Thick Tank

Tank looked at the heavy brown paper box in his hands and felt angry. 

Anger had served him so well over the years he'd never felt the urge to expand his range of emotions. He was angry all the time, from light irritation all the way up to murderous, bone-breaking fury. He'd broken enough bones in his time, that's for sure, his shovel hands and gigantic frame making light work of it. Once or twice he'd killed a man. Maybe three times. He didn't remember. 

It was cold. He walked over to the window and stared at his car parked outside. It looked warm and comfy, with its soft leather steering wheel and heated seats. It was the one thing he could rely on in his life, his sanctuary where he could listen to classical music and escape the unkind and difficult world that relentlessly bothered him. 

He saw something in the distance, or rather someone. It was Boss, crossing the road and heading towards the house. Boss was an abusive and belligerent man, prone to explosive moments, but Tank obeyed his orders because, well, he's the boss. He was stout, portly, with bendy legs and a balding, egg-shaped head. He was much smaller than Tank, but so was nearly everyone. 

Tank glanced at his own reflection. His thick neck spilt over the rim of his shirt collar, his square jaw and jowls outlining his face, the spiderweb tattoo on his cheek visible in the windowpane. Tank's friends saw him as a funny man, a breezy brute. Once, on a night out, he had jumped up and down on the back of a barman who'd tried to kick them out of a pub and everyone cheered and chanted his name as he did it. It was a great night. 

A light rain tapped on the window glass, distorting his reflection. 

Tank stepped outside as Boss came closer.

"You got the parcel then?"

Tank said nothing. 

"I said you got the fuckin' parcel then?"

"Yes, Boss."

"Got the address?"

"Yes, Boss."

"Then what you still doin' here you mug? Waiting for permission from your mother? Get in the car and fuck off."

Tank got in the car, putting the parcel on the passenger seat. He looked back at Boss in case there was more information.

"Fucking fuck off you cunt!" Boss shouted, kicking the rear light of his car and smashing it.

Tank reversed out onto the road and sped off.

---

"What's in the box?" Sean asked though the phone speaker as Tank drove. 

"I dunno. This rain is doing my head in, I can't see nothing," replied Tank.

"So he's dented it you reckon?"

"Probably. I can fix the light but if it's dented I'll have to get the whole back end replaced."

"What you going do?"

"Fucking kill the cunt."

"Careful Tanky, you know what he's like."

"I'm joking Sean. He gives a lot of verbal but where would we be without him?"

"I'd still have my little finger."

"That's your fault for getting nicked, you melt."

"Yeah, well you better not get nicked. Fuck knows what's in that box. I'm serious. It's could be gear, whatever. If you get nabbed before you know it, you'll find buying gloves a problem, like me."

"Cheers Sean, fuck you."

---

Tank pulled back into the driveway. He'd been driving nearly five hours. It should have taken less than two but by the third hour, he'd turned back. The rain was so heavy it had flooded the motorways and the back roads were hit even worse. The last thing he wanted to do was return with the parcel, but he had no choice; he didn't want to be on the road with it for hours, police closing lanes, directing traffic, knocking on the window, giving him instructions about u-turns and diversions.

Tank first met Boss when he was working in his warehouse as a teen. He was already huge in stature and Boss took notice and started asking him along to rendezvous to sit in cars or stand in corners and look, well, as Tank looks.

Back then he was David Parry, not Tank, that moniker stuck to him much later, once he became Boss' full-time bodyguard.

That was around the same time his dad died. His only family member. Boss picked up all the pieces, taking his father's place in both Tank's eyes and heart. It's why he took Boss' abuse, probably; his dad shouted at him, called him a prat, useless, hit him on the regular. Boss did the same. That's how life worked. And Tank, he now hit people too.

He picked up the parcel from the passenger seat and unfolded himself out of the car. The rain was still hammering down, pattering on his enormous bald head, echoing through his skull.

"You dozy cunt!" screamed Boss as he strode out the door. "Why didn't you call?"

"I did Boss, loads, your phone isn't working."

Boss scrambled around in his pocket and pulled out his phone. "This fucking phone? This phone?"

"That phone, yeah."

"Of course it doesn't work, it's a fucking safe house. It's not meant to fucking work, it's why there's a landline, you thick mug."

