Welcome to Linden, where almost everyone is A Bubble or so Off Plumb

Wallace lifted the purple cap, repositioned it, settled it on his head firmly, checking the mirror to make sure his hair wasn't roostertailing out the back. He hated it when that happened- it was so undignified. He pulled down the striped uniform shirt, adjusted the Taco Hut nameplate and straightened his shoulders. Wallace filled the entire mirror above the restroom sink. He was a round, gelatinously soft young man with a mustache that covered his upper lip like a dirty smudge, and very bad skin. When moving rapidly, which was not often, he undulated like a giant soap bubble in a high wind. "Walll-accce," Mr. Feinman, the manager would yell from the back room. "We need you out here, posthaste!" and Wallace would shift into fourth gear, swarming out from behind the grill area to where the action was at the service counter. He hated it when Don Feinman called him like that - it reminded him of the other boys in gym who used to call him "Wall Ass, Big Butt, can't get his pants shut." But Mr. Feinman liked Wallace. He knew this because Mr. Feinman usually called him Wally, and because he had suggested that perhaps someday Wally might want to try for Assistant Manager, a very responsible position. What he didn't know was that Mr. Feinman liked him because just looking at Wally reassured him that Wally would never create Trouble With Girls. Mr. Feinman was thirty-seven years old and lived with his widowed mother, who still called him Donnie. His mother, whose word was Mr. Feinman's gospel, had him firmly convinced that females in any form other than her own were Emissaries of Satan. But what Mr. Feinman didn't know, and Wallace did, was that Wallace had a destiny. What neither of them knew was that today was the day that destiny would be set in motion. The restroom door hissed shut behind Wallace and the acrid smell of grease and refried beans reached out to embrace him like a lover. His mother fussed continually over the fact that he preferred to eat at work, but Wally considered it a mark of privilege that he got to eat whatever he wanted for nothing. When some of the other employees, usually in front of the customers, and certainly not on the premises. Wally felt that this wasn't nearly harsh enough, but Don Feinman was almost as afraid of violence as he was of women, and who knows what these teenagers might decide to do if he tried to tell them how to behave when they were not at work. They'd be closing up in another hour. It got dark fairly early in mid-October, and Wally hoped that there weren't any hangers-on at closing time. He'd have to rush to catch the bus, or wait another twenty-two minutes for the next one in the chilly evening air, which might aggravate the "Fall sniffle" he’d had for more than a week now. Wally didn't feel sick, but he kept making a wet, snerfing sound that Mr. F said made him queasy and was bad for business, so he had put Wally in back till it cleared up, which was fine by him. Wally was just reaching for some soft flour tortillas from the freezer when Mr. F called him. "Wally, could you step out here please?" It must be someone important, Wally thought - Mr. F had that same tone of voice the time Councilman Greenberg found a hair in his bean burrito. Rounding the corner, Wally could see instantly why Mr. F had sounded funny. A tall, skinny person had reached over the counter and was holding a small but mean-looking gun to Mr. F's head. The person was wearing a ski mask, but Wally assumed it was a man from the voice, which said "C'mere, porko - your boss says you got the key to the cash register." Wally moved tentatively out to the service counter. He was no gun expert, but it certainly looked real enough, and from the way sweat was spurting off Mr. F's forehead, HE seemed to think it was real, too. "Give the man what he wants, Wally," Mr. F said in a tremulous voice. "I don't have the key," Wally said. This was not true - the key was on a cord around Wally's neck, hidden beneath his shirt. "That so?" the masked man inquired. "Well, if he don't got it, and YOU don't got it, then I guess somebody's gonna get hurt!" With a low moan, Mr. F closed his eyes and passed out, his head whacking the edge of the tortilla steamer as he slithered limply to the floor. Blood began to ooze from the gash above his left eyebrow.