Big Steve Jensen

The odd thing about Jensen was how the guy kept coming.

Big Steve Jensen was a typical dockworker: 6’2” or 3” and broad, with a bull neck, red crewcut hair, and shoulders like a minotaur. He has a chest you could age whiskey in. You could tell his waist is a 32 without having to measure, and he wore boots that were so long they’d make women wonder about that rumor. You know the one.

All of that was accompanied with a pair of hips that swiveled just enough to give him a swagger. And he had the attitude to go with it.

That was his big problem. That attitude. Attitude doesn’t play well on the docks. Not with a guy who knows that’s all it is.

Me, I’m built okay. My arms and shoulders and legs do what I ask them to do and don’t complain. At least not until the next day. But all of that’s set on a 5’9” frame. Jensen had me by probably 50 pounds.

Down on the docks, size and weight matter when you’re manhandling crates. But when you’re going against another man, not so much. Experience trumps all that.

I’m 34 and been around. Jensen was only 25. He came to work at the docks from his hometown, about a half-hour walk from here.

I never figured the guy was a threat to win a Nobel, but I didn’t think he was stupid either.

So imagine my surprise when he just kept coming. Like the crate knife in his hand made a difference.

I guess it did, but not like he wanted it to. It only made him think he had an advantage, and that gave me the advantage.

I said something in passing to another guy, just loud enough he could hear it.

Only Jensen heard it from across the room.

We were all gathered in the captain’s shack, waiting to get our pay.

One second I grinned and said something to my friend. The next, a booming “What?” rolled across the room.

My friend gaped past my shoulder, then vanished like a ghost.

When I turned around, Jensen was glaring at me. Maybe two-thirds of the guys were behind him. They’d fanned out in a semi-circle, and most of them were grinning.

“What’d you say?” he said again.

I laughed. “I wasn’t talking to you, Jensen.”

I wasn’t either. I was bragging to my disappearing friend about a very friendly woman I’d met last night. Well, and how she was still smiling when I left her bed this morning. You know, dock talk. I didn’t even say her name. I probably wouldn’t have said it even if I’d remembered it. I don’t roll like that.

But as I watched a growl grind its way up out of Jensen’s gut, that crate knife appeared in the chunk of meat he calls his right hand, and he charged me. Just like that.

Me, I just assumed a stance I learned awhile back. Balanced, committed to nothing either way.

He came on like a freight train, straight and true and bound to the tracks. The crate knife was extended in his right hand like a skewer heading for a weiner.

Only I ain’t no weiner.

Just before I could smell his breath, I sidestepped under the knife and brought my right up and broke his nose. That punch landed so flush, so perfect, when the bridge of his nose snapped, my own eyes almost watered with the sting. I let his momentum turn me around, and I thought sure he’d be on the floor when I saw him again.

But he wasn’t.

He stopped a couple of steps later when he clomped those big boots down on the plank floor.He took three steps to turn around. The guy didn’t even put his hand to his face or shake his head.

Me, I spread my arms and opened my hands. I arched my eyebrows, made my eyes wide, like I was surprised he was still standing. Like I was scared.

A sneer came to his face like I figured it would, even with rivulets of blood stringing from his nose down over his lips and chin. Then his eyes narrowed and he charged.

That was my fault. I’d shattered his nose, but then gravity took over. He could still see.

He extended the knife slightly to his right, his arm hooked. He leaned forward to charge again.

I let my surprise register for another split second.

He took the first step, slammed his right boot down and raised his left for the next step.

But I fell to my right, hooked his left boot with my right, and snap-kicked him above the left eye with the toe of my left boot. As he passed, I was on my feet again.

Just as I turned to watch, the crate knife skittered away across the floor and Jensen sprawled flat.

I was watching Jensen—his arms and legs were pointing at the four directions—but I saw at least three pairs of boots jerk to one side or the other to let the knife through. It stopped against the far wall.

Jensen had pulled his hands back under his shoulders and his chest and back were heaving, so he was breathing. Good. So that was over, and no real harm done.

I’d have to nurse my right knuckles a little, but the big toe on my left foot was fine. Steel-toed boots and all that. And Jensen’d be fine too once he made it through that first headache. Then maybe he and I could—

But dang if he didn’t shake his head, then push a little against the floor. As he started moving his knees up under him, first the right, then the left, I said, “Just stay down there, Jensen. I’ll gather my pay and leave, and then you can get up. No shame in that. I know you’re hurt.”

With his mouth a foot and a half above the floor, he yelled, “I ain’t hurt.” He said it so loud a little dust fluffed up off the plank floor. “Hell, I ain’t even started yet.”

“Just stay down there, man.”

He shook his head. “No way.”

Somebody in the semicircle said, “Guy ought’a finish him off.”

I couldn’t tell who it was by the voice, and when I looked up nobody was making eye contact. I looked at Jensen again and muttered, “I don’t wanna finish him off. He ought’a be finished off already.”

Then someone said, “What, like you’re all that? ‘Sides, I wasn’t talkin’ to you. Or about you.”

I looked up again. It must’ve been the tall, wiry guy with greasy, long black hair. He was dressed in jeans and work boots like the rest of us but with a camouflage shirt like Army guys wear hanging open over a drab green t-shirt.

