Fish Farm by Walt Sautter (ereader for android TXT) 📖

every time. If this gets out we’re gonna have trouble with all the other ones too.
Then, he says ‘Get his finger in between the door and jam, by the hinge’. They stuck my finger in the door crack and he slammed the door on it.
‘Next time it’ll be dick’, he yells and they all left.”.
“Holy shit!”, responded Jack.
“What did you do then?”
“What could I do? I packed my hand in ice and walked to the hospital ER down on Bradley and they set my finger and gave me some pain pills.”
A long silence again prevailed.
“Ponder and deliberate before you make a move”.
“What?”, queried Hal.
“Sun Tzu - The Art of War”, answered Jack.
“It was written by an ancient Chinese warlord about twenty-five hundred years ago. It means, think before you act and you will succeed.
We have to think what we’re going to do”.
“What do you mean, ‘gonna do’?”
“You don’t think we can just sit around and let this kinda shit keep happening over and over, do you?”
“Well, what are we gonna do about it?”, replied Hal.
“That’s what I just said, ‘Ponder and deliberate before you act’. We have to decide how to stop this shit, and soon.
Something else Sun Tzu said was ‘In order to kill the enemy, our men must be roused to anger’.
I know, I’m pretty pissed off and sure you are too, so according to Sun Tzu we’ve got that base covered.”
“I guess, then all we gotta do is the ‘ponder and deliberate’ part”, agreed Hal,
“And, by the way where did you get all this Chinese stuff from?”
“When I was in the service, I had this drill sergeant that loved ‘The Art of War’. He used to carry copied pages from it in his shirt pocket all the time. He used to quote it everyday. He even made us learn it. We’d get the quote of the day, everyday and the next day he’d call guys at random and ask them about quotes he’d given us and if you didn’t know it you we’re in for some heavy ball bustin’.
When I was going through it, I thought he was full of shit, but know what, lots of those words served me well, even when I got out and got a job.
Some jobs are like going to war everyday. Mine was anyway. Everyday somebody was trying to beat you down, get your job, get your bonus, and steal your accounts. It was just like war. Always an attack”.
He paused for a second or two.
“And this, this isn’t like war, it is war because I think everybody’s got to get killed to stop it”, he added.
“Tomorrow, bring Petey over with you. Between the three of us, we’ll come up with something.
By the way, you have any health problems, Hal?”
“I had dandruff when I was a kid”, he replied with a laugh.
“But now, thank God, I think I’m in pretty good shape, except for this finger”.
“What about Petey?”
“Don’t really know, but I never heard him bitchin’ about anything that I can remember”.
“Okay , see you tomorrow”, said Jack as they arose and walked away.
As he passed the second floor hallway on his way upstairs he noticed Mrs. Murray’s door ajar.
He stopped and lightly tapped on it.
“Mrs. Murray”, he called through the crack in the door in a low voice.
“Mrs. Murray”, as he slowly pushed the door partly open.
“Jack, is that you?”, a voice came from the kitchen.
“Yes. I saw that your door was open and I wanted to be sure that you’re alright”.
“I’m okay. I called the super about the door, it must be a dozen times and he keeps saying that he’s going to fix it but he never shows up.
I usually close it with a piece of duct tape but I guess it just came loose”.
She paused.
“I wanted to talk to you but I didn’t want to make trouble for you again”.
“Talk about what?”
“Last night. Those thugs came to my door and scared me out of fifty dollars. They said it was a ‘donation’ to their Firemen Club. I know it was a shakedown but I didn’t even argue, I was so scared, especially after what happened before. I just gave them the money. They said they’ll be back next month for more.
I didn’t know what to do. Did I do the right thing, Jack?”
“Yes, you did.”
“What should I do when they come back?”
“I think you had to give them the money until we can straighten all this out”.
“What if I don’t have the money?”
“See me before they are due to come and I’ll help you out with the money”, he assured her
“Help her out with the money”, he thought to himself as he left her apartment and continued up to his own.
“Christ, I don’t have the money to pay them myself”.
“They won’t be around for another month. By that time, this will be all figured out”, he consoled himself with flash of false confidence.
“Spies are a most important element in war, because on them depends an army’s ability to move”, Sun Tzu on The Use of Spies. The words rang clearly in his mind.
“Charlie, give me a little more”, as he pointed to his half filled coffee cup.
“Those bums that usually sit at that table, been here and left already?”
“Yeah”, replied Charlie as he walked to the table with rag in hand.
“They always shoe up about ten and leave about eleven.
Not only do they not pay the bill, they always leave a mess. Spill shit all over the place. Don’t even put the lid back on the sugar.
Look at this!
