Foreman Grant was the kind of slave-driver whose viciousness and sadistic depravity was rivaled only by the tyrants of millennia gone by. He’d have had Caligula and Nero for breakfast, made mincemeat of the entire Axis, and decimated the callous dictators of the Eastern Bloc. If there were but five Foreman Grants in the whole wide world, that would still be enough to take over the globe by a force never before seen.
Or so thought young Kenneth Horne.
The 17-year-old white wolf was perched atop the slowest moving leviathan on the longest stretch of two-lane highway in the barest patch of desert he had ever beheld in his life. The tarmac gurgled and churned, shitting out the machine’s backside as he kept the poor thing running at a crawl.
And crawling right alongside him was dear Mr. Grant, the elder gray having a whale of a time trying not to choke the engine of his CJ7, the black off-roader sputtering her little heart out trying not to bolt out from under him.
Completing the consist was a steamroller, a mammoth as wide as the road itself. The machine was a solar conversion, and was getting every ounce of Vitamin D she could. Her driver, James Hawkins, never to be called Jim lest he beat you over the head with “THAT book” as he so called it, was the biggest red wolf in the Western Region. Though he was born with enough muscle to flatten the road himself, it would never have been to Mr. Grant’s specifications.
Horne had taken to idly amusing himself, whistling “Born Free” as the road slowly formed behind him. Unfortunately, Grant knew the tune.
“Stow it, Horne!” the foreman bellowed.
“It ain’t prison work Old Man!” Hawkins hollered, “Kid’s gotta right to whistle.”
“Might as well be!” Horne barked back. “Liable to turn the wheel just for shits and giggles if I have to see anymore of this barren goddamn bullshi—”
BANG!
The old hound fired a shot from his pistol into the air. “Next time you go off, I’ll put one in you! It’s important work you’re doing out here dammit, give it some thought before you go joy riding.”
The white wolf seethed and growled, but he didn’t turn himself loose like that again, the heat working him up and melting him down all at once.
It was true that road work wasn’t corporal punishment, nor was it prison work; anyone who signed up for the community paving gig did so because their patch of tarmac needed it. No central authority was in charge of the project; most organization was held at community level. And the Hornes of Pyleville, wanting to keep young Kenny out of trouble, saw fit to have him signed up.
What they didn’t count on was Mr. Grant.
Mr. Grant, you see, was a veteran of the field. After the towns had selected their sacrificial lambs, placing them on the altar of a two-lane blacktop, Grant was the man to answer to. He went wherever the townships decided was next on the docket. He had probably paved the entire length of the highway from the tip of the Eastern Region to the border of Haven itself. And some say, having been out on the road that long, having been subject to the heat of sun for days and decades on end, the bolts were coming undone in the gray codger’s mind.
Or maybe someone pissed in his cornflakes that morning. It was anyone’s guess.
Whether it was the cereal or the never-ending trek, Grant was in an awful mood today, and seemed content in making his workers at least half as miserable. That was, until something came careening across the desert.
Coming up the road was a car. She looked like a real-gone oldie, and her driver was quite the catch too. The car was cherry red, ‘66 Imperial Crown with its ragtop down, the driver the color of sand. She kept hurtling towards the molasses cavalcade, and while Grant gritted his teeth, Horne could only smile from behind his black wraparound shade.
He let out the loudest whistle he could. He could even see her chuckling at the sound, so she must’ve heard it over the machine.
She stopped short of the machine and roared off the road, whipping around and pulling up alongside the foreman.
“The hell you want bit—”
“Watch your mouth,” she shot-down with her southern drawl.
“What the devil are you doing out here?” Grant barked.
She chuckled, a sparkle in her voice. “I’m a little motivation, sent up from Jaffeson. Name’s May.”
“Hellooooooo May” Horne and Hawkins greeted in unison. Jaffeson seemed to know a thing or two about their incoming crew. The way she looked in the sun; wrapped in her stonewashed cutoffs and tied off crop top, every curve catching their eyes. It was enough to make them melt, had the sun not beat her to it.
“I know just where to start,” she smiled. Oh God, what could it be? A little striptease, a chance in bed when they got there, or maybe in the back of the car? That Chrysler had the room for it, yeah, maybe they could take five and—BANG!
Grant blasted her clean into nothing…for nothing was all she was. The car and the gal were gone in the blink of an eye.
“The hell was that?” barked Hawkins, the red wolf’s eyes bulging.
“Electric mirages,” Grant guffawed. “I’s fell for ‘em a few times when I first started. Y’always know ‘em ‘cause they too good to be true. They’s just the charges off them nanobytes shaping up into what you want to see.”
“How we all see the same bitch in one go?” the white teen asked.
For the first time, the haggard old hound softened. No heart about it, just a gentle acknowledgement from a weather-beaten rider.
“Means we’s been working too hard. Y’all need a little something in Jaffeson.”
“Food, water, a shot of whiskey?” rattled off Hawkins.
“Nah, we need some cooch.”
For the next four hours, the three workers couldn’t stop laughing. They roared all the way to Jaffeson, all throughout the many miles between there and Pyleville. And upon arrival, their yellow beasts finally allowed to rest in their depot, the never-ending trek of black tar and gravel at their backs, Grant really did hook them up with everything they needed for the night.
Everything.
But for once, Ken Horne didn’t look to the Foreman with hate, nor rage, but a strange sort of admiration. He was an asshole, but not the biggest asshole. He “split the difference” as Horne said that night in the bar, an appraisal all three drank to heartily.
“Live it up while you can,” Grant winked, “Long way back to Pyleville tomorrow.”
Hawkins and Horne looked at one another. “You don’t mean?”
Grant smirked. “Well someone’s gotta help paint back the road markings!”