Crab Town Read online

  “What the fuck…” Johnny says, but the women are too far up there to hear him.

  The pink woman has a son with her. By the looks of it, the kid is a real brat. He runs around the room with a toy metal airplane, making airplane noises at the top of his lungs. He charges at the people in line and makes machine gun noises at them, as if his little plane is gunning them down. The mother ignores her kid, too wrapped up in conversation to care that he’s being a nuisance to everyone around them.

  The kid runs across the line shooting everyone. When he passes by Johnny, the balloon man inches away. Kids always make Johnny nervous. They are too unpredictable. You never know what they’re going to do, especially the ones who have parents that let them run wild in public.

  There are three other balloon people in line with Johnny. They look like newbies to balloon life, probably at the bank to take out money to pay their gravity bill. The balloon woman standing near the front of the line doesn’t see it coming when the bratty kid swoops in behind her and slams the tip of his toy plane into her back.

  The balloon woman pops. Her hollow body explodes into shreds of rubber that sprinkle in the air like confetti. Johnny gasps, but he’s the only one. The kid looks at what he’s done with a wide open mouth, and then he bursts into giddy laughter.

  Nobody in the room seems to care. In fact, a lot of the people seem happy that the line is finally moving a bit. The mother continues chatting with her friend, as if nothing’s happened. She has to be aware that her kid has just murdered a balloon woman, but it doesn’t seem to be that urgent of an issue.

  If you act fast you can save a balloon person after she pops. You can suck her gaseous form into a vacuum and return her to a balloon body, but nobody does anything. Not the security guards, not even the other balloon people. The woman’s gaseous form rises to the ceiling and then is sucked through the air vents, to be sprayed outside and dissipated into the atmosphere.

  The kid realizes that he’s just found a new game to play. He creeps over to the next balloon person in line. It is an old man balloon. He glances down at the boy with his blank frozen expression.

  “BOOOM!” the kid cries, as he pops the old man.

  The kid is in tears with laughter as the line moves up another person.

  “Kyle!” the mother says to him. “Keep it down!”

  But that’s all she does. She turns back to her friend, ignoring her kid again. The boy has no intention of listening to his mother, as he creeps down the line looking for another balloon to pop.

  Johnny crouches down behind the person ahead of him, hiding himself from the boy. A black woman behind Johnny cringes when his butt rubs against her purse. She gives him a look like she’s about to pop him herself, just for getting too close. Her eyes widen with anger and she shakes her head, grumbling some obscenities under her breath.

  The other balloon man also crouches down to hide from the kid, but he’s a very large balloon with a big round belly. The boy spots him right away, sneaks up to him with his airplane pointed at his stomach.

  “No, don’t!” the balloon man cries, backing away.

  The kid yells “BOOOM!” and charges him. The man runs backwards, screaming for help, but everyone just laughs at the fat balloon trying to get away from the kid. A couple of women smile and sigh, as if what the kid is doing is so cute and precious. The balloon man runs toward the door, but one of the security officers trips him.

  The guard laughs at the balloon man as the boy jumps on top of him plane-first. The fat guy screams one last time as he pops, and the kid falls through his confetti-flesh onto the ground.

  As the boy rolls around on the floor, laughing, his mother charges him.

  “That’s enough, young man!” she says, grabbing him by the arm.

  The second the woman touches the boy, he shrieks at the top of his lungs as if her hand is made of acid. She drags him through the line, right past Johnny. As the kid goes by, he tries to swing his airplane at him, but Johnny is just a bit out of reach.

  “No! No!” the kid yells as his mom pulls him away. “I want to pop the other one! I want to pop the other one!”

  The woman sits him down in a chair.

  “Do you like embarrassing me like this?” the woman yells at the child. “Do you think it’s fun to make me look like an idiot?”

  The boy ignores her. “Just one more! Just let me pop one more!”

  “No,” she says. “Now stay in this seat while I go see Daddy. If you’re not here when I get back you’re not getting a new toy after lunch.”

  The kid cries out, gargling words that don’t make any sense. As she walks away, he pouts and kicks his legs, striking at the air with vengeance. Johnny wipes his forehead with relief.

  After the mother disappears into one of the back offices, the boy becomes silent. Johnny Balloon advances in the line, but he can feel the boy’s eyes watching him every step he takes. He can tell the boy is trying to figure out a way to pop him without getting caught. Johnny decides not to take his eyes off of the kid. If he gets out of that chair Johnny plans to run.

  When Johnny gets to the front of the line, the teller with the orange curly hair rolls her eyes.

  She says, “Great, now I’ve got to deal with a fucking balloon.”

  To most balloon people, being called a balloon is considered offensive. But Johnny doesn’t mind it. He thinks the term is rather appropriate.

  Johnny unzips his knapsack and pulls out his wallet. “I’d like to make a withdrawal. Fifty dollars.”

  He hands her his bank account number. Nothing is run by computers anymore, so she looks up his account folder via filing cabinet.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” she says, “but your account balance is at negative nineteen-hundred-and-twenty-three dollars.”

  “What?” Johnny shakes his head. “That’s impossible. I should have at least fifteen hundred dollars left. Look at the records.”

