Tramp Wars: The Enemy

by Larry Roberts

  "Oh? Are you sure Mark?" Mr. Farmer looked at Mark like he was crazy. "What are you going to do with it?"

  Mark smiled at him and shook his head. "Oh I will think of something."

  "Ok it’s your money. Let me get you the tittle to it."

  "Ah I don't have time now Mr. Farmer, you just hold onto it for me Ok." Mark smiled. That way he did not have to worry about losing it. Mr. Farmer would still have it when the dust had settled.

  "We will put it over in your box with the tools." Smiling he started shaking his head in disbelief. "Oh a, there are a few others that would not mind getting a little more for their boxes as well. Are you interested Mark?"

  Mark stepped to the hatch. "Ya sure why not. More the merrier." He would just give them all back at the same time. "Bye all." Mark started to wave and stopped. Smiling at the thought of them walking in on pore Tom stuck on the head even if the air purifier was working. “Ah thanks Mr. Farmer but Tom had a bit too much Chilly last night and he is paying for it right now. If you don't want gassed, you may want to wait awhile before going over there. He is supposed to go with me so I hope he doesn't take much longer.”

  Mrs. Farmer turned toward Mark holding up her hand. “Now, now Mark.” Then went to a box and started rummaging through it for a few seconds before turning back around with a big smile and a bottle in her hand. “You go on. We will take care of Tom for you. I have something that will fix him right up in no time. That chilly has the same effect on Mr. Farmer when he eats too much.” Mrs. Farmer waddled out, pushing Mark out around the corner then giving him a hug before heading back into the tunnel around the container. "You just have a nice day at the Zoo with the kids Mark."

  Mark stuck his hands in his pockets and smiled shaking his head as he headed down the alley toward the main boulevard that ran between the elevator and the cargo hatch. Picturing Mrs. Farmer bursting in on Tom still sitting on the head, force feeding the trapped Tom whatever was in the bottle. Whether he wanted it or not for his own good. She never took no for an answer when taking care of her kids, which included everyone in the club and any visitors. Snacks included.

  Several bends and a large tunnel later he walked around the corner of a cargo container box and froze.

  Chet and one of his friends (sycophants) were standing in front of Chet’s father’s big expensive tricked out fantruck pulled halfway out of their alley. Complete with the biggest horizontal fans Mark had ever seen on an airtruck running down both sides under the cab with 2 foot wide chrome grated sideboards above the outer portion of the fans. A crew cab big enough to seat six comfortably with space for a lifting cable wench down through the floor between the back and front seats. A long open topped pickup box took up the rear. A chromed crash bar ran up over and around the rear of the crew cab with a row of huge sun lights across the top.

  Mark jumped back behind the corner of the box praying he had not been seen. Chet and the only goon he had seen were facing the open cargo hatch but another one of his buddies he might not have seen may have seen him. Trying to make up his mind which way to run he realized he had not heard any yelling or running footsteps. Maybe no one had seen him.

  Then he heard running feet and suddenly someone yelling. Mark was just getting ready to run when he heard something falling to the deck with several pieces of something skittering across the deck and the cry of a child. Mark lowered himself down onto one knee and peeked out around the corner.

  Chet was towering over a boy about 8, laying on the deck with the contents of a spilled box strewn out across the deck. Chet laughed and then said. “Shame you tripped little moron and spilled your box.” Reaching out his hand to help the boy. “Here let me help you up.” Chet lifted him up by his hand until he was half way up and then let go with a shove and watched him thump back hard onto the deck. “Damn you are clumsy boy.” Looking around Chet spotted a model airplane with two wings, (a biplane) that had slid out from the box and across the deck. “Damn. That looks just like the airplane I had stolen a few months ago.” Picking it up, he examined it closely. “Yes, it is my stolen airplane. I should beat you stupid for steeling it from me but I see you already are stupid. Why did you steel this from me you little puke face?”

