having taken a hit.
To make matters worse, the guy who had
been guarding the door was now circling the joint in a tight arc holding a fuel
can, as if intent on igniting some wall of fire to frighten the manager inside
half to death, or simply raise the place to the ground for kicks.
I cursed. If they set the place alight
then the cops would almost certainly be called, and I’d have to get the hell
out of there to avoid being questioned as a witness. And that meant finding
somewhere new to park up and getting very little sleep, again…I decided quickly
that it just wasn’t going to happen. I had my fill with Jed’s false fuselage
and the long flight as it was. Enough was enough.
Hurriedly I put my socks and shoes on,
then rifled around the cab for something that would prove useful in case things
kicked off. After a good few minutes of searching I found ‘something’ stuffed
inside a deep side-pocket.
And I’d learnt how to handle myself at an
early age in the back-street boxing gyms of South London and on the football
terraces with Millwall as a kid. It was all you needed to deal with most people
unless they were bloody Bruce Lee, and now these idiots needed confronting to
my way of thinking, before they burnt the whole damned joint down along with
the Somalian in it.
I finished getting dressed, then jumped
down onto the compacted snow outside, pumped up as much as anyone could, suffering
from jetlag and a two hour journey stowed underneath a damned juggernaut.
The first thing I noticed when I scanned
the frozen lot, was that the only other rig that had been there, had departed.
Either because the driver had been scared off by the bikers knowing they’d be
trouble, or he’d just made off early out of coincidence hoping to enjoy a
clearer road.
That just left mine as the only truck
currently parked up. Any potential back-up had evaporated, and the bikers would
know that. And that lack of an extra body could mean the difference between a
fist fight or a stand-off, the difference between ending the night in a cell or
returning to Jed’s sleeping bag. It could go either way...
I decided to stop worrying about it and
slammed the cab door shut loudly, prompting the girl on the bike to look
around. Instantly she shouted out a warning to the biggest guy in a blue
bandana, who then stared out through the window, while he shook the Somalian
like a rag doll inside, having picked him up again to meat out some more rough
treatment.
I walked the hundred yards towards the
group like John Wayne, showing them that I wasn’t intimidated, that I wasn’t in
a rush to deal with the situation, readying myself mentally, so that I would be
the first to react in case things kicked off.
As I neared to the last twenty yards, the
big guy threw the manager to the ground, wiped his mouth slowly as if he’d just
enjoyed a drink, then turned to face me, his machete raised in defiance. I calmly
walked past the girl on the bike thinking how drugged up she must be not to
feel the cold in her skimpy outfit then passed the freak with the petrol can
hovering by the door again.
‘Best turn around and head back to your
truck, mister,’ the main guy announced, puffing out his chest noticeably as I
entered the diner.
‘Oh really,’ I said, reckoning he weighed
at least two hundred and fifty pounds and was relatively useful with his fists.
‘Really?’ he said again with increasing
menace.
‘And when you boys have finished having
your fun, you’re just going to torch the place and ruin an innocent man’s
livelihood, are you?’
The guy stabbed the air with his machete
and gave me his best death stare.
‘And what business is it of yours, Limey?
You don’t want to be sticking your nose in where it’s not wanted, do you?’
‘Oh no?’ I said calmly.
‘Not if you want it to remain attached to
that pretty face of yours,’ he declared, nodding deftly to his accomplices at
his side.
I shook my head in disappointment and
edged a
To make matters worse, the guy who had
been guarding the door was now circling the joint in a tight arc holding a fuel
can, as if intent on igniting some wall of fire to frighten the manager inside
half to death, or simply raise the place to the ground for kicks.
I cursed. If they set the place alight
then the cops would almost certainly be called, and I’d have to get the hell
out of there to avoid being questioned as a witness. And that meant finding
somewhere new to park up and getting very little sleep, again…I decided quickly
that it just wasn’t going to happen. I had my fill with Jed’s false fuselage
and the long flight as it was. Enough was enough.
Hurriedly I put my socks and shoes on,
then rifled around the cab for something that would prove useful in case things
kicked off. After a good few minutes of searching I found ‘something’ stuffed
inside a deep side-pocket.
And I’d learnt how to handle myself at an
early age in the back-street boxing gyms of South London and on the football
terraces with Millwall as a kid. It was all you needed to deal with most people
unless they were bloody Bruce Lee, and now these idiots needed confronting to
my way of thinking, before they burnt the whole damned joint down along with
the Somalian in it.
I finished getting dressed, then jumped
down onto the compacted snow outside, pumped up as much as anyone could, suffering
from jetlag and a two hour journey stowed underneath a damned juggernaut.
The first thing I noticed when I scanned
the frozen lot, was that the only other rig that had been there, had departed.
Either because the driver had been scared off by the bikers knowing they’d be
trouble, or he’d just made off early out of coincidence hoping to enjoy a
clearer road.
That just left mine as the only truck
currently parked up. Any potential back-up had evaporated, and the bikers would
know that. And that lack of an extra body could mean the difference between a
fist fight or a stand-off, the difference between ending the night in a cell or
returning to Jed’s sleeping bag. It could go either way...
I decided to stop worrying about it and
slammed the cab door shut loudly, prompting the girl on the bike to look
around. Instantly she shouted out a warning to the biggest guy in a blue
bandana, who then stared out through the window, while he shook the Somalian
like a rag doll inside, having picked him up again to meat out some more rough
treatment.
I walked the hundred yards towards the
group like John Wayne, showing them that I wasn’t intimidated, that I wasn’t in
a rush to deal with the situation, readying myself mentally, so that I would be
the first to react in case things kicked off.
As I neared to the last twenty yards, the
big guy threw the manager to the ground, wiped his mouth slowly as if he’d just
enjoyed a drink, then turned to face me, his machete raised in defiance. I calmly
walked past the girl on the bike thinking how drugged up she must be not to
feel the cold in her skimpy outfit then passed the freak with the petrol can
hovering by the door again.
‘Best turn around and head back to your
truck, mister,’ the main guy announced, puffing out his chest noticeably as I
entered the diner.
‘Oh really,’ I said, reckoning he weighed
at least two hundred and fifty pounds and was relatively useful with his fists.
‘Really?’ he said again with increasing
menace.
‘And when you boys have finished having
your fun, you’re just going to torch the place and ruin an innocent man’s
livelihood, are you?’
The guy stabbed the air with his machete
and gave me his best death stare.
‘And what business is it of yours, Limey?
You don’t want to be sticking your nose in where it’s not wanted, do you?’
‘Oh no?’ I said calmly.
‘Not if you want it to remain attached to
that pretty face of yours,’ he declared, nodding deftly to his accomplices at
his side.
I shook my head in disappointment and
edged a
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