Boss lunged forward and tried to punch Tank in the face. Tank used the parcel to block his fist. Boss screamed out as his hand was pierced by the sharp corner of the box.

"You just cost me big time, I'm fucked, so you're fucked. Get in the house."

---

Sean came in, shoulders dark and wet from the downpour and sat at the kitchen table. Tank was sitting across from him, nursing a cup of tea.

"How you doing, Tanky?"

"Fucked off."

"Standard. I said that parcel was important. Rain. That's what stopped you?"

Sean was around the same age as Boss but around the same size as Tank. He was working for Boss when Tank first joined, when he was still just David, the lost and impressionable teen looking for guidance.

"Know why I'm here?"

Tank looked at Sean as he slowly lifted his hand and waved his finger stump at him.

"I did warn you."

"Fuck off Sean, that's not happening."

"Don't you try me, you thick fuck," Sean barked back. "I'm taking a finger. It's a tax and you won't resist, but I'll take you down if you do. You couldn't deliver a box because of some rain. Think you can stop me?"

Tank said nothing. Fury was building up in him. The familiar comfort of anger running through his veins, the only certainty he'd ever had in life, that feeling, that control. He imagined grabbing Sean's face and pulling it apart like an excited child with a wrapped Christmas present. His heart beat like a punch in his chest. He felt alive.

"That look Tanky, I've seen it. I know it. Don't do it. You're out of your depth. You're a tree trunk, cunts like me are lumberjacks."

Tank lurched across the table and in one fluid movement, Sean backed away, reached under Tank's arm and plunged a long thin blade into his side. The inertia of Tank's mass pushed the table towards Sean as he grabbed his collar, pulling him onto the floor as he fell.

They wrestled, the blade sticking out of Tank's side, a yellow wooden handle jutting out from between his ribs, his white shirt slowly turning red as his hands reached up to throttle Sean's wide neck.

"You're just a fucking tree trunk, a fucking tree trunk" Sean repeated, through a hissed wheeze as Tank began slamming his head on the bare floorboards. Another pool of blood formed, this time under Sean's skull and he eventually stopped hissing, stop wheezing and became still.

Tank sat himself up and looked at the blade sticking out of him. He touched the handle but didn't dare pull it out. All these years seeing people stabbed and he didn't know if it should stay in or come out. It felt intrusive, it was hard to take a deep breath but it could stay there, for now.

"You idiot. Look what you've gone and done." The voice came from above. Boss was standing in the doorway.

"That's staff. You can't go around ironing my people out. You always were a thick prat. Thick Tank, that's what they call you."

Boss was pointing a gun down toward's Tank's huge dome head. It was a revolver, an old model with an ornate, carved wooden handle. In that passing moment Tank thought how nice it looked.

"I've always hated you," he said to Boss.

"Course you have, it's all you got, hate. It's all you're capable of."

"Do it then," said Tank, looking into Boss' eyes.

Seconds passed.

Boss' face changed. It softened. "You idiot. I saved you. Everything I did for you. I killed you old man. I done him in. It was me. You turning up to work with burns on your arms and back, he broke your nose, Tank, your fucking nose. He was an animal. I couldn't have it. I gave you everything, you thick bastard."

"You killed him?"

"Yeah, I killed him. I killed him for you. It was all for you, David."

Boss lowered the gun and slumped into the doorframe. Tank looked down at the handle of the embedded blade and pulled it out from between his ribs. Blood poured out the wound and he pressed his hand against it to curtail the flow.

"You dozy fuck" Boss said, in a low voice and he began to laugh. "You've only gone and killed Sean."

Tank started to laugh too. Then there was silence. Boss lowered himself to the floor and sat next to Tank. The only sound was Tank's laboured breathing and the low hum of the fridge.

"I love you, David. You're my boy."

In an open hand gesture, Tank pointed his fingers towards the gun Boss was still holding. 

"Have it. I could never shoot you."

Tank took the gun from him and rested it in his palm on his lap.

"All this over a cardboard box. You wanna know what was in it? It will make you laugh." said Boss.

"Not really," said Tank as he raised the gun and shot Boss clean in the face.

Boss's arms trembled and his head wobbled inhumanly around then his whole body slumped forward, defeated. 

Tank looked again at the handle of the revolver. Another surge of anger ran through him. It felt good.