That Stupid Kid

pid Kid

  By: Greg M. Hall

  Copyright 2010 by Greg M. Hall

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, places, and events portrayed in this novel are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to persons living or dead, locales, or events is entirely coincidental.

  Traffic Control (Action)

  Closure (Fantasy)

  Rick’s Hostage (Horror)

  The Gig (Horror)

  My Pal The Bug #1: For They Know Not… (Sci-Fi)

  My Pal The Bug #2: The Haunted Drug Lab (Sci-Fi)

  The coffee tasted awful, but none of the guys in the shed cared. They were after heat and wrapped numb fingers around steaming cups. George felt the dank liquid’s warmth seep through the fired clay and into his rough, calloused palms. Nobody talked for a while, pretending it was because of the icy wind outside, that they needed to thaw out before their jaws would work.

  Rico finally broke the silence. He was a Chihuahua of a man, always moving and looking around with bulging eyes, the kind of guy who talked to the pair of feet in the stall next to him in the can. After shift, when the guys stood around talking, his participation made the ritual look like a game of pepper.

  “You think he’s got a chance?” He floated the question in the close air of the shed, not at anyone in particular, just at whoever would take the bait.

  Everyone looked at George. He was a Foreman, but it was seniority and size that made him the de facto leader of the group, even when Paul, the Superintendent, was around. The intimidating look of his buzz cut and Fu Manchu moustache brooked no backtalk from the rest of the hourly guys. Rico once asked if he’d ever seen that Orange County Choppers show, ‘cause he looked like the old man that ran the shop, but George said he didn’t have cable. Waste of money. Besides, nothing worth watching came out of Jersey.

  “He’s got a chance. I’d say fifty-fifty.” Everyone’s stare and the vacuum of silence sucked the words out. His live-in Maxine had read some psychology book that said a person couldn’t keep his mouth shut when there were too many pairs of eyes on him. There was nothing you could do about it, even if you understood the trick.

  George didn’t believe the kid had an even money chance, but was he going to say what he really thought? Even Rico, dense as he could be, had to suspect the young Engineer would probably flatline before he got to the emergency room. He wouldn’t say that out loud; first guy to use the D word would go down as the one who threw the curse.

  Most of the others nodded at their Foreman’s assessment, but a couple of them were still stunned and barely there mentally. Each would go home and drain what was left in the bottle in the kitchen cabinet, not even waiting for the kids to go in the living room so they wouldn’t see.

  George barely knew the kid that they hauled off. He thought Gary was his name. Although it could have been Greg or Gerry; it didn’t matter.

  He realized that Rico had asked another question, because all the eyes were on him again.

  “I was sayin’, anybody know anything about the kid?”

  The Foreman grunted. Like he’d know anything; dumb kid never left the office, and the moment he did he paid for it.

  “Nothin’.”

  That was going to be it, but then Cecil, who never said anything but ‘ok, boss’ and ‘no, sir’, spoke with his face pointed into his coffee.

  “I heard he was the son of one of the big guys that lives over in Montvale.”

  Everybody reverently let that information sink in. Outside the corrugated steel wall of the shed, a heavy breeze howled in harmony with the bleating of a nearby tugboat. It echoed off the long brick warehouse next door, funneling away down the street along with the bitter wind.

  “Wow, won’t be good for Paul if that’s true, him or Ted,” Rico stammered, throwing in a reference to the Project Manager. “Not that it would be a good thing if he wasn’t, just … wow, I wouldn’t want to be the one that had to explain it to the kid’s dad.”

  They all nodded, briefly thankful for their low position on the professional ladder. They all liked to bitch about the pay, and having to follow the orders of some pompous college-boy, but when it came down to moments like this… Hey, they were just the hired help.

  “Yeah,” chimed in Rossi, from the back of the shed. “If they don’t fire both of ‘em over this, they’ll just make it so bad they’ll quit in a couple’a months.”

  George watched everyone’s heads bobbing up and down in agreement, in a grave attempt to look like they’d feel bad for their bosses if their heads rolled, but not quite getting there.

  It was nothing personal with Paul or Ted. Those guys weren’t so bad, but a work-dulled mind seizes on something like this. It’s a break in the routine, and something new to talk about. Everybody’s interested in bad things happening to people, as long as it’s not them. It makes you go hoo-boy, missed another one, and the rest of the day won’t be the same boring crap.

  George expected the brush-fire of gossip to consume the group when Cecil, of all people, threw water on it.