  The boy tried to be brave. With a stubborn look on his face he looked between the twenty some inch wide 2 winged model biplane and Chet. “I didn’t steel anything. I got that for my birthday a couple months ago.” He reached for it and Chet slapped him back down to the deck. Mark heard the slap loud and clear.

  “Now you are lying.” Chet back handed the boy across his cheek again. “Admit this is my airplane.” Tears came to the shocked boy’s eyes as he tried to keep from crying. Chet lifted his foot and stepped on another toy crushing it flat. “Now, admit this is my airplane.”

  “No, it is mine.” The boy cried.

  Chet’s buddy stepped on another, splintering it into pieces.

  “Admit this is mine or you won’t have anything left to play with.” Chet lifted his foot to stomp another toy.

  “OK…” The boy was balling with frustrated tears running down his face. “It is yours.”

  Mark felt tears coming to his eyes remembering all the times he had been victimized by Chet, his goons and his family in pretty much the same manner.

  “What, I did not hear you.” As he stepped on the toy anyway as his buddy held his foot over another. His comm watch turned toward the little boy to record his confession.

  “I stole your airplane!” The boy practically shouted. “That is your airplane.”

  “About time the truth came out you lying bag of shit.” Chet's buddy stepped on the toy anyway. Then Chet bent over and rummaged through what was left in the box to come out with the controller for the remote controlled airplane. Turning it on, he checked the readouts and smiled. “Good boy. You took good care of it for me and even charged it.”

  Chet sat the little biplane down on the deck and pushed the throttle forward. The propeller turned pulling the little airplane into the air. The airplane flew jerkily around the cargo bay as Chet continued to over control it from one near disaster to another near miss but after only a few seconds he jerked the controls the wrong way and bounced off of the overhead and put it into a stall where it flipped over and power dived at full throttle strait into the deck shattering the little airplane into several pieces.

  Chet turned on the boy. “I have seen you flying that stupid thing all over the hold for months. What did you do to it to make it crash moron?” Chet threw the controller down hard onto the deck in front of the boy cracking the controller in half then stomped on it repeatedly. “It was all your fault my plane crashed.” Chet started to swing his fist at the boy still bawling as he sat on the deck.

  “What the hell is going on here?” Mark recognized the boy's father as he and several other people walked out of an alley.

  Chet in one smooth motion without hesitating, opened his fist, stopping his swing as he placed his hand on the boys shoulder and knelt down beside the boy whispering into his ear. A look of terror came over the boy's face that was hidden from his father approaching from behind them. Then taking his arm, Chet helped him up off the deck as he brushed him off. “It seems sir that your son fell down and broke a couple of his toys. My friend and I helped him up trying to make him feel better. I talked him into showing us how good a pilot he is after watching him flying for months. But then he accidentally crashed his airplane and then in a fit of rage he broke a lot of his other toys. I was just finely able to calm him sir when he collapsed crying.” Patting the boy on his head as his buddy loaded up the box with the damaged toys on the bottom and a few undamaged toys on top with the destroyed toy biplane still on the deck. Chet turned the boy around facing away from his family, he whispered something into the boy’s ear getting a terrified look from the boy once again.

  Handing the boy the box, Chet patted the still sniffling boy on the back and sent him off toward his father. “There now, your father will take care of everything yo
ung man. I am sure he will get you a new airplane and next time you should be more careful where you fly it.”

  The boy was still too upset to say much intelligible as the group left the hold. His father scolding the boy, telling him he needed to control his temper as they walked by. Mark sat with his back to the side of the container realizing for the first time that he was not the only one Chet and his buddies terrorized. Though his glasses simply made him more of a target. Come to think of it, he had seen the aftermath dozens of times Chet had probably terrorized people but had been so wrapped up in his own fears and hate, he could not put two and two together. Or was it that he simply was so self-centered he did not care. Suddenly feeling ashamed for not going to the aid of the little boy even if he would have gotten beaten up again. He watched them enter the elevator and disappear before he could overcome his fear to go after them. But then he rarely got more than just verbally harassed when Chet was alone or had only one of his goons with him. But there was no way of knowing for sure that the rest of his goon squad was not just around the corner in his alley.

