The man’s mouth stayed open, but nothing came out.
“If you can’t give me the cash, no problem. I’ll just go to a rival job fair, but then of course I won’t be able to guarantee your safety … Jesus, Coleman, look: He’s white as a sheet. Get him some water!”
The man nervously rustling papers. “I-I-I think I can find something in here that pays from the start.”
“Really?” Serge pulled up a chair. “I’m all ears!”
“Internet map sites.” He handed a clipboard across the table. “Here’s one that’s hiring.”
“Map sites?” asked Serge.
“Yeah,” said Coleman, standing over him with his paper bag. “Like Google Earth. I zoomed in on nude beaches at the library, but the boobs were still fuzzy.”
“Coleman, that’s an aerial image site,” said Serge. “I think he means those mapping services that give wrong directions.”
The man behind the desk nodded. “They need street checkers.”
“What’s that?”
“You drive all day with a GPS-laptop and maps, working your way around the state, going up and down every street to check for accuracy and new highway construction.”
Serge looked up from the clipboard. “But I do that anyway.”
“Gas and two hundred bucks a week.”
“They actually pay?” said Serge. “I had no idea this was going on.”
“Most people don’t. But between the big three map sites, there’s at least a thousand people canvassing the country at any moment.”
Serge killed the rest of his coffee and slammed the cup on the desk. “Two hundred isn’t enough. I’ll take the Internet cheat job instead. Just got my concealed weapons permit. Looks pretty real if you don’t know what the real ones look like … ‘Mr. Saturday Night Special!’ … Sorry, been hung up on Skynyrd since I got to town. Brrrrowwwow-wow-wow-wow-wow! Good coffee! Monday Night Football, blue lightbulbs, brick and mortar, thimbles, pipe wrench. Please proceed …”
A bead of perspiration formed on the man’s left temple and trickled down his cheek. He conducted another rapid search under stacks of paper. “Here’s something else. Hotel evaluator for travel-discount website.”
“Perfect!” said Serge. “Already doing that, too. Got fired from a couple of the big outfits last month, so I had to start my own site for free. Have you seen it? Revolutionary features, like rows of cute little icons to grade hotels on a scale of zero to five. Anything over two-and-a-half cartoon hookers, syringes or Lyme-disease ticks, keep driving … See, Coleman? Told you I knew what I was doing. Now we get to cash in on all that hard work.” He turned back to the man. “How much to buy out my site? Bidding starts at a million.”
“Doesn’t work that way. You’ll need to use new lists of hotels chosen by the website and fill out a special checklist they supply. Pays twenty dollars a property and a free room.”
“Twenty bucks a day!” said Serge. “How are we supposed to live on that?”
“Oh no, you don’t just do the one hotel you’re staying at. Most of the guys hit five or six others during the day, maybe seven if you’re fast. Are you good with time management?”
“You kidding?” said Serge. “I fuck Time’s mother.”
“What?”
“I used to say Time’s wife, but it didn’t sound as good. What do you think?”
The man trembled with paperwork. “So you want the hotel job?”
“And the map thing.”
“Both? But that’s too much for anybody.”
“Not me. Probably even have time left over for the job-fair cheat thing.”
“Let me start filling out these forms for you.”
“I’ll be over at the coffee.”
INTERSTATE 75
An ad-hoc convoy of independent truckers rumbled south
through Georgia. Dixie mudflaps, CB antennas. The lead Kenworth had running lights arranged in a cross on the front grill. Black diesel smoke puffed in military rhythm as the setting sun flickered through distant pines and oak. The Florida state line went under the first tires.
They continued down the highway, passing pockets of chain and off-brand budget motels nestled around each exit. One motel had a tiny discolored swimming pool just over the pushed-down interstate fence, where a theme-park-or-bust Ohio family wrung low-expectation joy from the diving board. Children did cannonballs and splashed and shrieked in high-pitched counterpoint to the background drone of eighteen-wheelers. They used to tap trees for turpentine in these parts.
The Sand Flea Motel was popular among economy tourists who fell for a scam from the newspaper-quality pages of coupon booklets distributed at official state welcome centers. The booklets promised twenty-five percent discounts for a double-bed regular. Then the coupon was presented, and management wagered on parents being too drained to object when informed that all the discount rooms were full-but they still had plenty exactly like them at standard rate.