Some guys always pull for the big guy, figuring it’ll be an easy win. Maybe he’d made a side bet or something. I shook my head and glanced back down at my main concern.

Jensen was rocking forward and back a little. It looked like a prelude to him actually getting up. Why doesn’t he just stay down?

The wiry guy said, “I was talkin’ about Jensen. He gets up, he’ll mop the floor with you.”

I looked up. “Look, pal, this has nothin’ to do with you.”

He scowled and his eyes narrowed. “Yeah? If you’d said that about my girl I’d be on you like a monkey up a banyan tree.”

“What?” Do monkeys even climb banyan trees? And what are banyan trees, anyway? But I only wagged a hand at him. “Look, I didn’t say anything about anyone’s girl. You hear me say any names?”

“That don’t matter none.”

Jensen grunted, and I glanced down. Only his left hand was on the floor, and the muscles in his forearm were bulging. Is he pulling his right foot forward? He is! He’s getting up!

Well, if he does, I’ll just have to reacquaint him with the floor.

“Jensen, just stay the hell down, man.”

But he kept working at it.

The door opened. The wind caught it for a minute and whipped it from the fleet boss’ right hand. In his left hand was a cash box.

Jack Fletcher is a round little man. He’s about my size at 5’8” or 5’9”, but he weighs in the vicinity of 300 pounds. He was dressed as usual in black trousers, black shoes, and a white shirt with a black tie under a black coat.

He stopped, looked at me, looked at Jensen, then stepped back outside and grabbed the looped rope that served as a door pull. He tugged the door against the wind, and when it passed the sweet spot it slammed shut. It sounded like a rifle going off.

He hooked the rope over a peg in the wall. Then he turned around, spread his feet to shoulder width, and put his hands on his hips. He eyed me as he gestured with his chin toward Jensen. “You do that?”

“Yes sir.” I started toward him. “I thought maybe I could draw my pay first so I can—”

“You’re fired.”

That stopped me in my tracks. “I’m sorry?”

“Nope. Too late for that.”

“I wasn’t apologizing, sir. I’m not sure I heard y—”

“I said you’re fired. I’ll mail your final pay in a check to the address on file.”

I frowned. “But I don’t want a che—”

“Get out. Good hands are hard to find. I can’t have you busting them up.”

To my right, the guy I was first talking to, Henry Malto, raised his hand. “Mr. Fletcher, it wasn’t Bill’s fault. He was—”

“You’re fired too. Both of you get out.”

I canted my head. “What?”

“You heard me.”

From behind me, Jensen’s voice boomed. “Fletcher, this is none’a your business.”

I ducked my head and spun to my left. I’d forgotten about Jensen.

But he wasn’t coming at me. He was standing where he’d been laying on the floor a moment ago. I looked at Fletcher again, but uneasily. I kept Jensen in my right periphery.

He was staring at Fletcher and holding his left hand up in front of his chest, his fingers splayed. “Okay, A, I ain’t busted up. And two, I’m gonna finish this. But it ain’t right you don’t give the man his pay.”

Fletcher only sneered. “You aren’t that good a hand, Jensen. One more word and I’ll fire you too.”

Silence dropped over the room like a blanket.

Fletcher eyed the group, then turned and walked to the little table he uses as a desk every Saturday afternoon. He set the cash box on the table first, then turned it just so, then sat down. The little wooden chair groaned. It complained against the floor as he shifted his weight and pulled the chair an inch closer to the table. Without looking up, he said, “Queue up.”

But most of the men had already started to line up anyway. Fourteen of them, not counting me, Henry Malto, and Big Steve Jensen.

Fletcher opened the box, counted out some bills for the man on this side of the desk, then glanced left. “Next.”

As the next man in the queue shuffled forward and faced Fletcher, the man who’d been paid opened the door. As it had done for Fletcher, the wind jerked the door from his hand, then gusted into the room. It whipped up few dust devils.

Fletcher dropped the cash he’d been counting back into the box and slammed it shut. “Damn it! Close the door!”

The door closed.

I looked at Malto.

He only shrugged. Then he arched his eyebrows and gestured like he was lifting a sixteen-ounce weight to his lips.

Why not? I nodded, then looked at Jensen. “Hey Steve, you want a beer? I’m buyin.”

He eyed me for a moment. Then he looked at Fletcher, then back at me. “Sure. Second round’s on me.”

And Jensen, Malto and I headed for the door.

Fletcher yelled, “Now just a damn minute! I fired him because he—”

As we kept walking Jensen glanced at him, then looked at me. Loudly, he said, “I hear Gibson’s hiring. And I heard he pays half again what Fletcher pays.” Then he hit the right side of the door with that hamhock of a fist.

The wind blew in and we blew out, on our way to the Golden Pickle. It’s only a half-mile from the docks, and it’s a great place for a few beers with friends. Besides, I was anxious to point out the little gal I’d mentioned earlier to Malto.

When Malto and I were maybe five yards past the door, I realized Jensen wasn’t with us. I stopped and looked back. Then I laughed.

His knees bent slightly, the muscles in his shoulders and back straining, he was setting a small boudler against the open door.

When he straightened and turned around, he was grinning at me. “Told you I wasn’t done. Now, how about that beer?”

*******