  Kicking himself as shame filled his head, he looked at his wrist comm (he was running out of time) and then peeked around the corner again. Chet and his buddy were again looking away from him in the direction of the open hatch and the bus sitting out on the ramp but now they were laughing and cracking jokes about the boy and his stupid airplane though he could not hear everything they were saying. But of what he could hear they were fine tuning their stories in case the father objected later as they talked about the boy’s confession. Planning on how to get even with the boy for making Chet crash his new airplane. Even planning to take the boys next airplane.

  Only thing was they were between him and the bus and they did not look like they were in any mood or too busy to ignore him. Taking a deep breath to calm down, he resigned himself to going back the way he had come and through some of the smaller side alleys and tunnels to go around Chet and his friend. Wondering why they were there in the middle of a workday anyway.

  Taking two steps he suddenly stopped. He could just picture himself running into the Farmers or even Tom as he snuck back around the outside of the hold and telling them that he was hiding from Chet because he was a pussy. He was legally an adult now and adults did not go around hiding and being scarred of assholes like Chet even if he was a couple years older than he was. He suddenly realized that he would rather get beaten up by Chet and his buddies again than face Tom and the Farmer’s right then.

  Peeking out around the corner again he realized that with them looking the other way he could walk across the 20 foot wide Broadway and into the next alley and go around behind Chet and his buddy without being seen. He would not really be sneaking around them, just taking a slightly longer scenic route to the ramp and the bus. After all he had a few minutes to spar.

  Taking a couple of deep breaths while he watched Chet for any signs he would turn around and to make sure there was no one else in sight. Finally he got up the nerve and walked out from behind the box forcing himself not to run as he rapidly walked down across the central Broadway and into the next alleyway walking on the balls of his feet to keep his shoes from making noise slapping down onto the deck.

  Finally out of sight, he plastered himself against another box and tried to catch his breath. Not hearing any yells or footsteps, he sighed with relief and continued down the alley. Working his way down the many narrow connections between alleys him and his friends had found years before exploring every nook and cranny of the ship, until he was directly behind Chet's families' huge two story tall maxi cargo container and the much wider alley than all the others in the hold. Mark was expecting to see a large 26 some foot long sports aircar with a tarp over it sitting next to the container directly behind Chet's maxi container giving Mark plenty of cover crossing the open area to the last alley that would take him directly to the hatch. But the large Sports car was missing with the tarp and the dozen tie downs the owner always used to secure it to the deck laying in piles around the area with the fitted tarp against the bulkhead of the cargo hold.

  Then it downed on Mark that the fast looking fancy sports car that was normally under the tarp, that he had seen fly only a couple times before and then from a distance was actually out flying around. He suddenly wanted to be out on the platform when it returned simply to see it fly again and land for the first time up close. He knew it was a civilian aircar version of the famous Tri-winged Imperial Recon Fighter of legend which is why he could never understand why the owner never flew it in public.

  Mark stopped counting how many times he had arrived as the owner had been getting it ready to fly, only to stop what he was doing and cover it back up again and leave without answering any questions from the gathering crowd. Or came in to land with a crowd waiting only to veer off and come back hours later after the hold was empty again with Mark only catching a glimpse of it as it slipped through the hatch and down into its parking spot before anyone could get close to it. Mark had even heard Chet's family commenting on the guy never flying it in public. Mark had watched several time as the man gave the Greedly’s a strange look when they started to bother him only to have Chet's family turn away without making any further comments. Mark did not know what kind of arrangement the man had with his shop being placed so close behind Chet's family's maxi container, but whatever it was, they left him strictly alone and avoided doing anything that would antagonize him. Something everyone else in the junk hold wished Chet’s family would do to them. Most tended to avoid the secretive little man as well simply for that reason.

