Warning: If you are sensitive to violence, you may want to enjoy the image and skip the story.
It was just after 2 AM, and I was about to go to the docks and start my shift, but I was trying to reach Jack again. I talked to him last night. I haven’t talked to Billy or Sam since Friday, and Dominic has been on vacation for a week. None were here, and it was time to start our shifts. A part of me was screaming that something was wrong, but he kept telling himself I was overreacting. They had covered their tracks. It had been over 2 weeks since they hit that poker game and made off with almost 250 grand. Nobody would notice if they kept their heads down and didn’t go out and buy a new car or something else stupid, and we could do what we liked 6 months from now. This was the third job they had done in 6 months.
All 5 of them agreed. “Damn it,” I said out loud as I tried to text Sam again. I was just about to get up when I heard heavy footsteps coming down the hallway into the locker room. Thinking it was Jack, I yelled, “About fucking time!” However, the massive figure who turned the corner was not Jack.
Fuck. A massive man walked into the locker room. Dressed in black jeans, a black wifebeater, harness boots, and black tactical gloves on his massive hands. Mike Salaria. Fuck fuck fuck fuck FUCK! This was the guy you didn’t want to meet in a dark alley, alley in the middle of the day, in the middle of a busy street, or a fucking in a police precinct. This was one of the mob’s boogeymen.
Mike walked around the corner and stopped. His eyes were so bright and clear that they looked supernatural. His beard split into a menacing grin, and his bright white teeth almost seemed sharp. He was only 6’2, but so damn wide; he seemed to fill the aisle between the lockers. There was no way around him. Slowly nodding his head, he rolled his shoulders and seemed to expand even bigger. “Look at you, just to go out and make an honest day’s living,” Mike said. Nervously, I replied, “Yeah”, and my voice shook.
Mike stepped closer to me, and without thinking, I stepped an equal number of steps back until my back hit the row of lockers. He stopped two steps from me. Nodding his head again, he took a deep breath and seemed to expand again, somehow just bigger, thicker, and broader. He let the breath out, but he didn’t shrink back. “Where are your buddies?” he asked casually.
Fuck, he knows. HE KNOWS! I scream in my head. “Buddies? Not sure who you are talking about.” I said.
A deep, dark chuckle rumbles from his chest. His smile gets a bit bigger but also harder. “You know, your little gang of greedy rats. Sam, Billy, Dominic, Jack, and you.” He says and almost seems to glide forward. He is now just a step away from me. My brain is scrambling to figure a way out of this, “Listen, I don’t know what those guys did. I haven’t seen them in days. We just work together.” I said, hoping this would placate him.
Two things happen: his smile dims, and his right-hand slaps me across the face. I should say across my head because his hands were so big that those big leather-coated mitts could palm my head. My head is ringing, and I can feel myself falling sideways, but his big left hand catches me by the collar of my t-shirt and holds me up. Just as the stars faded from my eyes and the ringing in my ears subsided, the other side of my head got the back of that same hand.
The room seemed to fade away, and the ringing in my ears was so loud that it sounded like silence. I don’t know how long, but my vision began to clear up, and the ringing in my ears began to quiet. I realized my legs were like rubber, but I was still standing somehow. Except I wasn’t standing. I looked up and found that Mike had pushed me back into the lockers and was leaning on me, chest to chest, holding me up by his pure mass. It was difficult to breathe because what had to be over 375 pounds of muscle was leaning into me. His face was inches from mine, and those supernatural eyes stared into mine.
“I don’t like it when greedy little rats lie to me,” Mike said. His voice rumbled out of that massive chest. I can feel it as much as I hear it. His smile returned, and he said, “See, I have already visited with a few of your friends. Dominic, Sam, and Billy.“ Mike said conversationally. “They told me all about your little gang and your escapades. It all started with your big buddy, Dominic. Last week, he got drunk at a wedding and started bragging about how much of a tough guy he was. He then let It slip that he and his buddies had held up a high-end poker game.” Mike said, his eyes boring into my own.
“Your buddy Dominic thought he was a tough guy. When I talked to him, he lied like you did. Then he tried to act like a gangster.” Mike said. He raised his gloved right hand and slowly caressed my cheek with it. “He and I spent a bit of time where I showed him what a real gangster is. It didn’t take much to get him talking, Mike said, he balled up the hand he held to my face into a fist and kept stroking the back of his fist up and down my cheek. I could feel myself begin to tremble, and so could he.
