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Construction Site Workover
by roughboy

 

Pedro's alarm clock rang at 6am, his first day on the job at the construction site in a new housing development. It was the only job he could find this summer, and definitely not the one he wanted. Working outside in hot temperatures with a bunch of dirty construction workers was not his idea of a fun summer. The money, however, was good, and that was the only redeeming thing about this job. He arrived, on time, found the general contractor who hired him and he introduced Pedro to his three co-workers. They barely acknowledged him. They seemed pretty friendly with each other, but Pedro may as well been another tool in the box, not one of them offered a handshake or a welcome

.
"Great," thought Pedro, "not only do I have to sweat my ass off at this job, I have to do it with a bunch of assholes!" The mood he woke with up was certainly not going to improve, but rather worsen. What Pedro did not know, and had no way of knowing, was that he was the replacement for their buddy who was recently fired. The boss broke up the friendly team of 4 and brought Pedro in as a replacement for their friend he had recently fired. The other guys remained pissed off at the situation, though they could do nothing about it. That didn't mean that they had to accept Pedro, they just had to work with him. Their anger, though directed at their boss, was being taken out on Pedro. Little did they know, Pedro didn't really want to be there either, so it was a bad situation for everyone, it seemed.
The boss broke them up into two teams of two. Pedro and his partner were assigned to move lumber into houses that were in various stages of development. With Pedro on one end and his partner on the other, they silently began to move large planks of wood into an unfinished house. On their second trip, Pedro's partner said, "You need to walk faster. We can't be doing this all day." Pedro immediately became pissed off at his partner's scolding, but remained silent. When they got into the house, Pedro stumbled over something on the floor which caused his partner to continue scolding him. "Great, you walk slowly and you're clumsy too." Pedro's blood was about to boil, but still remained silent. He thought, "Who does this guy think he is?" On the third trip of carrying lumber, with his partner walking backwards and Pedro on the other end walking forward, it made Pedro smile when his partner stumbled at the entrance to the house, which caused him to back into the outside wall. Pedro, who had purposely walked faster they he should have, probably caused his partner's stumble, and the momentum of Pedro's pace caused the lumber to hit his partner in the belly as he backed into the wall. The unexpected force made him grunt. It made Pedro grin from ear to ear. "Serves him right," he thought. His partner shot him a dirty look as they put the lumber down. Out of the corner of his eye, Pedro caught him putting his hand to his belly where the lumber hit him. Pedro thought, "I wish it hit him harder." Just then the boss came into the house and assigned them another task. Working on opposite sides of each other, Pedro and his partner worked in silence until his partner said, "Hand me a hammer, you know what that is, right?" He was starting to hate this guy for talking down to him, so he turned and crouched down, grabbed the hammer by the head and without looking swung his arm around to hand it to him. His partner was reaching his arms up toward the ceiling and the handle of the hammer caught him in the gut. "What the fuck, you punk?"
Pedro responded, "Uh, sorry, thought you were ready to take it."
"The fuck you did, you punk ass mother fucker," he said.
The boss, having overheard, came over and asked, "Problem?"
Pedro's partner, who was already on thin ice with the boss, said, "Nope, little misunderstanding is all."
Later, at lunchtime, Pedro's partner hurriedly left the site to meet up with his two buddies and Pedro went to his car to take a ride and decide if he would even go back to the site. This job sucked!
The three comrades sat in a restaurant/bar and one of them said, "So, what's with the new guy? I forgot his name already."
"That little fucker, he's crusin' for a bruisin' already," he answered.
The third comrade asked, "Why, what did he do?"
Pedro's partner lifted his shirt to show his pals the bruise he got when the lumber hit his belly. "The fucker purposely walked too fast, made me stumble and then pushed the planks into me. Then he jabbed me in the gut with the hammer handle…by accident my ass!"
"That little fuckwad," said the first guy. "Hey, we can beat the punk up for you. Give him a little initiation into the construction business."
"Shit, I'll beat him up alright. I owe him a couple. Fuckin' teach him a lesson he'll never forget, not to fuck with me, that punk."
While the three finished eating and plotting, Pedro drove back to the site. There were too many bills to pay, and not enough cash, quitting was not an option.
The boss assigned jobs for the afternoon. The teams remained working in separate houses. When the boss's truck pulled away, Pedro's partner said, "We need to join the other guys and help them out."
Pedro questioned him, "Help with what?"
