Deadlines

Raymar looked around from the passenger seat next to the taxi-driver's, and didn't like what he saw. The two obese women in the back seat were spilling chips all over the floor, and spat bits of batter and fish while cackling like hags over a cardboard carton of cheap wine. Even though the taxi's stereo was loosening gobbets of phlegm from his bronchi, he was sure he could hear their feet sticking velcro-like to the remnants of a previous ill-advised automotive binge.
"Hey wena, put that on a bit louder sweerie. It's my favourite song," said the monstrosity in yellow. Her shirt was the same colour as the bits of fish batter stuck to it. Raymar wondered what she would do if he turned around and just said, "Fuck no."
But today was no day to be a cowboy.
She would soon learn that, like him, sometimes you had to put your foot down firmly. It was his last shift and he wanted to get home as soon as soon as he had done the job.

You see, for a cartoonist, making a hit was as easy as erasing a bad sketch.

Pencil Sketch

Raymar Driver was tired. Not just a physical fatigue, but a sense of helplessness, an ennui that filled his eyes and the fluid in his joints.
It was the seventieth application.The seventieth sincere apology, but gracious refusal of his services.

"We wish you all the best for the future"
What a joke. They didn't. They just wished he'd go elsewhere, with his inappropriate skills, either just under- or over-qualified for the job.
A cartoonist with jokes no one ever got. Too sharp for the local newspapers and a pencil that wasn't quite sharpened enough for work on the digitised big reads.
"What were they on about?" he thought. "I mean battered baby jokes are funny. A bit niche maybe, but funny."