“Within 10 minutes, he told me all about your little gang of greedy rats. 10 minutes with me is all it took. But the other three hours I spent with him were just fun for me. “ Mike said, now his big fist roughly moved up and down my jaw. “I then went to visit Sam and Billy. Neither one of them was a tough guy, but it took more to get them to talk than Dominic. They told me the same story by the time I was done.”
That leaves you and Jack. “Jack’s pretty good at hiding, so I thought you and me could talk and see if you would tell me where your buddy is hiding. I don’t need a long story about what you guys did. The people you stole from and the guy you pistol-whipped lost an eye; by the way, they were connected to someone who was connected to someone, who asked that you guy be found and taught a lesson. They could have sent a few boys to find you guys, but he sent me because he was such a good friend of my Boss. Lucky you.”
I tried not to look away from Mike as Jack slid into the room behind him. “So which one are you gonna be, the tough guy I get talking to in a few minutes? Or the Strong, silent type, where I take my time and break you down.” Mike said Jack was holding a big black bat. My eye tracked it as he raised the bat, and when I looked back at Mike’s eyes, they were looking to the side where Jack was about to strike.
Jack yelled as he brought the bat down with all his strength. He had been aiming for Mike's head, but somehow, whether it was the shadow of the bat in the fluorescent light or me looking over his right shoulder at the bat being raised, Mike twisted the blow and hit him on his shoulder. The loud thud echoed through the room. The big man barely grunted. He began turning, and I somehow managed to grab his right arm and slow his pivot so that Jack could get a second shot. I was trying to hold him in place, for Jack to hit him in the head, but instead of trying to continue turning right, he turned left into where I was pulling. The blow missed his head and came down on his massive upper back. Another loud thug, but no grunt.
Suddenly, his big right hand was around my neck, and we were spinning around to the left. I looked up to see his face. That clear gray eye locked to mine, and my heart skipped a beat. It wasn’t fear in his eyes; it was excitement. If I dare say, it's a predatory joy. Jack was trying for a third blow, and Mike caught it in his left hand when the bat came down. His big, gloved hand wrapped around the bat, and it just stopped moving. Jack is not a tiny man. 6’4 and 290 pounds of longshoreman muscle. Over the past 15 years, I have watched him pick up and throw crates and boxes that weighed as much as he did, yet Mike grabbed and held that bat like he was taking it from a child, which is precisely what he did. With a twist of his massive arm, he ripped the bat out of Jack’s hand.
Jack looked shocked as Mike jabbed Jack in the gut with the end of the bat. Jack bent over in pain, and Mike brought the bat up under Jack’s chin. Sending him flying back to the floor. Even as Jack fell to the floor, Mike turned back to me, his face hard, and with a snarl, he said, “I love two-on-one!” The next thing I know, Mike, still holding me by my neck, twists around and flings me across the room. “I hear him say, have a seat.” As I fly across the room and slam into a row of lockers. I hit hard enough that the metal crumpled, and the whole row fell over to the ground.
It hurts to breathe. It hurts to move. The room seems to be greying in and out. By the way I landed, I could see Mike standing above Jack, the bat resting on his shoulder. Instead of bringing the bat down on Jack, Mike holds it horizontally in front of him, and Jack and I watch his forearms swell and rip it apart at the big end. Not breaking it over his knee, not breaking it in two. His massive arms twist and rip it into jagged pieces. Mike flings the broken bat across the room, dents another set of lockers.
Mike bends down and pulls Jack up to his feet. Jack tries to struggle, but Mike lands three solid blows. Jack is rubber-legged and is being held up by Mike. I watch Mike take the hoody Jack is wearing, jam it into one of the locker doors, and slam it shut on the fabric. The door jams, and it holds the hoody and Jack up. Mike steps back and flexes those big, gloved hands into fists, and says, “Fuck a bat, I like these better.”
I watch Mike lays into Jack like he is a body bag at the gym. The massive man's hands are powerful, fast, and accurate. His massive body flexes and pumps as he pummels Jack. The sounds of fists thudding and things breaking fill the room. Jack hasn’t moved or made a sound since the first few minutes of this exhibition of brutality. By the time Mike is done, 10 – 15 minutes must have passed before he stops. Sweat is rolling down Mike's massive body. Jack swings limply as Mike turns around and looks at me. He’s pumped even bigger; veins crawl all over his upper body. He walks over and stands in front of me. “That was a good workout. Got me nice and pumped.” He said, flexing his arms and shoulders. They flex to massive proportions. “Problem is,” he says as his hand rubs the massive outline down the leg of his jeans, “this kind of workout always makes me horny. Let’s see if you can do something about that.” He says as he reaches for me.
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