"It's your fuckin' first day, just follow me to the other house and stop asking questions." He took out his phone and sent a text to the other guys, "We're on our way."
As they entered the partially finished house, the other two grabbed Pedro, one on each side of him. They forced him over to the kitchen counter and pushed him forward so that his head lay on the countertop while the edge of the counter pressed into his belly. Pedro's work partner elbowed him in the lower back causing Pedro's body to further press into the edge of the counter and he experienced the pain in his back and his belly at the same time. The two guys pulled him upright and slammed his back into the kitchen wall. Pedro's partner picked up a hammer, held it by the head and said, "So, this is how you hand a hammer to someone?" as he jabbed the handle into Pedro's belly. "I just want to make sure I'm doing it right. Let me try it again to make sure I understand it," and the handle hit Pedro's gut a second time. "Or, I could just give it to you like this," he said and he grabbed the hammer head with both hands and bolted the end of the handle into Pedro's stomach. "Yeah, that works, I'll have to remember this in the future."
Pedro grunted but was able to take the jabs in the belly fairly well. His partner picked up a 2x4 piece of scrap wood and held the edge widthwise against Pedro's gut and said, "If I walk too fast holding this like this, it would slam into you pretty hard." With that he took a few steps back, aimed the wood at Pedro's gut and took a few quick steps until he saw the board make an indentation into Pedro's midsection. Pedro let out a big grunt even though he tightened up when he saw it coming. The other two guys had him held firmly against the wall. Pedro saw that his attacker turned the end of the board lengthwise and with more force than the first slam, the top pushed into his upper stomach and the bottom just below the navel. The blunt wood, being harder than a fist, sank in deeper and Pedro felt the waves of stomach pain go through him.
"Pick him up, bring him over here," he said, pointing to the fence posts in the yard just outside the kitchen. Only the fence posts had been installed so far, sticking out of the ground, the top of them 4"x4" square. The three guys dragged Pedro out into the yard, picked him up, lined up his gut to the fence post and placed him stomach first onto it. One of the guys held his feet while the other held his arms, and his work partner held his torso in place while Pedro tried to tighten up his stomach muscles. The entire weight of his body pressed against his navel and sank in enough so that he was unable to move. It started to hurt.
"That can't feel good," his partner mocked. With that he hammered both fists into Pedro's back causing his gut to press into the fence post even further. Pedro let out a sound that was a combination of a grunt and pain. His attacker then placed a 25lb bag of cement on his back and Pedro could feel the pulse in his stomach racing as the fence post pushed further and further into his gut as his muscles relaxed. He laid there for several minutes with the heavy cement bag on his back and it seemed like an hour.
"Okay, bring the punk down." His partner removed the bag of cement from Pedro's back. The two guys lifted him straight up in the air and carried Pedro like a piece of lumber on their shoulders.
"Hold him there, just like that," said Pedro's work partner. He hauled back his right fist and swung it up into Pedro's belly as he lay between the two guys. He punched him in the gut again. The third punch made Pedro hang limp. The two guys rolled him down their arms and onto the ground. Pedro landed on his back with a thud, groaned and clutched his stomach with both arms.
Pedro's partner stood over him. "That's lesson one," he said. "You don't slam lumber into me and you don't hit me in the gut with the handle of a hammer."
One of the other guys piped up, "I'm not sure he's paying attention. Do you get the feeling he's ignoring us?"
The other said, "I do, and it's sort of hurting my feelings." The three of them laughed, then picked Pedro up off the ground, grabbed a piece of rope and tied his hands behind his back. One of them found a piece of cloth and tied it over Pedro's eyes. Pedro became disoriented.
"Don't worry," said his partner, "we won't let you get lost. We'll keep a close eye on you." With that he slammed a fist into his belly, got behind him to pull him upright before pushing him toward one of the other guys. As Pedro lurched forward, the next guy swung his fist into Pedro's stomach, stopping him dead in his tracks. Again he felt himself being straightened up and pushed while the third guy lifted his knee and caught Pedro right in the gut. Pedro fell to his knees and bent forward, unable to use his arms to hold his beaten stomach. He felt himself being picked up by his underarms, and flung backwards over the leg of one of the guys. He was arched, stomach up, over the guy's leg. An arm planted across his chest and another across his upper legs. Pedro was locked in place. The other two guys eyed up their target, and one said to the other, "After you sir."
