Days Gone By Chapter 1—Cannery Blows
Novel Excerpt by Abram Dress
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Click here to read Prologue—The Bloody Wake
Norfolk, Virginia
June 15th, 2019
The sun squinted through the soft haze over the Chesapeake Bay as Devin Cole parked his battered and rusty Chevy pickup at the edge of the gravel parking lot. The engine sputtered to a stop. He wondered, as always, if it would start again when he came back that evening. He leaned back and closed his eyes, letting the scent of the sea air and the slow hint of the twilight sun wash over his face. Dense morning fog covered the bay and the distant sounds of foghorns and ringing buoys eased his thoughts.
“It’s alright. It’s all going to be alright.”
The slam of a heavy hand on the truck hood interrupted his repast. “Hey fuckhead!”
Devin slowly opened his eyes and gazed with irritation at the fat hand resting on the hood, and the fatter face above it, leering at him with a shit-guzzling grin. Chuck Lesko, shift manager extraordinaire. When Devin first took the job, he had let himself think that eternal grin hid some hint of good nature. The last few months had proven him wrong. “You gonna be late again? I’ll dock your ass an hour if you’re as much as a cunt-hair of a second late to that clock.”
Devin opened the rusty door and slid out. “I’m not sure how good your schooling was, Chuck, but I don’t think that’s typically used as a unit of time.”
“Smartass.” The big man slapped Devin on the back. Camaraderie? No, dominance. “But what would you know? You ain’t seen one in months, I bet. Years probably.” Chuck turned and headed down the gravel path towards the cannery. Over his shoulder he yelled, “Get in there and make your money, boy. You never know how long it’ll last.”
Boy. Devin’s neck muscles tensed and he opened his mouth, then closed it. Racist manager or not, he needed this job. Devin knew Chuck expected him to keep pace, so he instead took a minute to breathe. He locked the truck door, double checked that the work box in the back was locked. The work box contained all his carpentry tools that he hadn’t touched in over a year.
A year since he’d lost Lisa? Already a year? Only a year?
“What’s lost is lost, dipshit,” he whispered to himself.
He stared for a moment at the looming cannery building, the place he’d worked now for… well, almost a year. Nothing he had to think about. Nothing that reminded him of his old life. Nothing that could hurt people he loved.
Nothing at all.
Devin took a long look over the bay, chuckling mirthlessly to himself as he noted the distant hint of an old replica pirate ship mast coming into dock. What a life. Some people spend their fortunes living their pirate dreams while others make a single dumb decision and lose everything.
He blinked against the rising sun and the ship was gone. He shook his head. Were the hallucinations coming back? The last thing he needed was more medical bills. He squared his shoulders and walked through the dirty gravel lot to the entry doors and clocked in just… a hair before 5 AM.
The summer sun beat down on Devin as he ate his lunch in the parking lot, seated on the Chevy’s tailgate. His clothes stank like fish and rot. He chewed on his PB&J sandwich and gazed past the parking lot at the cars churning down the street. Every one of them had the windows up and the AC blaring. Summer heat in Norfolk was nothing to be cavalier about.
Devin let the heat and humidity bake him, a penance of sorts. Sometimes, if he let the heat cook him long enough, he liked to imagine he could see visions of the future. Visions of a life with fewer mistakes, or at least different mistakes. No visions today, though, just normal edge-of-city weirdness.
A woman in a faded tee shirt and cargo shorts rolled up to her knees and neon green shoes wandered around the outskirts of the cannery, taking notes on a tablet and making angry faces. She then wandered to the parking lot, looking at the license plates on pickups. When she noticed Devin, she stared at him for a moment, then back down at her tablet, then back at Devin. A huge smile crossed her face. She waved, then ran away from him towards the street, vanishing amongst the parked cars.
Weird ass Norfolk.
He threw away the rest of his PB&J–it tasted like fish anyway–and tried to square his shoulders as he walked towards the cannery. Keep his head down. Make it through the day. He turned the corner around the building, heading towards the service entrance.
“Stop your crying, ya little fuck.” Bruce Young, one of the older, meaner, bigger workers, had Johnny Huang pushed up against the cannery’s corrugated steel wall. Two other workers flanked Bruce. Devin didn’t know their names, but he knew their type. Cronies, bullies, shitty followers looking for a leader.
Damn it. Devin breathed the sigh of a man who knew he was making a bad decision but was helpless to stop. “Back off, Bruce.”
The big asshole pushed Johnny hard against the wall, then turned to face Devin. So much for keeping his head down. Devin squared his shoulders, a cat raising its hackles when it knows it’s outmatched. “Look man. Lunch is almost over. Let’s just get back to work. No harm done.”
Johnny slunk towards the service entrance. He looked scared, but the way his eyes cried thank you to Devin made the upcoming beating worth it. Through the door’s filthy wired window, Manager Chuck peered out, licking at a shitty grin. Bruce took a couple of aggressive steps at Devin.
“No harm done, huh?” The bastard had worked at the cannery for years. Strong hands, broad shoulders, shit attitude. “I think there’s gonna be some harm done.”
Devin nodded, and it took every ounce of self-control to keep his hands down. “Clever. Good word play. Brought it full circle. That was good, Bruce.” He took a deep breath as Bruce took another step. Close enough that he could speak quietly without the cronies hearing what he said. “Bruce. We don’t need to do this. I know you three are going to beat me down, but you know that I’m going to break something important of yours.”
Bruce glanced over his shoulders. His cronies were almost slobbering with anticipation. Devin could see the gears churning. Could see the realization that the cronies wanted a fight. Could see the memory of the last throw-down Devin and Bruce had had, the limp that still hadn’t healed. He took another step at Devin, his gingivitis breath a humidifier pointed right at Devin’s nose. “You fucker. You started this.”
“You started this. Johnny doesn’t deserve your shit. He doesn’t even understand what’s going on.” The Cannery hired a small percentage of disabled workers for the tax and marketing benefits. A small group of the other workers often abused and overworked them, and middle management fired the disabled workers as soon as allowed. Johnny had worked at the cannery for a few months, and the bosses would almost certainly fire him soon for some trumped-up reason. But for now, he didn’t deserve to be abused. “Lay off Johnny. I’ll cower and back off, and you’ll look like the big badass you think you are. Deal?”
Bruce glared. Then, after a moment, he nodded.
Devin nodded. He stepped back and put his hands up defensively. Louder, he said “Sorry, man. My bad. Won’t happen again.”
Manager Chuck scowled in disappointment and disappeared into the cannery. Bruce and his cronies followed, and Devin entered a few minutes later. It was a good outcome, or at least a better outcome than it could have been. A fight averted, and no real harm done. It could have gone a lot worse.
He didn’t realize that the damage had been done.
–CONTINUE READING Chapter 2–Pink Slipped
Copyright 2024 Abram Dress