Scrim and Cammy
Window Washers
Admiral Biscuit
The two pegasi walked side-by-side down the street. The blue stallion was wearing panniers with plastic five-gallon Home Depot buckets, while the white mare had a harness that looked like a cross between a utility belt and a bandoleer. There were several pairs of squeegees along the back, and pouches on the sides stuffed with cloths and soap.
They stopped at a traffic light, waiting patiently for traffic to cross. Cammy took the opportunity to shift around her harness—the squeegees tended to work their way out when she walked—and then leaned over and nuzzled Scrim on the cheek.
Both of them looked up and down the street when the light changed, in case any stragglers wanted to risk a ticket by running a red. Taxis, especially, often tried it.
By the time they'd crossed, the cluster of people that had bunched up at the signal passed them by.
They waved to Danny as they went by his hot dog cart, and he waved back.
Down two more blocks, and then they went into an alley that stank of garbage and piss. Cammy pulled the buckets out of her husband's pannier while he struggled with the lock on the hose bibb.
They had a moment to relax as the buckets filled, then he squirted a dollop of soap into each one, re-locked the bibb, and stood still as Cammy loaded the buckets back in his pannier. They had a short length of hose so they could fill them on his back, but this apartment building's hose bibb was damaged and the hose wouldn't thread on it.
“Are you ready?”
Cammy nodded, and the two of them took flight, climbing clear of the stinking alley and up into the early morning sunshine.
They flew all the way up to the roof, perching for a moment on the parapet to exchange a quick kiss, then dropped down over the edge to work on the penthouse windows. Cammy soaped, while Scrim squeegeed behind her.
•••
By the time they'd finished the penthouse, the buckets were half-empty, and they glided back down into the alley to refill them. Scrim watched for traffic—delivery trucks didn't always watch out like they should when they backed into alleys.
“I wish they had a pipe on the roof we could use to fill the buckets,” Cammy muttered. “I've never liked this alley.”
“At least it's only for a couple minutes.” Scrim's ears turned at the distinct sound of a truck's backup alarm. “You almost done?”
She nodded and shut off the water. “Get the lock while I load you up. Is he backing in here?”
“I can't tell yet. I can't see him, but he sounds like he's just outside the alley.”
“We'll be gone before he makes the turn.” She slid the first pail in place, and Scrim turned to receive the other.
“Yup, he's coming down here.”
“I see him.” Cammy dropped the second pail in place. “Let's go.”
The two of them took to the sky again, this time taking off towards the back wall of the alley so they wouldn't be crowded by the delivery truck, then turned and climbed over the top of the truck and out into the sunshine.
They lost sight of the delivery truck as they looped around the building, heading for the northwest corner. That was where they always started, just out of habit. It was good to have a routine.
The two of them quickly got in a rhythm as they worked their way along the wall. “Pity we can't bring any clouds down to sit on today.”
“I know, but it's so pretty outside. Let's fly out over the Hudson River once we're done.”
“Before or after we go back to our apartment?”
“Before. We can leave the buckets and stuff on a roof, nopony will bother them there.”
“Yeah.” Scrim nodded. “Remember that time we ate dinner on top of the George Washington Bridge?”
“We should do that again. Only this time, let's stop at Junior's and get ceviche.”
“It's a date.” He leaned over and pecked her cheek.
•••
By the time they got back around the building, the delivery truck was gone; it had been replaced with a garbage truck that was emptying one of the dumpsters.
“I can smell that up here,” Cammy muttered. “How come human garbage is so stinky?”
“Dunno.” Scrim turned his head back to look in the buckets. “I hope the smell's gone before we have to get more water.”
“I used to think it was 'cause they kept it in metal boxes and the sun heated them up, but the sun hardly ever gets in that alleyway, and it smells just as bad as any other dumpster.”
“At least there's a breeze up here and the smell goes away quick.”
“Maybe that's why people don't like windows that open in their apartments.”