"Thank you buddy, that's very kind of you," as he made a fist and planted it into Pedro's belly. The fist sunk in deep and Pedro let out a long grunt. He stood back and let his friend take the next punch. He lined up his fist, and as if he was making a shot on a pool table, cocked his fist back and forth several times just above Pedro's navel before letting it land in the exact spot he intended. His fist came down hard and Pedro's body went completely limp once again. The guy holding him gave him a few firm pats on the gut before hammering his fist into Pedro's navel, then let him drop onto the ground. He felt someone removing the rope from his hands, heard a voice say, "Yeah, that's enough of a lesson for now," and then it became eerily quiet. Pedro was afraid to remove the cloth from his eyes, afraid of what he might see, so he lay there in silence holding his stomach and groaning. He had never been worked over in the gut like this, and never knew that so many punches in the stomach would hurt like this.
When Pedro was satisfied that he was laying in the yard alone, he removed the cloth from his eyes and slowly tried to get up. The ache in his gut was intense, and as he slowly walked toward his car, he rubbed it the entire time hoping that this would make his stomachache subside a little. It didn't.
When Pedro was half way to his car, he stopped for a few moments and didn't even notice that the boss pulled up beside him in his truck. He rolled down the window and said to Pedro, "What's the matter, you sick?"
"I'll be alright," Pedro answered, holding his stomach, half bent over.
"You don't look alright," said the boss as he got out of his truck and went over to Pedro. "Where are the other guys? Their cars are gone."
"I don't know," said Pedro.
"Something isn't right, tell me what happened? Did they do something to you?" the boss asked.
"I'm not going to rat anybody out," said Pedro, "so stop asking me. Nothing happened."
The boss put two and two together and became irate. "Those bastards beat you up, didn't they? Take your hand away from your stomach. I can see the marks they left on you. Son of a bitch, they must have worked you over good. Let me take you to a doctor."
"No! No doctor, I don't need a doctor," said Pedro. "I'm tough. I just couldn't take the three of them on. They jumped me."
"Those fuckin' cowards," said the boss, "three against one. What the hell made them think they could get away with something like this?"
"I don't know," said Pedro, "all I know is that my gut is killin' me right now."
"Alright, go home, don't come back until I call you, I'll take care of this," said the boss.
"Come back? What makes you think I'm coming back?" asked Pedro. "I don't ever want to see those goons again. If you think I'm coming back for more for more of this, forget it man."
"Go home, I'll call you tomorrow to see how you're doing, and we'll talk after that," the boss assured him.
The next day, Pedro's attackers showed up for work as usual, and the boss acted like he knew nothing of what happened the day before. He purposely didn't mention Pedro as he assigned the day's tasks. One of the guys, unable to control himself, elbowed his buddy in the arm and asked, "So, no new guy today? He called out sick already or something?"
The boss replied, "Yeah, or something. Let's get started." He pointed to Pedro's partner from the day before and said, "You, come with me. You two, finish up over there," and pointed toward one of the houses.
While walking, the boss asked, "So, the new guy, Pedro, how did you like working with him yesterday? Was he okay?"
"Yeah, I guess. Did he quit already?" he asked, playing dumb and trying to get information at the same time.
The boss answered slyly, "Quit? Why would he quit? "
"Don't know, just asking," was all he could mutter. "I don't see him here today."
The boss remained silent as they entered one of the unfinished houses in the complex, furthest away from the others. He broke the silence by saying, "Sorry, you'll have to work alone here for the morning, make the best of it and mud and tape this sheetrock."
The boss wandered away while the worker organized himself for the job. As he began working he heard footsteps in the house and wondered why his boss was coming back so quickly. After a few moments he saw two guys standing before him, neither one had he seen before, and neither of them said a word. They just stood there, arms folded, looking at him.
"What can I do for you?" he finally asked. "Are you looking for my boss?"
"Actually, it's not what you can do for us, it's what we can do for you," said the stranger.
"What's that?" he asked, looking somewhat puzzled.
"For starters, we can teach you some manners," said the stranger as his foot came up and kicked the construction worker in the side sending him flying into the wall. The second stranger swooped in, cocked back his fist and hit him in the jaw sending him flying into another wall. Stunned by the surprise attack, he slumped against the wall, momentarily dazed. The first guy, who had delivered the expert kick, did an encore kick into his stomach. The construction worker slumped down to the floor and received another boot in the gut the second he hit the ground. The two strangers quickly tied his hands behind his back and his legs together, and stuffed a cloth into his mouth.