  The teller intentionally uses her middle finger to push her white glasses up her nose. Then she goes to her records. As she pages through his account history, sighing loudly to express her annoyance, Johnny turns to keep his eye on the boy.

  The kid is no longer in his chair. He is sneaking across the room. When Johnny’s eyes meets with his, he looks away, scratching his chest, acting natural. Johnny’s rubber hands begin to shake.

  “Yeah, this is correct,” the woman says. “You were late on a couple of gravity bills, so the hospital had us take the money from your account.”

  If Johnny’s facial expression could change it would now be one of rage. “I haven’t used gravity in over two months.”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” says the teller. “Whether you use the gravity or not, you still have to pay for it. You didn’t have enough money in your account to cover your last bill, so now your account is overdrawn. You owe us 1,923 dollars.”

  The bratty boy creeps through the line toward Johnny.

  “But I don’t have that kind of money!”

  “You will be charged a $50 overdraft fee every day until the amount is settled.”

  “What!” Johnny cries.

  The boy is now only a foot behind Johnny.

  “If you don’t pay the full amount by the end of the month 90% of your wages will be garnished.”

  “But I don’t even have a job!”

  “Then you better start looking,” the teller says, closing the folder. “Next in line please.”

  “But I didn’t want the gravity anymore,” Johnny shouts, holding up his bag. “I’ve been using my own gravity!”

  The black woman pushes Johnny out of the way and gives her account information to the teller. Johnny pushes her back and says, “You need to reverse those charges and give me my money. Now!”

  A smile widens on the little boy’s face as he aims his toy plane at Johnny’s butt.

  “Get out of my way, balloon,” the black lady shouts, pushing Johnny back.

  “Yeah, get out of here, balloon,” another person shouts.
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  “Give me my money,” Johnny says.

  The teller makes eye contact with the guards in the back of the room. “Sir, if you don’t leave now security is going to escort you out.”

  “Give me my fucking money!”

  The little boy raises his toy airplane.

  Johnny puts his hand in his knapsack, feeling around the pieces of debris. The guards move in toward him.

  “BOOOM!” the kid says, as the toy plane flies toward Johnny’s back.

  Before the toy pierces his skin, Johnny pulls out a .32 caliber revolver and shoves it in the kid’s face.

  “Get back or I’ll blow your fucking face off, you little shit!”

  When the kid sees the gun and Johnny’s demented smiling face peering down at him, he drops the toy. Then he begins to cry.

  The doors of the bank break open and four people enter wearing gasmasks and holding shotguns.

  “Everyone down on the ground,” one of them yells, while two others stab the barrels of their weapons into the backs of the security officers.

  The four armed robbers wear matching gray latex body suits. One is a woman wearing a suit with red hearts printed onto the chest and shoulders. One man of average build has black spades on his suit. A very large muscular man has a suit patterned with black clovers. And the tall, curvy woman has a biohazard symbol printed across the skin-tight latex.

  “Get down!” the robbers cry, pushing the customers to the ground.

  The people in line behind Johnny slowly fall to their knees around him. They cower beneath his weapon as he points it around the room, trying to figure out what’s going on.

  Some people near Johnny—like the bank teller and the black lady—do not go down. They are still in shock that Johnny is pointing a gun at the boy. Sure it was okay for the kid to murder a few balloon people, but now that the tides are turned they start to show some concern. A kid popping balloon people is kind of cute to them, but a balloon man threatening a boy with a gun, that’s appalling!

  “You heard them,” Johnny shouts at the people around him. “On the floor. Now.”

  Then everyone around the balloon man crouches down, lying flat on the floor. All of them except the teller. Johnny turns to her.

  “Now… where were we?” He points the gun at the woman. “Oh, that’s right. We were talking about my money.”

  The teller’s white glasses slip down her nose, but she’s too nervous to push them back up.

  In the alley around the corner from Liberty Bank, Sailboat was struggling to pull on his latex outfit. It was a bit too small for the big oaf. The zipper wouldn’t go up in the back. It was tight in the crotch. The clovers on his pectoral muscles made it look like he was wearing a black bra over his man-breasts.

  “Are you paying attention, Sailboat?” the bald black man said to him. “I don’t want any fuck ups.”

  “Yeah, I hear you.”

  The bald man pointed at Sailboat and the voluptuous Italian girl standing next to him. “You and Doomsday go for the two guards.” He looks over at the thin woman with short red hair and glasses. “Nine and I will go for money. Remember, there will be an undercover guard in the bank somewhere. Keep an eye out for him.”

  “Got you,” Sailboat said.

  “Little Sister,” the bald man said to the teenaged girl standing behind them. “The bags.”

  The girl brushed her blue dreadlocks out of her eyes and tossed him two duffel bags. The bald guy opened them and passed out the shotguns.

  “I get the Tommy Gun,” said Miss Doomsday, the Italian girl wearing the latex suit patterned with biohazard symbols. “You know I always get the big gun.”

  The leader handed her the Tommy Gun, then looked at his team. “Ready?”

  They all nodded.

  “Jack,” Nine asked the bald guy. “You forgot one thing.”