“All the older brick apartments have windows that open.”
“That's true. They're not as nice inside as these, though, and that's something that people care about.”
“More than they should.”
•••
They finished the windows on three more floors before they decided to break for lunch. They refilled the buckets and left them on the roof—that way, Scrim wouldn't have to fly full buckets up right after eating.
Since they were already at rooftop level, they took a direct route to Danny's hot dog cart, their lunch destination of choice whenever they were close. Both of them dropped down together, alighting on the street at the end of the short line of customers. In typical New Yorker fashion, the queue ignored them.
It only took a minute for them to reach the front. “Two New York style, please.”
“Carrots or dogs today?”
Cammy turned to Scrim. “Are we really gonna have ceviche tonight?”
“If you want.”
She looked back at Danny. “Carrots today, please.”
“You got it.” He'd started stocking carrots for them, and it turned out that some people liked carrot dogs, too.
Instead of the usual paper holders, he put the dogs in a bag, holding it out so Cammy could grab it in her teeth.
Scrim set a five dollar bill on the counter. “Keep the change, Danny.”
“Thanks. You have a good day, now.”
“You, too.”
•••
The two of them flew over the expressway and landed at the southeast end of the Cedar playground. Scrim glanced down at the fire station as they went by—the doors were closed.
“Maybe you could get a ride on one of the trucks if you offered to clean the station windows,” Cammy said after they'd landed.
“Do you think so?”
“It wouldn't hurt to ask.” She opened the bag and tore down one side with her teeth, turning it into a sort-of tablecloth.
“You're right.” He picked up his hot dog and began eating, his eyes constantly flicking over to the fire station.
“You never wanted to join the fire brigade back in Equestria.”
Scrim shrugged. “Equestrian fire wagons aren’t as cool. Engine 43 even has a pirate flag on the back!”
“And swords on the front, I know.” She leaned over and wiped a bit of sauerkraut off his cheek.
•••
After they'd finished eating, Cammy crumpled up their litter and walked to the entrance of the park—there was a garbage can right by the road.
Scrim trotted over to the fire station and stood on his hind hooves in front of the door. “The trucks are gone.”
“Must be out at a fire.”
“I didn't hear them go.”
“Me, either.”
“Didn't see any smoke.” He wrinkled his muzzle. “Or smell it.”
“We can look when we fly back,” Cammy suggested. “They might be out on the highway.”
“They usually don't use the ladder truck for car accidents. I've never seen it at one.”
“Tell you what, if we see a fire we'll go over and look, but we can't spend the afternoon looking for it. We've got windows to wash.”
“You're right.” He nuzzled her cheek. “You ready to go back to work?”
“Yup.”
•••
They didn't see any fires on the way back, nor did they spot the fire engines on the freeway.
Their buckets were still on the roof where they'd left them. Cammy loaded them into Scrim's pannier and the two of them went over the edge again, picking up where they’d left off on the ninth floor.
When they were on the sidewalk side, people occasionally paused to take pictures or movies of them. That had been weird at first, but they'd quickly learned to ignore them. People just liked taking movies of things.
They had to be careful to not splash on people below, or even worse, drop a tool. Probably if they did, the awning would catch it, but it was better to not take the chance. That was why everything had a little safety lanyard that clipped around their legs.
At least they didn't have to wear fall-arrest harnesses like humans did.
•••
They didn't have to wash the ground floor windows; that was the responsibility of the commercial tenants.
Cammy's stomach was grumbling by the time they finally finished the second floor. “Shoulda got more to eat for lunch.”
“You'll have more room for ceviche now.”
“If I don't drop out of the sky from hunger first.”
Scrim stuck his tongue out at her. “We can get a pretzel or something if Danny's still there, if that won't spoil your appetite.”
“It’s too bad there aren’t any pasture grasses nearby and all the leaves taste bad.” She sighed. “I'll be fine, I can wait until we get to Junior's. It's only a couple of miles.”
