Chapter 3 - Debts and Opinions

Chapter 3 

Trevor appeared from the alley next to the shop and strode up to the platform were Scott was standing.  His customary filthy oil stained blue overalls were straining at the seams with the buttons ready to pop due to his ever-expanding gut.  As everything in that town needed fixing particularly motorcycles there was always plenty of work for him and therefore Scott.  The success of a man can sometimes go to his head but in Trevor’s case it had gone straight to his waistline.  

He had in his possession as promised the motorcycle that Scott had pestered him to find for so long.  He rolled the bike forward on to the wooden platform causing it to let out a painful creak in protest.  Whether to the weight of the bike or the weight of the man was not really clear.  All Scott’s expectations had been leading up to this delivery but his initial look of delight vanished in one glance.  It was more rust than bike, twisted looms of wire dangled from every opening, parts where clearly missing and others broken.  Above all and as expected in was covered inside and out in sand.

‘What the f**k is this Trevor,’ Scott’s disappointment turning to anger.

Trevor raised his gravelly voice overriding Scott, ‘Stop f*****g swearing.’

‘Seriously what is that’ he asked this time more reservedly but still unable to hold back his distain at the wreck.

‘Hey, what do you expect, it’s old,’ Trevor replied.

‘No Trev you’re old, this is a mess,’ Said Scott.

Trevor huffed ‘well, take it or leave it, I’m a busy man.’

‘You honestly expect me to pay for this’ wined Scott hoping there was a chance to get the bike for free.  

Trevor’s shoulders dropped and as he turned the bike around he said ‘You know how long it took me to find this? You won’t find another one anywhere around here.’

‘Ok, ok, stop, stop,’ Scott pursued him and placed a hand on his shoulder, ‘I’m sorry, it’s just going to be a lot more work than I expected.’ ‘Let me have a closer look at it’ he said and knelt down beside the bike, the key components where all there but it was a mess.  A flutter of excitement hit him over the potential this clapped out bike had, imagining the speed it would be capable of.  There was a hint of the once proud red metallic finish it would have had when it came off the assembly line.  Most have it had flaked away giving way to dark brown rust.

Having already been told the price earlier he said ‘Ok, so how much do you want for it?’

Trevor turned around with a confused look on his face ‘Why are you asking the pri…, you don’t have any money do you?’ Trevor asked glaring at Scott.

One of the swarm of children had ventured forth tugging on Trevor’s sleeve trying to get him to buy whatever he was selling.  The child seemed oblivious to what was going on as he continued to try and get the attention of this great lumbering man.

Scott then took a heavy breath sure that Trevor was going to kill him, he formed a closed teethed smile said ‘Well listen, I don’t have the money right now…’

‘What! Snapped Trevor, you little s**t, I’ve brought this all the way back to town and you don’t even have the money,’ Trevor dropped the bike to the ground and pointed his finger down into Scott’s face ‘don’t you try and f**k me Scott, don’t you dare try and f**k me’

Scott stepped back in genuine fear of the big man’s greasy finger ready to pop his skull.  The child however was still there tugging away at Trevor’s sleeve unflinching at the anger pouring from the behemoth.

‘Trevor calm down, I will get you the money when I win the race tonight.’ Said Scott.

Trevor’s eyes rolled almost out of their sockets ‘Oh, this again, you’ve never won and you still owe me for those parts on your current bike.’ ‘You walk around thinking you’re something special, you’re a Perdido and nothing else, don’t forget it,’ he said.

Scott was left stunned by Trevor’s words and could not believe he had brought his name into this.  The haunting memories of the facility regrouped for another attack and Scott did his best to not show how hurt he was.

Trevor picked up the bike whilst saying ‘Scott you owe me money, I can’t have that, in fact you know what, I’m taking both bikes and selling them, it should cover what you owe.’

Scott holding back both his anger and his tears coldly said ‘You can’t do that, I will get you the money Trevor.’

‘It’s too late Scott, I’ve had enough, where is your bike? Take it to my workshop’ said Trevor.

‘I need to race tonight, come on Trev be reasonable,’ pleaded Scott.

‘Me be reasonable! Are you f*****g serious’ shouted Trevor and he pushed Scott square in the chest.

