Hard Luck Hank: Basketful of Crap

HARD LUCK HANK

BASKETFUL OF CRAP

by

Steven Campbell

http://www.belvaille.com

Cover Art by Tariq Raheem

All images and content Copyright © 2014 Steven
Campbell

All rights reserved.

This is dedicated to all aspiring writers. You don’t
stop being a writer unless you stop writing.

There was a corpse
on the stairs outside my apartment. This was disturbing since I didn’t put it
there.

He was a dumpy
little fellow, as corpses go. He had kind of a bulbous nose, a plump face, and
a tangled mass of long black hair. His eyes were frozen in a half-closed daze
as if death was a particularly boring school lecture. He was short and wore
baggy clothes, perhaps to conceal in life what I guessed was a not-too-amazing
physique.

I saw no
obvious signs of violence. No blood. No puncture wounds. No gross discolorations.
Did he have a heart attack? Did he drug himself to death?

I didn’t
recognize the man, which made this very odd. I was the only person who lived in
this building. I was even the only person who lived on this entire block. My
street was quite creatively, and officially, labeled “Hank Block.”

It was weird to
think of someone dying outside my front door while I was asleep. Or maybe I had
been in the shower. Or eating lunch. He certainly wasn’t here when I came home
last night.

I looked up and
down the road for some reason. As if I expected to see the Corpse Delivery Man
making his rounds. But the block was empty as always.

This was the
space station Belvaille. And while a dead body at my front door gave me pause,
it was not entirely remarkable.

I walked down
the street and headed for the train. I wanted to get to my job early as I had
been told my boss was coming into work today.

On the way I
passed the usual gray-silver metal buildings that were designed in some form of
rectangle to maximize real estate. The whole space station was an exact square,
fifteen miles by fifteen miles, with trains bisecting it regularly.

Thousands of
feet above, there was a latticework of supports that controlled the environment,
kept our atmosphere in place, and provided artificial illumination.

I was a doorman
at the Yeolenz Flame casino in north Belvaille. Outside, my two co-workers were
already waiting.

Balday-yow was
a tall blonde man who wore thick prescription goggles because of his terrible
eyesight. These made his eyes look large and somewhat crooked. He had been on
Belvaille for maybe twenty years working for various gangs, mostly as a
courier.

At the casino
door, Balday-yow manned a heavy machine gun that was mounted on a stand. This weapon
could probably cut down people at 1300 yards, but because of the way it was
positioned, it only had a field of view of fifty feet, making it mostly for
show.

My other
co-worker was Cad. He was very short, coming up to about my waist. He was a
mutant like me and his body was so different that he breathed and ate and drank
through his skin. His mouth was just for talking and had no teeth; they had
fallen out when he was young, presumably from disuse. When he did his
equivalent of a sneeze, his flesh rippled and it made the oddest sound.

Cad’s job at
the door was to control his large pet. It was a trained Mallute: three hundred
pounds of fur and teeth and muscle on four legs. He named it Sassy, I think to
be cute. It was generally a very pleasant, if slobbery, animal. But if Cad
commanded it to attack, it could tear someone to pieces.

Then there was
me.

I had a
four-barreled sawed-off shotgun I holstered under my jacket. I kept it despite
my growing sense it was becoming less and less viable as a weapon. Most people
on Belvaille, if they were in the security business, wore some kind of body
armor. Cad and Balday-yow had armored vests and I doubt my shotgun could
penetrate them even at close range.

All this
protection for one casino was pretty standard. Folks wouldn’t even step foot
inside a building unless there was at least this much gear outside. The city
was simply too violent nowadays to have anything less.

“How’s it
going?” I asked the guys as I took up my post in front of the door.

“Hank,” they
acknowledged, already sounding tired.

Sassy came over
and bit me on the shin like he usually did.

“Sassy! No.” Cad
pulled on the leash but the animal outweighed him maybe threefold so we had to
wait for Sassy to give up.

I absently
looked down at the creature.

“Sorry, Hank,”
Cad apologized.

It was only a
minor annoyance. Sassy couldn’t hurt me.

I was a
level-four mutant and in consequence my body was incredibly dense and heavy. I
could pull out my shotgun and shoot myself in the chest and it wouldn’t
hurt—much. And on the rare occasions when I did get hurt, my body healed much
more rapidly than a normal Colmarian. I had even regrown my finger once when it
had been cut off. My only permanent injuries were a slight limp, and some
dully-glowing green scars on my face and hand from when my old plasma pistol
had exploded.

Still, we were
required to wear a certain set of clothes when we stood at the door and Sassy
kept forcing me to buy new pants. I now owned like ten pairs of slacks with one
leg shredded to ribbons. Which wouldn’t be so bad but the intriguing world of
doormen didn’t pay that much. I couldn’t get too upset at Cad however, he
really didn’t have much going for him other than Sassy.

“Boss,”
Balday-yow said discreetly.

We all stood up
straighter and looked unbelievably focused as a dark car parked in front of the
club. Even Sassy stopped chewing my leg and sat upright. The driver hopped out
quickly and opened the back door of the car.

Out of the rear
stepped the illustrious owner of the club, Xominion. He wore a tailored suit,
jewelry, and had his face and hair in the wet look. Water was pumped
continuously through tiny hoses secreted around the top of his head. To me it
looked like he was really sweaty, but it was fashionable now.

We all
dutifully said our welcomes and he dutifully ignored us and entered the casino.

After a brief
pause the driver gave us all a nod, which we returned, and he drove off.

“Hey, guys, you
know how to get rid of a corpse?” I asked.

“You mean hide
it?” Cad questioned.

“No, just get
rid of it. There’s a dead body outside my apartment.”

“Who’d you kill?”
Balday-yow asked offhandedly.

“No one, it was
just there when I came out today.”

“Then what do
you care? No one can pin it on you,” Balday-yow said.

“I’m not
worried about it, it’s just…I mean, shouldn’t I move it?” I looked between the
two men, but they seemed to have already lost interest.

“Oh, great,
it’s the furniture,” Cad said, motioning with his head down the street.

I stepped out
of the doorway to see better and yup, here they came.

Gandrine.

Gandrine were a
completely different empire from Colmarians. The Colmarian Confederation was by
far the most populated and largest empire. It housed maybe 90% of the known
species in the galaxy. We were also the least intimidating and most poorly
managed by a long shot.

Gandrine were
basically a mineral race. They looked like enormous piles of multicolored shale
rock. They had arms and legs, a torso, and something that was head-like. But
other than that they were rocks. They wore no clothes, had no discernable
genders. If one leaned against a mountain and didn’t move, you would never know
not to drill for gold in it.

There were two
of them on Belvaille at the moment. They had come maybe a year ago. There had
been a lot of chatter about it and speculation. I had been particularly
worried. My whole thing was I was big, strong, and hard to hurt. These things
were bigger, stronger, and while I didn’t know rock, I couldn’t imagine
stabbing one with a knife was going to do much.

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.