“We'll stash our stuff on top of the apartments over there. The ones that straddle the highway.”
“Sounds good.”
•••
It was an easy flight.
They landed on the roof of the apartment closest to the river. There was a water tank hidden behind a wall, and the roof of the water tank was the perfect place to strip off their equipment and leave it where it wouldn't be bothered. Maybe the pigeons would peck at it, but there was nothing that they could fly off with, and it would take a lot of work for a person to get up there.
Junior's was an easy glide away—they could see the blue awning from their perch—and they arrived after the bulk of the dinner crowd had already eaten.
Cammy ordered their food, while Scrim flew across the street to the liquor store to buy them a nightcap. The two met back up on the west side of Broadway and took to the air again.
There was no reason to follow the highway to get to the bridge, but no reason not to, so they did. The landed on the western tower, disturbing a crowd of pigeons and seagulls, but they paid them no mind.
After setting their food down, Cammy flew to the southern edge and peered down the tower at the lighthouse below. “Seems funny that the lighthouse is so short.”
“They built it before they built the bridge, remember.”
“They should have put it on top of the bridge once they'd finished the towers.”
“It'd look silly,” Scrim said. “Even if it would fit. Come on, we should eat before the seagulls get our food.”
“You're right.” Cammy dropped back down to the top of the tower. “I like how open these towers are. You can see almost everything through the girders.”
•••
The two of them stayed on the top of the bridge and relaxed once they'd finished dinner. They sipped at their nightcap—a plastic bottle of cheap brandy—and watched the sun set over New Jersey before finally taking flight again.
After a brief stop to reclaim their equipment, they angled northeast, following the Harlem River until it curved towards the Hudson; they turned the opposite way, towards their brownstone apartment.
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It's nice being a New Yorker. I know all those landmarks.
Pretty sure I've also seen a Danny that runs a hot dog cart.
Flying back and forth over the city like that. Are they low enough to not have to deal with rules and regs and flight plans or has the FAA loosened rules for pegasai since Silver Glow's time?
I wonder how the unions that represent window washers would take this? They don't need all the safety gear but damn could a few industrious pegasi make a killing at this business.
9814643
Well unions are often lousy at adaptation, 'tis part of how Uber got to be such a thing. so I'd expect that they spent more time lobbying for Pegasai to be held to the same safety regulations as humans than hiring and integrating the new opportunity.
9814643
<puts on economist hat>
Well, one of the central problems in Capitalism that unions are an attempt to solve is that not everyone has the same standards, and you are correct: the fact that they are naturally far superior to human washers can be a huge problem for the people working in that industry if pegasi start taking those jobs regularly: they will see downward pressure on wages and eventually layoffs, impeded only by the Union demanding they keep being employed. Sadly, it will only slow the inevitable: they will eventually become unemployed as their jobs go to pegasi, and will need to make the dramatic shift to a different line of work entirely, with the welfare system taking the burden of the market simply not wanting workers, no matter how willing. This is actually the main reason why the US job-market is net-shrinking compared to growth indicators: automation is getting rid of all the jobs, and it isn't making anywhere near enough to replace them. That's why, even though coal mines have been reopening, they haven't been hiring back the coal miners: robots can do it without pay or safety regulations.
It's really funny, when you think of New York, especially Manhattan, you always think of the classic New York alley. Which is mostly because they are all filmed in the same alley as it's one of the very very few in Manhattan. Turns out that Manhattan really doesn't have have alleys (the other burrows are a different story), there's just not room for them. There are some exceptions, but they are more notable for the fact that even they exist.
I see this is an NYC that has embraced massive upzoning and YIMBYism to lower rents downwards a lot. :p ;)
Ponies on Earth?
Yes please!
9814670
Doesn’t help that a lot of unions have been demonized to such a degree, while imperfect it amazes me at times the volume of vitriol that gets chucked at them some times.
very nice little piece.