Scott did his best not to show how much the physical impact hurt him and said ‘Come on, I will even turn up to work early every day for a month.’

‘You can’t manage to turn up on time Scott, how are you going to be early!’ blasted Trevor. ‘Huh’ as he pushed Scott in the chest again ‘huh’ and again almost firing Scott’s scrawny frame to the ground.

Scott could feel the flames firing from Trevor’s mouth burning him, he had never seen him this angry before.  Both took a fleeting and awkward glance to the developing audience in the street.  ‘And stop calling me Trev, I hate it!’ he said having calmed slightly.  He then looked down at the waiting child ‘here you go’ he said handing him a dollar in exchange for a green packet of chewing gum.  He popped one in and started chewing giving himself a moment to regain his composure as the child ran towards the baying crowd. 

He then turned back to the bike and began to wheel it away back down the alley. ‘I expect your bike at my workshop tomorrow morning, along with you, on time.’

Scott remained silently in this position in somewhat of a shocked panic.  A punch or at least a slap could have been expected from Trevor in his enraged stated.  Either would have been welcome now instead of the hurt brought by the words Trevor had lashed him with.  Scott was shocked at what Trevor had said to him and filled with a hurt he had never felt before.  All the time they had spent in Trevor’s workshop, all the conversations and laughs they had and still Scott was nothing but a ‘Perdido.’  The audience was gradually dispersing clearly disappointed after licking their lips at the prospect of bloodshed. 

Like every person bearing the Perdido name Scott was raised in a state-run facility much like a boarding school but ran more like a prison camp.  Not that there were prisons any more, corporal punishment and of course execution had become common place as way of dealing with crime by the state.  Public whippings were common place while serious crimes meant being forced to march over the kill line towards the wall.

The facilities took in young boys and girls without parents, some were even dumped there by mothers in hope of a better chance for their child.  Their proposed aim was to educate and shape children to become beacons of hope for the future.  Overcrowded and with little funds they soon became stinking cesspits of low grade education and high grade discipline.  The roles of care givers becoming a harbour for the cruel and twisted from along the line.

On his 13^th birthday Scott like every other boy and girl from one of those facilities had been transported to a predesigned town.  Towns are assigned in a way that keeps the kids separate from their friends as to diminish the formation of gangs.  Everyone was assigned a bunk in a room for one week and they had that week to find rent for the next or leave to who knows where.

Many dorms became communal brothels where men of all ages would violate the flesh of these young girls in exchange for small scraps of cash.  Constant new arrivals meant that competition was tough and the most obscene of acts was allowed for the right price.  Solvent had gripped many of them and when they weren’t working their noses were on the bottle feeling this was their only escape.

Mandatory birth control Injections kept the pregnancy rate down but disease was common.  The prostitution didn’t end in the female dorms though, boys were as much a target of the lusts of older men as the girls.  Many died of infections at a very young age but there was little care from anyone for these lost children.

Scott got out of there as fast as he could feeling it was too dangerous to stay there for very long with the type of visitor they attracted.  Many of the inhabitants would simply disappear leaving blood stained sheets for the next adolescent to inherit.  Filthy stinking rooms where unspeakable acts were witnessed on a daily basis.  These buildings and their inhabitants were hated by the rest of the towns who saw these children as more trouble being dumped in town.

Leaving meant seeking refuge in the church or finding your own accommodation which is exactly what Scott had done.  He had gradually worked and traded enough to have a room and a motorcycle which he about to lose to Trevor.  It burned him how he could possibly lose what he worked so hard to acquire.  He remembered the time he had spent working on his motorcycle how he had raced it.  He searched his mind for any other entertainment in that dusty town but nothing else raised its hand.

The delayed anger from the conversation with Trevor finally grabbed him turning his face to stone.  A series of angry thoughts ran through his mind each multiplying with the next working him up into a frenzy.

I am more than that name well I will be more than that name.  He can go f**k himself, and Betty, What do they expect from me anyway, they’ve got no right being angry with me; to judge me?  I’m not meant to be here, I can’t be, this heat is killing me, I just make everyone angry, I don’t fit here.  

