by Jamie Fade
Chapter 2
He finished his last stack of heavy boxes; that would be it for the hour. Marshall wiped a line of sweat from his face before taking the harsh gloves he was required have on off of his hands. He hated his job with a burning passion. Sarah meant what she said about Marshall getting a ‘real’ job. The day after Marshall made his promise she went straight to work searching through the newspaper as well as her old laptop for job listings. Marshall picked up a job as shipment transporter for a local supermarket. The job itself wasn’t that bad, Marshall’s sturdy build made him well-suited for the intense lifting. The two things that made this job terrible were the brutally linear hours he had to work to make a decent amount of money and the snide boss whom he had no choice but to deal with. Mr. Cross went out of his way to give Marshall a hard time, pestering him with the threat of getting fired, giving him the hardest and heaviest loads, yelling at him when he made the tiniest mistake. Marshall held up a bottle of water to mouth; squeezing the crinkly plastic and drinking with rapid gulps. “You there!” Mr. Cross called walking towards Marshall, “There’s another shipment of boxes that need sorting out and lucky for you you’re the guy that gets to sort them.” “Find someone else to do it I’m on my break right now.” Marshall refused through heavy breaths. Mr. Cross’s eyes opened wide up in a dissatisfactory glare, “I don’t need to find someone else to do it because I’ve already found you now get to it.” Mr. Cross’s breath was hot with anger. Marshall didn’t even glance in Mr. Cross’s direction; he finished the remaining droplets of water before effortlessly squeezing the plastic bottle into a ball and throwing it in a nearby recycling bin. Mr. Cross’s glare strengthened with intensity. “Let me rephrase then; No.” Marshall refused again. Marshall half expected Mr. Cross to become unstable with rage but all he gained from his unkind boss was an amused chuckle. “I think you’re forgetting you’re place here. This place hired you here because they needed some out-of-luck trailer park trash that they could pay slightly above minimum wage, they hired me here because they needed a man could take control of things. What did it say you had on your application, a wife and a daughter? Maybe if you didn’t complain and were more like me you might actually be able to amount to something for them. Now let me rephrase; do it or you’re fired.” Marshall’s facial expression stayed indifferent as Mr. Cross turned around to walk away, not because Marshall was feeling defeated but because he had already made up his mind on his course of action and was considering the repercussions. Whatever the consequences would be he wasn’t letting someone get away with saying that. Marshall caught up to Mr. Cross and tapped him on the shoulder. “Do you have something to say?” Mr. Cross asked as he turned around. Marshall let his balled fist do the talking, in one quick fluid motion he delivered forceful blow to Mr. Cross’s face knocking the short man completely off his feet. Mr. Cross turned his body so that his back was on the floor and crab-walked up against a chair, “I’ll have you arrested you brute!” He yelled. Marshall paid no attention to him as he walked towards the heaviest stack of boxes, “I need to find someone to sort these out, oh wait, I’ve already found someone.” Marshall said sarcastically as he looked at Mr. Cross who was still squirming on the floor. With an unmatched strength Marshall lifted the first box on the stack in his arms like it was a stuffed animal, then with even more strength he threw it. The box cut through the air like an arrow and landed on Mr. Cross’s torso, knocking the air from his lungs. “Here have another one!” Marshall taunted as he threw another heavy box in Mr. Cross’s direction, Marshall threw another and another until Mr. Cross’s body was obscured from view. Co-workers watched with enthusiasm from a distance, every once in a while someone would consider stopping Marshall but somehow they ended up advising themselves against it. When Marshall was finished he stormed out through the backdoor that was propped open as if it somehow anticipated this event would happen. Marshall didn’t even look back, he had no reason to. There comes a point in every man’s life where they have no choice but to quit something, there’s only so much a person can take before they start to figure out that no matter how hard they try, unless they give their own destinies a forceful well-needed push, they will be forever limited to unfortunate situations. It was Fall and the cool air distributed the auburn leaves to the ground as Marshall stormed down the sidewalk. He was angry at world. He yearned to be the man he knew he could be for his wife and child but it seemed that nothing would yield the results he so desperately needed. He couldn’t go back to his job, he knew that much. What was he going to tell Sarah? How would she deal with him getting fired from their only source of income? He figured he could still receive his last check but what then? Marshall was too angry to think straight. He lifted his hand to touch the shoulder which held the signature tattoo. His days at the gang weren’t too far off. He could go back. Marshall shook his head in disgust, he couldn’t think like that, not now. Still the idea stuck in his head like a nail in a weak wall, could he? At least when he was with the gang he was earning enough to afford most of they needed and was even able to splurge every once and a while. It was dangerous but it paid. Marshall