Woo, pegasi rule! *cough*
9814969
It's people not understanding the difference between imperfect Solutions and active malice. Unions are simply a response to a bad situation: the realities of capitalism meeting theory of power. The masses that have to work those jobs have effectively no power, but they can create a union which does have power, and that Union will bargain in their favor. It may actually be the best solution available in the United States, seeing as we aren't willing to have the government come in and regulate down the power of the company.
This a rather cute story. I definitely want to have a pair of pegasi like these two wash the windows at where I work at now.
So slice of life, I can barely hold it in...
What the hay!
Squee!
I loved this!
Calling, cute and just wonderful to read!
This was adorable.
I couldn't get the feeling out of my head though that something scary was bubbling away under the surface and something terrible was about to happen.
Must admit I was relieved when nothing did.
Cute story and mention of firepony! ... Story is chief Rescue approved..
What a cute couple.
Man this is a charming little story.
Two ponies enjoying the urban jungle of New York City.
I wish there were more stories like this.
One thing that ICR ever seeing
IMO. almost every Pegasus ever born is a born smuggler
(”We are the Ponies of the Wind. Wind don’t stop at the border & pay tolls. We don’t either”)
This is really sweet
An adorable couple doing things adorably. No wonder they attract so many amateur camerapeople.
All told, this has been a wonderful tetralogy. Thank you for all of it.
9815140
Unfortunately the Unions must keep helping their people. I am in a union and after they stabbed us in the back in the newest contact after it was rejected, they used a backdoor to approve it. Needless to say this has turned even more people against our current leadership. The current batch only got re-elected by a narrow margin from our members in Canada. I hope that we vote out all of the bums in the next election so that our union starts refocusing on its members instead of the back room deals with politicians. It makes me feel that I could have negotiated a better deal for myself then what our leaders felt I deserved.
I enjoyed the story greatly. It's nice, sweet, short and has ponies braving the big city.
P.S. On a side note, I can't help but wonder just how many air traffic laws were changed to incorporate pegasi into the legal world.
9814634
There is a Danny who runs one at Central Park, at least according to YouTube.
9814637
As far as I know, the rules generally are not below 1k feet AGL over an urban area.
I don’t know if this is a rule for sure, but not flying lower than the tallest nearby obstruction is a good rule of thumb, especially for fixed-wing aircraft. In general, with the rules currently in effect as I know them--and actual pilots are welcome to correct me--as long as Cammy and Scrim are below the top of reasonably close skyscrapers, the only thing they’d have to watch out for is helicopters.
9814643
Realistically, that’s gonna depend on how many pegasi there are doing it. If it’s only a few, they’ve got nothing to worry about; Cammy and Scrim can only do so many buildings on their own.
If there are lots, then the window washers might have a problem.
9814659
A lot of it would depend on how they interpreted it, methinks. There’s certainly room for pegasi and traditional window washers to coincide, and there are probably places where pegasi would do a better job of it than human, as well as places where humans would be more efficient. A smart union would quickly realize this and plan accordingly; whereas a less-smart union would not see the potential writing on the wall until it was too late.
You mention Uber, and I have to say that their business model bothers me as someone who had to pay extra for a special driver’s license since I drove commercially.
9814670
Overall, the issue is multifaceted, I think. There are things that unions have done that are great, and things they have done that are terrible, but then you can push that down to every aspect of business. Obviously, unions do better when there’s a high demand for the skill, and poorly when there isn’t (if farriers unionized tomorrow [assuming they aren’t already], nobody would really care; if WalMart employees do, that’d cause all sorts of ripples in the megamart industry).
Just focusing on the aspects of this story alone--since a full reply could well be a multipart essay on a subject I’m no expert on [although I have experience on the working end of the stick]--at this point there really aren’t enough pegasus window washers in New York or anywhere else to have much of an effect on the market overall. Going forward, there might be more, and at one point there might be enough to put the normal people out of business . . . or not, there are lots of windows in New York and the world at large.