"Now just lay there and shut up," said the stranger. "Now you know what it feels like to be ganged up on, a little payback for what you did to that guy yesterday."
The stranger took out his phone, and after a few seconds said, "Send the next guy over."
The boss clicked off his phone, went into the house where the other two were working and said, "I need one of you to help out your buddy at the other house, I don't care which of you it is."
They looked at each other, shrugged their shoulders, and one of them took off, leaving the other with the boss. The two strangers, the thugs, waited patiently inside the doorway for the next guy to arrive. As the second construction worker entered the house, he shouted out, "Hey, where the hell are you? The boss sent me over to see what…." His sentence was interrupted by a piece of wood slamming him into the small of the back, which sent him flying forward, landing facedown on the floor. From his vantage point on the floor he could see his buddy tied up and gagged further into the house, to the left. Before he could get up each of the thugs placed a foot onto him to hold him down, one at the neck and the other on his back. The guy at his back gave him a swift kick in the side which caused him to roll over onto his back. He then planted a boot into his gut, coming down with all the force he could muster. Dazed and confused, he had no idea as to who these guys were, why his buddy was tied up, and why they were there. The thug who had had his foot on his neck grabbed his arms and dragged him toward his buddy in the other area of the house. With his legs flailing, the other thug once again kicked him in the belly to knock the wind out of him and make him more cooperative. He too, was tied up in the same manner as his buddy. The thug once again pulled out his phone and said, "Next, we're ready for the last one."
The boss turned to the third construction worker and said, "Hey, go see what those other two are up to over there, and call me with an update."
"Sure," he said, as he ventured off to his buddies in the other house up the road.
Walking in, he found it odd that he heard no talking, or any other sound for that matter, and inquisitively walked through the house. As he rounded the corner, in the same split second of time, he saw his two buddies on the floor, tied up and gagged, as a 2 x 4 hit him in the stomach. When he bent forward from the blow, the other thug slammed him in the back of the head with a chop of the hand. When he hit the floor, he received a swift kick in the gut causing him to convulse in pain. The two thugs quickly bound him up as they had the other two; hands behind their backs, legs tied together, and a gag in his mouth.
As the three construction workers laid there wide eyed and pissed off, the two thugs propped them up against the wall, sitting in a row, wondering what was about to happen next. The first thug looked them over and began to speak. "Look at you three tough guys. Did you have a good time beating up Pedro yesterday? First day on the job, and all you clowns could think of was working him over for no good reason? You think it was his fault your stupid ass friend got fired? Well, hope you had a good time, because today it's your turn. This is how it's gonna work. We're going to take the gags out of your mouths, and you can shout all you want, no one will hear you. Between the three of you, you'll decide which one of you is gonna get what Pedro got yesterday. Exactly what Pedro got yesterday. He finally told the boss all about it, in great detail. We'll give you five minutes to decide which one of you gets his guts bashed in…by the other two. Got it? Two of you are gonna gutbash the guy of your choice, just decide who's getting it and decide fast. We'll be back in five minutes."
With that the two goons removed the gags from the three construction workers and quietly left the room, leaving the three of them with a hard decision to make.
Pedro's work partner from the day before began, "What the fuck? Who the fuck do they think they are? I don't want to beat up either of you, especially if one of you has to do it with me."
The guy who suggested beating up Pedro in the first place answered, "Why does it have to be one of us that gets beat up? It could be you."
"Because it was your idea in the first place, I just went along with it," he answered.
"Yeah," he replied, "but you're the one who actually worked him over. We just held him for you."
The third construction worker, who until now hadn't said anything volunteered. "Fuck this, I'll do it. Tell those goons that the two of you are gonna work me over, I can take it. I have a gut like iron and you guys can pull your punches. If you have to hang me on the fence post though, try not to leave me there too long. I'll act like I'm in great pain. Then just lift me off, and no cement bag on my back! They probably don't know about that anyway."
"No, we didn't," said one of the goons as he reappeared into the room, "but now we do. Are you so stupid that you didn't think we'd be listening to how this was gonna go down? Pull punches, eh? If either of you pulls any punches the end of this baseball bat gets slammed into your gut, how's that sound?" He looked at the volunteer victim and said, "So, you're gonna be the one who takes it, eh? You ready? Let's get this started."
The two goons untied the punchers hands but left their feet tied together. The victim was left tied up just the way he was. They lifted him up and placed him against the wall and told one of the other two to hop over in front of him.
"Punch him in the gut…hard," he ordered.