  Trying not to panic as he looked around the corner at the back end of the shiny tricked out airtruck, Mark realized that Chet and his buddy were standing around the front of the airtruck out of sight of anything he did behind the airtruck. As long as they stayed where they were, he could easily cross the wide open alley without being seen.

  Taking a deep breath and smiling, Mark headed out across the open alley and tripped falling flat on his face. He slapped the deck to help absorb his fall without trying to stop his fall by putting his arms stiffly out to get broken or strained as he had been taught in the ship's Cadet self-defense classes with the marines, since his legs were tangled up in something preventing him from rolling. He froze on the deck knowing Chet had to have heard the loud noise but he could see across the deck under the air truck that Chet and his buddies legs had not moved from the front. Starting to breathe as he turned to see what he had tripped over. Chet's legs moved, walking rapidly away from the front of the truck. Starting to panic Mark heard. "And what do you have in that box little girl."

  Mark quickly untangled his feet and jumped back around the corner of the container as the little girl screamed and ran away. Chet and his buddy laughing as they returned to the front of the airtruck.

  Mark waited a minute as his heart calmed down before taking a final look at Chet's legs under the airtruck then made a dash across the open alley. As he approached the back of the container on the other side feeling relief at getting away with it, he noticed that the airtruck's bed was packed with sports equipment suit cases and ski's in racks across the top of the cab. He disappeared behind the container and kept going for several steps not intending to stop but did anyway, thinking. Turning around he went back to the corner of the container and looked at the airtruck packed for some kind of vacation. "Ok. That makes sense now. The ass holes are going on a vacation and they are just waiting for someone else to get here to go along." His eyes fell on the pile of tie down cables he had tripped over and a pile he had carefully jumped over a few feet from the corner of the box he now was peering around. "No.” He said to himself with a leering smile. “But it would be so easy." He hated when he started thinking like that. It always got him into trouble.

  Mark stepped out and grabbed one of the cables. Picking one of the darker ones that still looked in good shape. Crouching down he made a beeline for the back of the airtruck. He quickly unfastened the rear maintenance hatc
h at the back center of the skirt, lifted it up and slid under the big fans almost 2 feet above the deck. The skirt was designed to make the fans look even bigger than they were leaving a gap between the rows of fans up the middle of the truck. He started to hook the tie down cable onto a hard point under the bumper as he looked down at the cleat in the deck several feet to the side and stopped. He tie down cleat was too fare to the side. Glancing forward under the truck he noticed the external lifting hook half way up the belly of the truck that looked very close if not right over a deck cleat. The cleats were spaced every 4 feet across the deck. Remembering all the times Chad had bragged about having the lifting hook Mark tried not to chuckle.

  Smiling Mark ducked down and started crawling forward, He had crawled only a couple of feet when he realized that the cable was making more noise than he thought it would as the heavy safety lock hooks at the ends hit the deck making a clang that certainly could be heard half way around the hold. Mark froze as he waited for Chet or his buddy to notice but after a few seconds he continued trying to be more careful with the cable slowing him down.

  It seemed like forever as he became more worried by the second but he finely made it to the center of the airtruck and the heavy lifting hook complete with a remote quick release lock for lifting outsized external loads. Chet's father had spent the week end they had bought the airtruck showing off the hook to everyone that would watch. Lifting all kinds of things around the ship and junk hold. Mark could not remember anyone using the lifting hook for anything since then. The same for the personnel lifting wench and the trap door in the bottom of the cab Mark was looking at next to the hook as he pulled himself around to reach the hook with his head brushing the deck of the airtruck.

  Mark placed the cable eye over the hook and clipped the safety lock dawn tight. To Mark's satisfaction, one of the cleats was almost directly below the lifting hook. He shortened the cable until it was tight then ratcheted it down even tighter and locked the cable slide down with a smile.