For that matter, there might be technological solutions to window washing that render actual people and possibly even people moot . . . I don’t know a lot about the subject, but I can tell you that since the fifties, train crews have dropped from five to two and sometimes one, with the other positions rendered obsolete or redundant by techological advances (and for that matter, a lot of people’s jobs weren’t taken by immigrants or offshoring, they were taken by robots [and at one job, I had to help out my robot replacement]).
I guess the thing I’m getting at is there aren’t likely to be enough pegasi window washers to affect the market, not unless the ponies all worked together to crash the market and then take over.
9814756
I was honestly thinking of an alley I know at least reasonably well in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I have no idea if it’s a representative alley or an outlier, but when I think of alleys that’s what I picture.
9814816
Quick googling suggested that rents might be reasonably affordable in the Bronx, although I wasn’t able to get exact numbers on that. Odds are Cammy and Scrim would be willing to accept less of an apartment than an average human; it being an upper-floor apartment in a building with no elevator wouldn’t be an issue, so long as they had a fire escape and opening windows that they could use for commuting.
9814959
9814959
Stay tuned for more--I hope!
And if you haven’t, check out Celefin’s excellent Track Switch series!
9814969
Totally agree. There are certainly some issues with unions sometimes, but in general they do look out for the interest of the worker. They’re not perfect, but then what is?
9815044
Thank you!
Also, corrections made.
Reminds me of my own time living in Queens :D
9815106
They do!
9815140
Totally agree. Unions aren’t necessarily the best solution, but they’re one that works with the system that we have here in ‘Murica.
9815143
Thank you!
Who wouldn’t? I know I’d love to see it!
9815166
Thank you!
Thanks! Glad you liked it!
9815186
Thank you!
Heh, my SoL fics rarely have terrible things happening in them . . . mostly just ponies doing what ponies do.
9815206
Thank you!
Also:
derpicdn.net/img/view/2017/5/16/1438241.png
9815230
They are, aren’t they?
9815299
Thanks!
So do I. . . .
9815342
Hey, Aug 4 is my birthday!
Yeah, I could see that. There are no borders in the sky.
9815393
Thank you!
9815403
(also, I think ponies by default do things adorably)
Thanks! Glad you liked it!
9815747
Thanks, glad you liked it!
That was discussed in some length in Silver Glow’s Journal--in short, since there are typically altitude restrictions for normal operations over cities (usually, 1,000 feet), pegasi can fly under that unhindered although they need to see and avoid other air traffic.
Silver Glow was cleared to 10,000 feet in VFR conditions, and was required to wear a radio and contact the nearest airport when flying above 1,000 feet. Sometimes with permission she could fly in other flight conditions, as well--if I recall, the regulations in that story basically were the sport pilot rules (not over 10k, no passengers, VFR only).
She also had to wear a high-viz vest and a blinking light whenever flying at altitude:
derpicdn.net/img/view/2016/7/10/1197358.png
(the helmet, GoPro and second radio are equipment she often wore for stormwatching)
She was also allowed to take off and land practically anywhere, although if landing at an airport, she was typically cleared into the helicopter landing area.
She was also legally classed as an ornithopter.
Another story I’m working on has the pegasi wearing flight packs that include radar reflectors of some sort and nav lights, as well as flashing beacons.
In a nutshell, in low altitude where airplanes can’t go, there are few restrictions, but to avoid conflicts there are much stricter requirements at altitude.
9816746
Thank you!
I shall!
9816860
I’ve been to NYC exactly once in my life, and I didn’t particularly enjoy it, but then I’m a country boy.
I kinda like how simple, yet interesting, the concept of this one-shot is. I don't recall a lot of stories that really deal with the aftermath of a Pony-Human contact in such a laid-back, low-stress manner like this.