmatic hippo, my feet desperately drumming across the sidewalk as the neon lights of the shop signs blazed around me. I could hear one of the cops, the thin, short-haired one, puffing loudly as he reached out to grab me. I yelped and clutched my remaining cards tightly, a small stupid part of me hoping that I could return to the pavilion and finish out the day’s contract. I had wanted to do a good job. I had so wanted to be good. I could do this, if only these two would stop. I jumped over a pair of bollards and heard a loud THUNK behind me. Knocked off kilter by the sound, I spun around to see that one of the officers, the thicker paler one, had crunched his crotch against the hard painted metal of the bollard when he tried to replicate my jump. Horrified, I stopped and stared at him, wincing in sympathetic pain. But within a split second, I heard him screech, “Go on, Bek!” and his partner landed easily on the other side. I was surprised he didn’t crack the sidewalk; he landed like a truck.

“Oh shit,” I whispered.

I bolted across the street and nearly got hit by a gleaming black town car, whose driver leaned out and hollered at me in a dialect I hadn’t learned yet. I pushed through a crowd of people staring into a shop window where a new music video was playing. My dense coils of hair swirled wildly around my head as I pressed forward, elbowing people out of the way as politely as possible. They turned around and stared at me. Two teenage girls pointed at me and covered their mouths in gleeful horror. More than one person pointed their phone at me. I was wheezing loudly now, my large fake lashes sliding downward into my eyes, their path slicked with sweat, the rice congealing cruelly in my shorts. I didn’t see the policeman now. There was a sickening lurch in my stomach, because I knew. I knew he was too fast for me to have lost him in that crowd. Then his voice right behind me:
“Okay now. Let’s go.”

I could feel my eyes stretching wider than dinner plates as I turned and we locked eyes. Grimly, he reached out and picked off one of my fake lashes from where it had slid down onto my cheek. I panicked and ducked down a narrow alleyway crammed with shops and carts and clubs, people milling about shoulder to shoulder, many arm in arm. Cumbia and American techno and Mandopop blared out of endless doorways wrapped in blinking neon lights and brightly modern awnings. The buzzing crowd swallowed me up, and even in my bright romper full of illicit grains, I managed to disappear. After a half hour of weaving through the streets, I knew I had lost him. I made the long walk back home to the crowded apartment slowly, shuffling my feet along. My body screamed for a shower. The hum of passing cars subsided to the chirp of crickets under the nearest street light. I paused in the street, staring mutely down at my shoes. I arrived home later, deflated, hungry. Full of pee. “Sorry guys,” I muttered to myself.

I pushed the door open as tenderly as I could, but a low groan still wrung out from the warped wood, as I stepped forward into the hallway. In front of me, Tall Katherine was sitting at the table with Shona and the older woman, playing a new card game someone’s cousin had sent over from the mainland. I told them some of what happened, but I didn’t need to say much: my soggy pants squelched loudly as I plopped myself down at the table, and my face told them the rest. I mumbled my way through the basics of what happened and the girls broke out into a storm of chatter:

“Damn. You got screwed.”
“So fucked up.”
“Really ? Oh, come on, you had one job.”
“No, she had to hand out cards and be nice. That’s at least 2 jobs.”
“Why did you put them in your pants? Where’s the tote I got you?”
“Maybe some of them are still good. Take off your overalls.”
“I’m not eating rice cakes out of someone’s pants.” “Cut the shit, yes you are.”
“Nah forget it there’s only two good ones left.”
“I can’t go back, can I? Do you think I should try?”
“Go back? Like you mean will Juan let you keep working for him? Oh don’t worry about that, we’re set.”

“Yeah, we actually got a video of his kid trying to drop a whole camera rig onto some dude at the electronics store on Little Street. Juan’s gonna give us a lump sum and some more jobs if we don’t show it to anybody.”’

“He made the deposit a couple of hours ago actually. I ordered chicken!”

Tall Katherine reached over and pulled a piece of twisted banner plastic out of my exploded bangs and patted my head. “You’re okay,” she said. Shona looked at me and shrugged. She pulled out a long square of paper and something herb-y smelling into it before sticking it into a vase and lighting it. “Better to have hustled and failed I guess. You’ll do better next time.”

An hour later, we were crammed together like tetris blocks on our mattress in the living room, the heel of Katherine’s foot lodged up against my jaw and Shona’s elbow nestled snugly in my lower back. It only took a few seconds for the others to start snoring loudly.

“Next time,” I whispered to myself. I pulled a tiny, crumpled yellow envelope out of my front pocket.