didn’t want to make any decisions just yet, he was too mad to think straight, that’s when he spotted Lamarr. Lamarr was wearing an oversized hoodie and some faded baggy jeans that looked like they belonged in an old eighties film rather than modern day two-thousand twenty, also as usual Lamarr was smoking. Lamarr was an old gang-mate of Marshall’s; Lamarr was one of the few members of Marshall’s gang that was black, although the gangs in Cresentville weren’t split up racially most of the people in Marshall’s gang had been white. Marshall now considered whether he should approach Lamarr or not, he would never know what his decision was because at that moment Lamarr spotted Marshall and initiated the first move with a wave of a hand. Marshall smiled, he couldn’t help it, he and Lamarr went way back and in an instant he walked over to his friend. “Well if it isn’t Mad Man Marshy.” Lamarr greeted. “Well it isn’t, these days I’m a lot less of a Mad Man.” Marshall chuckled. “Oh yeah, I heard about you having a kid, how’s the baby?” Lamarr asked. “She’s fine.” Marshall answered. “It’s a girl?!” Lamarr shouted happily, “I bet she’ll look just like her momma then.” Lamarr laughed. Marshall nodded “Then your bet would be right on.” “How’s Sarah?” Lamarr asked. Marshall didn’t know how to answer that, Sarah always said she was happy no matter what the situation was but he knew she was miserable. He saw it in her eyes every time she opened the refrigerator only to find that nothing was there, or when they were both out with baby Emily and they saw the other couples with their babies dressed in warm colorful clothing while Emily was wearing old donated baby clothes. They were other times too; countless times when shame and disappointment would make a temporary residence on her face and she’d play it off like it didn’t mean anything, like he didn’t how she really felt. “She’s fine.” Is all Marshall managed say. “How are you then?” Lamarr asked. Marshall was starting to get irritated with all the questions Lamarr was asking but he couldn’t really blame him, all Lamarr was trying to do was catch up, Marshall decided to answer honestly, “Honestly Lamarr I’m a hot mess, I just finished beating up my boss which means I have no job and family to take care off. Don’t worry yourself about any of this but times have been better.” Lamarr scratched his chin with his mouth wide open “Geez Marshall why didn’t you just say so?” Marshall raised an eyebrow “You know where I can get another job?” Lamarr laughed “Forget all that job nonsense man. You heard about the new space program right?” This caught Marshall off guard “Yeah the Mars colonization program, what does that have to do with anything?” Lamarr laughed again like he knew something Marshall didn’t, that was because he did. “Well then you’d know how they’ve partnered up with Oilco gas stations all over the country since Oilco will be providing fuel for the transportation. Let’s just say there’s a rumor that the space program has put aside portions of its excess funding in every Oilco gas station in the United States.” Lamarr in
formed with a sly smile. “Come on now Lamarr why would space program leave money lying around in a gas station?” Marshall shook his head. “I thought the same thing when I first heard but I had my boy Dominic do some thorough intelligence research and everything checks out. The reason they have them in the gas stations is because it’s a lot more secure usage wise, if they left it in the national accounts then the excess funding would be used for something else even though the program might need it for later, so by ‘partnering up’ with Oilco and giving them the money, it’s secure. They’re using Oilco as temporary bank that can’t be tampered with.” Marshall ran through this information, “What does this have to do with me?” Lamarr put his cigarette up to his lips and took a deep inhale, cigarette smoke made Marshall feel sick but luckily for him Lamarr only smoked electronic cigarettes. “Well Marshy I was planning on robbing an Oilco gas station in order to obtain a small piece of this funding, if what I’m hearing from Dominic is true, which it is, then the amount of money should be enough to carry both of us a long way.” Lamarr took another puff of water vapor and blew it out threw his nose. “Lamarr you know I quit all the gang stuff a while ago, I’m a father now, I can’t afford to be going around pulling hits anymore.” Marshall refused. Lamarr studied Marshall for a minute as if trying to figure out if he was serious or not, “Technically this isn’t gang-related, you could consider it a personal objective.” Lamarr coaxed. “Won’t the gas station be heavily secured with all that funding cash in it?” Marshall questioned unsure. “No, it’s just a normal gas station, Dominic did his research and there is an advanced security system but he put together a jammer that’ll keep it hush for a few minutes, just enough time for someone to get in and get out.” Lamarr answered. Please promise me. Marshall grunted to himself “Sorry Lamarr but I can’t do that.” Lamarr took another puff of vapor “Alright then but we’re hitting it tonight, there’s more than enough spoils to go around so if you want to join in you know where to find me, seems like you could use the extra cash though.” With that Lamarr patted Marshall on the shoulder and walked off. At least the conversation with Lamarr had kept him from thinking about his lost job and worse how he was going to tell Sarah about it, there was no avoiding her, not because he couldn’t but because he didn’t want to. She would forgive him, she had to.
