Strange Trades by Paul di Filippo

arcane rituals. Cutting, slicing, chopping, dicing. Layering and spreading, halving and wrapping…
    Filling drink orders, taking money and making change, Honeyman watched in admiration. Nerfball, his lank, longish, greasy hair whipping about, was a one-man sandwich factory. No, it was more like performance art. Sometimes, in fact, the crowd at the counter actually broke out in applause.
    The inside of Honeyman’s Heroes was clean but not neat. Mounted on the exposed brick of the walls were numerous caricatures of various local characters, in the inimitable Netsuke style. She had also done the illustrated menu that listed the various sandwiches by name: the Shakespeare (ham and Danish Jarlsberg cheese); the Sinatra (tongue and baloney); the Pia Zadora (marshmallow fluff and honey).
    Bracketed to the side walls were scarred ashwood counters with stools positioned beneath. A pickle barrel—tongs hanging from the rim—occupied the center of the room.
    Nerfball worked at a long, wide butcher-block slab, at the front of which stood a narrow glass case functioning both as a divider between the artist and his fans, and as a display area for various figurines and good luck objects. A herd of plastic dinosaurs, a bust of Elvis, a ceramic horse that everyone knew meant something secret and special to Honeyman.…
    Behind Nerfball and on either side, within easy reach, were all his implements and raw ingredients. Bottles of Tiger Sauce, tubs of cream cheese, sharp knives and twin steamers that could turn a quarter-pound of pastrami and Swiss into so much ambrosia.
    People yelled out their orders, Nerfball reacted with wordless speed, Honeyman made small talk; slices of pumpernickel, white, and rye arced through the air to land on the slab in perfect formation. What with all this, the afternoon sped swiftly by, another day among many, until finally it was nearing three o’clock, and the store was momentarily empty.
    Nerfball wiped his hands on his apron and looked up with a dazed air. Honeyman walked over to him and clapped him with honest appreciation on the back.
    “Thanks, Nerf. You were, as usual, superb. I think I can handle the supper crowd alone. Why don’t you break early today? Here, I’ll get your pay.”
    Honeyman took from the register the original and unique spondulix which he had hastily scribbled out a month or so ago, in a fit of desperate creativity. The old electric bill was now somewhat more greasy and worse for wear, but its green crayoned message was still discernible.
    Honeyman got ready to go through the daily ritual that already seemed ancient. He would hand Nerfball the spondulix. Nerf would cobble up ten sandwiches for himself. Then his employee would hand the spondulix back and depart with the sandwiches, the medium in which it was redeemable.
    Today, however, Nerfball refused to take part.
    “Can’t you pay me in cash?” he asked.
    Honeyman was grieved. “Jeez, Nerf, you know every penny I take in goes for something crucial. I still haven’t paid off the bakery for last week yet. If I have to meet your wages in real money, IH go under. And then where will either of us be? You know I don’t draw any pay for myself.”
    “Yeah, but you’re the owner, Mister Capitalist. You’re supposed to take risks and suffer.”
    “Nerf—I cannot pay you in American currency. Will you take spondulix or not?”
    Nerfball sighed dramatically. “All right. Hand it over.”
    Honeyman surrendered the spondulix. Nerfball took off his apron and prepared to leave.
    “Hey, wait a minute. Don’t you want your sandwiches?”
    “No, I don’t. Beatbox got a new job, after some lady who didn’t like the message he delivered squeezed his clown nose too hard. He works for a donut shop and gets to bring home all the stale ones. Nobody wants sandwiches anymore.”
    “All that sugar’s bad for you.”
    “I can’t help what people like.”
    “What’re you gonna do with the spondulix then?” asked Honeyman. He felt