He dumps half the sugar holder in his coffee, and most of it just lays on the bottom”, continued Charlie with disgust, pointing to the syrupy mass in the cup he was holding.
“They come here everyday?”, asked Jack.
“Sure do. Like clockwork. Come here and steal breakfast from me and then go home and get high, sleep it off and be ready for their ‘Night Ride’ as the call it”.
Jack sat silently sipping the refilled coffee for a while. He was thinking, ‘pondering‘ as Sun Tzu had instructed.
“See ya tomorrow, Charlie”, announced Jack as he rose from the counter.
“Guess you’re a regular now, Jack”.
“I like the coffee and I pay the tab”, relied Jack with a grin as he left.
He entered his building and headed up to his apartment of get a cigar. As he approached the second floor landing he mused about his yesterday’s visit to the old lady.
“What a shitty way for her to live”, he thought., “Always in fear”.
It wasn’t too good for him either, but then again he wasn’t a frail old lady with a heart condition, he thought.
He walked by her door and stopped for a moment.
Maybe he should just talk to her for a minute. Try to cheer her up. Show some more concern and encouragement.
He turned, went back and knocked on the door. No answer!
He knocked again and door opened slightly from the impact. He could see the duct tape hanging from the door jamb.
He slowly swung the door open and called her name.
No answer!
He carefully walked into the apartment fearing what he might find.
He walked into each of the four rooms calling her in a low voice.
“Nobody home”, except Suzy who was cowering in the corner of the kitchen.
As he perused the kitchen he spied her medication bottles on the counter.
“Must be the heart pills”, he thought.
“Digitalis”, he read on the bottle.
“Sure, I remember Uncle Tom used to take these after his heart attack”.
Jack’s Uncle Tom had died when Jack was in his teens. Tom was a pretty old guy at the time and suffered from a mild case dementia and had had a heart attack.
Jack’s Aunt Sally was always worried that Uncle Tom would forget and take extra doses while she was out. She used to hide the medication and often times come home to find the place a mess with Tom searching for the pills he hadn’t remembered taking.
One day he actually did find them and took an extra dose. It almost killed him.
Jack paused in thought.
He popped the cap off the bottle. It was close to filled. He again stood in thought for few seconds and then dumped several of the pills into his hand.
He found a small, plastic sandwich bag in the cabinet and put the pills in it and place the bag in his pocket.
Then he left the apartment, carefully trying to replace the duct tape as best he could.
Chapter 8
“Ever killed anybody, Petey?”
“You I know did. Larry told you about me and Nam”.
“What did you think when you did it?”
“Didn’t think, just did it. It was what I was there for. Kill them or they kill you.
I never killed anybody up close and personal, it was always a guy in the distance, ya know what I mean?
It wasn’t hard to kill at the time, the adrenaline was pumpin’ full blast.. We were getting’ shot at and all we were thinking about was not getting’ killed ourselves. Didn’t really have time to worry about the guys we were killin’”.
“How did it make you feel? Afterwards”.
“Not too good. Later I felt bad for those guys. They were forced into that whole thing just like me but like I say before, it was them or me and I had to do what I had to do”.
“So, your back was against the wall and there was no other way out, right?”
“Yeah, Jack, that’s right”.
“What about you Hal?”
“Never killed nobody. Killed a dog once, my dog. I loved that Sparky. He was almost human to me.
That was about the closest I ever come to killin’ a person.”
“How come you killed him?”
“He got real sick and in those days, back in my town, the only sick animals that ever saw a vet was the ones that were worth money, like farm stock. Pets, like dogs and cats, they got the bullet and he was my dog so I had the job of shooting’ him.
Felt pretty terrible about it, but it was kinda like Petey in Nam. It was my job and I had ta do it”.
“Do you think you could kill a person?”
“Maybe, if I had to, but I’m not really sure. I don’t think anybody that’s never done it, could really say. They might say ‘Oh yeah sure’, but when the time comes it might be a whole different story”.
“You’re right Hal. You’re right”.
There was a silence.
“What about you, Jack?”
“Don’t know if I could but I think I’d like to be able to”.
Again, a long pause.
“What are you getting ’at Jack, with all this talking about killin’?”
Another pause. Jack looked up from his downward gaze and spoke.
“The other day, when those bums came to my house and hustled me, I thought I could have easily killed all of them if I had the chance. Then, when I saw you yesterday Hal, and you told me what they did to you, I knew I could and would if I had the chance.
I’m not talking about killing people here, I’m talking about exterminating rats and cockroaches. I look it as being just like Terminix or RotoRooter and cleaning out the bugs and sewer rats.
I guess I’m kinda letting my imagination run away with me”, ended with