Steven Campbell - Hard Luck Hank - Basketful of Crap

For weeks I would walk by their apartment to see what they were up to. They sat out on their front steps. Day and night. They didn’t eat, they didn’t drink. I had only met one Gandrine before, an ambassador, and he could speak—albeit incredibly loudly—so I knew the race wasn’t mute, but these two never made a sound. We didn’t even know if they were dead. After two weeks of them not moving, I realized the Gandrine posed as much danger to the natural order of Belvaille as any rocks posed to the natural order of Belvaille.

The only problem was a few months ago they had somehow learned of this casino. And instead of sitting on their front stairs, they decided to sit in here.

It’s not as if they caused problems. Once seated, they never moved. One of the cleaning ladies actually climbed over them trying to dust because she thought they were sculptures. But they made people uncomfortable and took up space. Because of that, the boss told us to not let them inside.

Yeah. We’ll totally do that. We’ll stand in front of this avalanche hoping it will turn around. Our job was security, not suicide.

I was slow. That was a side-effect of my mutation. My strength did not increase in proportion to my density. My power-to-weight ratio was pretty bad. But the Gandrine made me look like the galaxy’s fastest sprinter by comparison.

They dragged their feet along the road as they walked and it made this horrible grinding noise.

It took the Gandrine about five minutes to walk through the door. That’s how sluggish they were. When they were finally in, we all relaxed and Balday-yow began telling us about a woman he fancied that was working at a crosstown disco.

We were pleasantly passing the time when Xominion stormed out of the casino, his face wet and angry, and approached me.

“I thought I told you not to let those Gandrine in,” he accused. “They just tore up half the carpet.”

“Boss, how can we stop them?” I said. I glanced back at the guys for them to support me, but they made like they didn’t hear our conversation.

“You’re supposed to be a tough guy. That’s what everyone said. That’s why I hired you. Didn’t you fight Wallow?” Xominion demanded.

I sighed. Having a reputation can be good and bad.

Wallow was a Therezian, a thirty-five-foot monstrosity with a bad attitude. He was one of only a thousand in the galaxy who had been allowed to emigrate from their home planet because all the empires feared a war in which they were used as conscripts.

It was true that Wallow had basically dropped his fist on me once. He also knocked out all my teeth, broke a sizeable number of my bones, and caused innumerable internal injuries. The fact I survived and recovered in a hospital over a month was enough to make me a celebrity bruiser.

“What would you like me to do?” I asked.

“Kick them out!”

Again, I looked back to my comrades at the door but there was no help forthcoming. Every man for himself, I suppose.

“No problem,” I said.

I waited for Xominion to leave before I went into the casino.

I saw the tracks of the Gandrine in the carpet, as if there was any doubt where they were. But they certainly hadn’t torn up half of it. There were just four long skid marks from where they had scooted along. They sat on the floor, no chairs being big enough or sturdy enough to hold them.

Were they just people-watching? Did they feed off the emotions of drunkards and the whimsy of crooked games of chance? Why were they here other than to make my life difficult?

I stood in front of the big boulders. If I had a sand blaster, I could possibly etch my name on one of their chests, but how was I going to kick them out?

“So guys,” I began, smiling. “I know you’ve been coming around and staying a lot recently, but this is a place of business. We really need you to buy something or do a little gambling while you’re here.”

I realized they had no clothes, pockets, and likely, money. Unless they had some internal caves. Or maybe buried treasure.

I turned around and saw Xominion across the casino, eyeing my progress.

I faced the Gandrine and began gesticulating wildly. I threw my arms up. I balled my fist at them. I swept my arms wide. Stomped my feet.

“Blah blah blah blah!” I shouted at the Gandrine. I knew Xominion was too far away to hear me and I didn’t see the point in potentially pissing off the Gandrine so I just made an impressive pantomime of threatening them.

I am not a good hand-to-hand combatant. I can push tons if I put my back into it but I can’t throw a one pound ball more than ten feet because I can’t accelerate my heavy arm fast enough. So when I “punched” the Gandrine as a finishing touch, it was more me trying to push its head with my fist. It didn’t move.

I pointed my finger at each of them like I had made some grand statement and I walked back out to the front door.

“How did it go?” Balday-yow asked.

“How do you think?” I responded icily.

I wasn’t sure what to do if Xominion came back, but I guess I could fake it.

“Look,” I started, “those things aren’t going to leave. If the boss comes back, I’ll say they gave me some money to gamble on their behalf, since they’re too clumsy to do it themselves.”

“That’s a great idea,” Cad said.

“Yeah, well, you each need to pitch in some cash. Because you all let them in just as much as I did.”

“How much?” Balday-yow asked, worriedly.

“I figure fifty from each of us will at least keep Xominion off our backs for a bit,” I said. “You know they’re going to be sitting there for another couple weeks.”

“Can you float me?” Balday-yow asked Cad.

“Man, why are you always broke?” Cad asked, annoyed.

“I told you, I’m chasing that dancer. It’s not free.”

“Do you have any idea what it costs to feed Sassy?”

“I don’t know why. He eats all my pants,” I interjected without humor.

A couple approached the door as we continued to argue. I checked the IDs, Sassy sniffed them a bit, and Balday-yow swiveled the machine gun a few inches just to be able to say he was contributing.

A few hours passed and we were standing around doing nothing. The casino was not very busy today.

A transport truck then slowly drove by us carrying maybe twenty troops in the open back. The soldiers were armored head-to-foot in the latest technological body armor, had full helmets with opaque visors, and carried some wicked submachine guns. A freight truck followed right after the transport, presumably with some newly-manufactured goods that were bound for proper Colmarian space.

“They’re cool,” I said sarcastically, and the guys laughed.

But those soldiers were the new us. The guys who had slowly taken all our jobs. There was a point when Belvaille was a city of gangs and gangsters and criminals but now it was a city of corporations.

Cad, Balday-yow, myself, we were relics. Old school toughs who didn’t know how to do anything else.

There was still work for us, as there were still bars and casinos and rackets that hadn’t been taken over by the corporations yet. But their numbers were dwindling.

Sassy was asleep on the ground and I was leaning up against the doorway resting my feet. Cad and Balday-yow were arguing over which glocken players had the most potential.

A soldier approached the door, which was unusual. Corporate lackeys never came to the casino. They had their own restaurants, bars, sleeping quarters. The city was practically demarcated by the different corporate regions of control.

“Identification please,” I stated woodenly, after standing up straight.

The soldier then ran past us into the casino.

We doormen all exchanged surprised looks and laughed.