  “What?” Jack asked.

  She grabbed him around the neck and kissed him.

  “For luck,” she said, then sucked his tongue into her mouth.

  His smile curled around her lips. She smiled back when she pulled away.

  “Okay,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  They put the gas masks over their faces and held up their weapons.

  As they headed out of the alley, Jack looked over to the teenager, “Keep your eyes peeled, Little Sister. We’re counting on you.”

  She gave him the devil sign as she went toward her bike. “Good luck.”

  Just outside of the bank, they pumped their shotguns and gave each other a nod. Then they broke through the entrance and stormed the bank.

  “Everyone down on the ground,” Jack yelled, while Sailboat and Doomsday stabbed the barrels of their weapons into the backs of the security officers.

  Taking out the guards was even easier than expected. They were standing right in front of the entrance, with their backs turned. It was going to be their lucky day.

  Sailboat is a resident of Crab Town. He’s lived there for quite a while now, in a charred cavern beneath a collapsed office building. Sailboat believes it is called Crab Town because of all the black sewer crabs that crawl through the streets. A lot of Crab Town residents catch these crabs in the bay or in the sewer, because they have nothing else to eat. But the crustaceans are poisonous and incredibly radioactive. You can live on them for a while, but eventually they’re going to kill you.

  Sailboat didn’t always live in Crab Town. He had a pretty decent life growing up. But he’s come across some hard times, like pretty much everyone since the United States became a third world country.

  The reason why Sailboat moved to Crab Town was because he could no longer pay his debts. He had a steady job but his wages were garnished so much he couldn’t afford his rent. He was forced to move to Crab Town and once he did that his employer fired him. Companies don’t like to keep residents of Crab Town on their staff. They assume only deadbeats and druggies live on that part of town, even though over 70% of the citizens of Freedom City live in the Crab Town.

  All of his bad luck has made Sailboat a very angry individual.

  When Sailboat sees the guard going for his weapon, he clobbers him in the back of the head with the butt of his shotgun.

  “Do you want me to hurt you, pig?” Sailboat screams down at him. “Is that what you want?”

  He pulls the guard’s gun out of the holster and tosses it away. Then he kicks him in the face and slams the butt of his gun down on the back of his head.

  “Are you trying to kill him?” Doomsday screams over at him.

  A pool of blood forms on the floor below the guard’s face. He isn’t moving anymore.

  “Did you kill him?” Doomsday asks.

  “I hope so,” Sailboat says.

  Sailboat is an asshole for good reason. His parents made him the way he is.

  These days, parents don’t take care of their children for free anymore. Kids are expensive. Parents can’t just raise them and get nothing in return. So nowadays, parents charge their children for ever dollar they spend on them. Food, clothes, toys, rent, all of it gets added to their bill. And once a child turns eighteen, parents expect them to start paying off their debt, with interest.

  Unfortunately, the economy is a lot worse now than it was when Sailboat was a kid. Employers pay a lot less now than they did back then, and the cost of living has gone up. It’s almost impossible for a kid to pay off the debt they owe to their family. Most of the time parents will let their kids slide, sometimes only asking they pay 5% of their earnings toward the debt. But not Sailboat’s parents. They wanted their money. They didn’t give a crap how bad the economy was. Sailboat’s little brother already screwed them over by dying of a drug overdose at the age of nineteen, and they were going to be damned if their other son cheated them out of what they were owed.

  And Sailboat owed them a lot, because they spoiled him as a kid. His parents had a rather large income. They had a large house, only ate the finest food, would only clothe their children with the finest designe
r wear, and always gave them tons of presents at birthdays and Christmas. But everything Sailboat got as a kid wasn’t what he wanted, his parents gave him what they wanted. He couldn’t pick out what food he ate or what he was allowed to wear. He might have been a little more thrifty if he’d understood how money worked when he was young.

  His parents sent him to a very expensive art school that didn’t really teach him anything useful. When he graduated, he didn’t really have many skills to get a good job. He could hardly do basic math. His skills in painting and sculpture were pretty useless during these times.

  He eventually got a job as a drywaller, but it was hardly enough to pay rent, let alone pay off his parents’ debts. After he refused to pay their invoices, his parents got their lawyers involved. They managed to get his boss to garnish his wages, to give them half of his earnings. Sailboat begged his parents to take it easy on him, but they told him that was them being easy on him. They said they spent five times that amount on him per month, and that was just on his quarter of the house payments alone. Sailboat said he shouldn’t have to pay a quarter of their mortgage if he wasn’t a co-owner of the house, but they didn’t care. Parents can charge their children whatever rent they want, even if they decide to rip them off. Kids are gullible and can easily be taken advantage of by parents who think ahead.

  A part of Sailboat was actually happy that he was kicked out of his apartment and had to move to the Crab Town. He was happy because he was screwing over his parents and would no longer have to pay a single penny to those bastards. But he also knew that moving to Crab Town was the beginning of the end for him. He would never be able to get back on his feet for as long as he lives. If only his parents would have taken just 15% he would have been able to keep his job and pay rent. But they had to go and get greedy, even though they were still doing pretty well financially on their own. He will never forgive them screwing him like that.