Tears began to form in the corners of his eyes which he duly choked back still with some of his audience still hanging around.  Something broke Scott’s thoughts, a commotion had erupted on the other side of the square with screams and shouting drifting over to Scott’s spot.  He saw another all too frequent site in the town, the Juarez twins who were making their way around the square.  Grabbing food, grabbing women, they did not seem to care about any retribution and with reason.  Their father was for the want of a better word president of the state, President Juarez.

The state was little more than an expanded police force that had involved itself in a wider scope than its original purpose.  If gangs and corruption had taken over since the war then then Policia was truly the biggest and most corrupt gang of them all.  He was nothing but a dictator who was in control of the Policia and the Policia kept him in place.

With this the boys had open reign to do anything they wanted ever since they were children. They weren’t actually twins though, just brothers actually born around one year apart but everyone referred to them as the twins.  There mum was so big that that everyone joked that Chico the younger ‘twin’ must have stayed in there another year before coming out.  He and the elder ‘twin’ Simi plagued the line of towns moving east and west as they pleased causing havoc wherever they went.  They could get away with a lot more in the line of towns than they could in the capitol as the Policia was more thinly spread. 

In the distance Scott could see Simi repeatedly punching a store owner in the face.  The reason could have been anything really, stopping him taking food or just because he didn’t like the way he looked at him.  Chico was watching on while he held a petrified young girl tightly from behind groping her as he laughed.  Simi eventually let the store own fall to the floor bloodied and bruised but breathing then threw a half-eaten apple at him.

The rest of the shop owners who usually bound together did nothing but watch fearing the results of any retribution against these two thugs.  The local Policia were keeping a nervous eye over the scene but would taking some really serious for them to become involved.  Even then only to take them home to their fathers home and tell him what they had done.  

The street began to clear as more people recognised who was around and Scott thought he had better do the same.  Even the swarm of children hurried towards their waiting parents on the edges of the square who made a quick escape.  The last thing he needed today was to cross paths with those two maniacs so decided to get out of there.  He re-joined the crowd and pushed through the now panicked masses.  The smell of bodies seemed to have intensified as the people rushed away from the melee on the other side.  Finally he escaped the square and reached the location that he had parked his bike. 

There it was, his one great hope.  A sun bleached sea green motorcycle with yellowed white trim.  It was an old small motorcycle like many of the bikes used by the people in the town.  The now brown colour of the once cream material seat testament to it having seen better days.  At least he still had it for tonight, he was thankful for that, it gave him the chance to win the cash prize and pay off Trevor.

Scott climbed on to the rickety motorcycle and turned the key.  Gears clunked and pipes spluttered but it sprang to life none the less chugging away loudly.  He backed the bike into the street and pulled away slowly moving through the narrow dirt streets.  He headed towards his room to prepare for the ensuing race and tried to push Trevor’s harsh words out of his mind.  An image of him shoving the money he owed into Trevor’s mouth raised a smirk on his face.

He now had so much more to focus on now, he directed all his attention to the race.  He told himself that winning was all that mattered, it was how he could eat, and was ultimately the first step in him leaving this town.

Reviews

[tynamite]

This is a good chapter as it sets Scott up to failure and it finally tells what is happening. It's really well done but i fail to see how what was introduced to the reader has anything to do with now.

[Coyote Poetry]

A very good chapter. I like the characters and the new goals. I like the internal thoughts. I like the the want to win to escape the dark place. Thank you for sharing the excellent chapter.
Coyote

[Cyndy Robinson]

A great chapter! I am following the story and want more!

[annalysiar]

Its all coming together beautifully and I love it. Stories like this ate the best. They keep you hanging on. I'm loving the detail and the pace. The emotion was great as is the plot

[Nigel Newman]

Hi Ryan. I've now read Ch 3 and, as you say, things are starting to fall into place, but many of my questions are still to be answered. I await further instalments ....!

Cheers
Nigel

[Ryan Yates]

i actually have 58000 words so far and the first 12 sequential chapters at the moment but it all needs a lot of work to tidy up.

[Nigel Newman]

A book is a massive undertaking. I imagine you have post-it notes on a large wall planner or some other way of making sure of continuity etc. Nightmare! Good luck.

[Ryan Yates]

I use excel, there a whole path of events that follow on from each other. everything will tie up in the end. i have posted the next 2 chapters if you want to continue reading