  “Shit, I hope not. Can you imagine Ted, sittin’ in the office on the phone with someone, mindin’ his own business, when he has this dropped in his lap? You saw the kid, he was … well, you saw what he was doin’, didn’ you?”

  George saw. Why Gary or Greg was walking behind the crane, with his head down, cell phone to one ear, hand to the other … people get in a hurry on a construction job. Stuff needs to get done, there are very highly-motivated personalities saying so, and sometimes a person worries more about them than their own well-being.

  And then bam, it’s over.

  Rico started talking like he thought Cecil had wanted his question answered. “Yeah, I saw him, alright. Just walking around like a wind-up doll when Mikey swings around, and-”

  George said: “Can it, Rico.”

  Sitting next to Cecil, Mikey had been staring at the air between his eyes and the floor, silent, no coffee to warm him. Last thing he needed was a loudmouth reminding him who was operating that crane.

  “Aw, geez, Mikey, I didn’t mean it like that-”

  George, with a sudden swing of his head, shut the words off with a stare. Where the hell was Rico when the kid got nailed? Up on the forms, waiting for the load that dumbly caused all the damage, tons of metal dangling from the wire rope, deceptive in its momentum, barely registering the hundred sixty pounds of meat and bone that it contacted.

  No, all Rico did was holler oh my Gawwwd as Cecil and George ran over to the kid, Cecil wanting to flip him over but George stopping him, remembering somewhere in CPR class that you had to be careful in case his spine was broke.

  George remembered putting his ear to the kid’s mouth, hearing the faintest, stuttering signs of breath, telling the kid to hold still, wait up for the ambulance. Paul ran over as he barked in his radio for someone in the office to call 911.

  It went from normal to surreal in a heartbeat, and here was big George, tenderly holding another man’s hand, a lifetime of conditioning telling you that’s what queers did, real men didn’t hug or hold hands or any of that other faggy stuff, but here he was holding the guy’s hand, someone he barely knew, had talked to once or twice, not much more than a stranger, and it was okay to hold hands with his Dad when he was a little kid, and that he used to wrestle around with his buddies at school, and dammit where was that ambulance?

  The door to the shed opened up, startling George from recollection. There was a wheeze of hinges and the daylight streaming from the outside, overcast as it was, hurt their eyes.

  “George, you got a minute?” It was Paul. He was silhouetted in the open doorway, but George didn’t need to see his face to understand he wasn’t i
n a good way at all. Too bad, because for a Superintendent he was an okay guy. What would he be doing a couple of months from now? Something in the office over in Elizabeth, estimating work he’d never get assigned to anymore? Or still out in the field but getting drunk to get to sleep every night?

  George forgot if Paul was married or not. Wasn’t sure if that would be a blessing or a curse.

  As George joined his boss in the biting wind and closed the shed door behind him, he pictured Rico, the little windbag, asking everybody why their Foreman was so grouchy. He didn’t care; let ‘em talk. They’d get sick of it in a week or two. Besides, they’d probably shut the job down through the weekend. On Monday, they’d have football to talk about, or all the drinking they did on Saturday night, or something else.

  After George followed Paul a few paces, the other man stopped. He was a tall guy, looked like he’d played basketball in that college he went to, maybe even got to go for free because of it. He had dark hair but a pale face, even paler now. He looked like he wanted to say something but couldn’t figure out how.

  “Wondering if you ever get over it?” George wasn’t sure why he thought of asking that. In response, his boss nodded, jaw a little slack, still very pale in the face of the cold breeze that swept by them.

  “Yeah, you do, and … you don’t. I mean, you never forget it. But either you’re the type of guy that can move on, or you’re not. You never really know ‘til it happens.”

  It didn’t sound like much of an answer to George, even coming from his own lips, but Paul nodded in acceptance. His voice was a little dry, but not wavery or weak. “I guess I won’t know right away, either. Probably takes a couple of days to quit being numb. I just …” He hung there, trying to force out some sort of ending to the sentence, before giving up and turning back toward the office.

  George nodded, and followed him, hands in his pockets and his shoulders hunched up against the cold. Off to the right, a couple of birds landed on a power line and looked down at the men. They didn’t give a shit. Birds died all the time. Fighting off a pang of jealousy, George took a couple of quick steps to catch up with his boss.

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  About the Author:

  Greg M. Hall has many stories published online and in print, and his debut novel, Traffic Control, is available online and in select bookstores. For more of his stories, visit his website at www.gregmhall.com, his podcast at www.killbox.mevio.com, or his blog at sf.gregmhall.com. He lives in eastern Nebraska with his wife, a bunch of kids, and pet tortoise.