An Heirloom of the Past

The sun beat down on Jerome Marquis, as he strolled through the area. His syrup brown skin was glistening with sweat due to the heat. The muscles of his upper body pulled at his black tank top, and his black athletic shorts flopped with each of his long strides.

“I shoulda stayed in New York,” he muttered to himself before reaching into his right pocket and retrieving a bottle of water that was a little less than half empty. Looking at his lack of water, Jerome sighed and put the bottle back into his pocket. As he wiped the sweat from his brow, his head turned toward the sound of conversation.

Approaching the noise, he spotted a large amount of construction equipment and workers operating them, along with a woman arguing with what looked to be the man in charge. The woman in question was dressed oddly, by Jerome’s standards anyhow, but he wasn’t one to judge.

Approaching the area, Jerome stayed low, keeping hidden as he listened to the man treat the woman like any racist piece of garbage would. He had no idea what an Injun was, but the way the man had said it assured Jerome that it was no compliment. Jerome silently decided to help the woman out, but had no idea how to do so. He couldn’t just start throwing around construction equipment without his mask. Looking toward the ground, an idea struck him.

Jerome then scooped up several small rocks into his large hand. He tossed one up and down experimentally before eyeing one of the two backhoes. Rearing back his hand, he tossed it forward like a skipping stone. It flew with the force of a bullet right through the thick metal wiring that pulled up the scooping bucket. He repeated this process for the other backhoe, before moving moving onto the six cranes. Jerome let more rocks fly, severing their ropes with breakneck speed, and always ducking down quickly after doing so.

Finally, all that was left was the five bulldozers. Jerome simply aimed for the steering mechanisms, short circuiting all of them over the course of a few minutes. As he hid behind a very large rock, he congratulated himself, before quickly moving away from the scene of the crime, and back toward town.

One of the workers, not interested in the conflict between his boss and some strangely-dressed woman, returned to his vehicle. His boss had all the time in the world, but he was "on the clock", so to speak. He tried to start his bulldozer, but his key didn't work. He tried again a few times. His vehicle just wasn't moving.

"Hey, boss!", he shouted to the foreman, "My bulldozer's not moving!"

Of course, the big, stocky guy got angry at his worker: "What?! I pay you to work, not talk!"

"B-but...", the worker stammered. "Shut up and get back to work or I won't let you take a break!", the foreman shouted.

As if violating AmerInd land wasn't enough, it was quite obvious that the foreman was heartless. His threat was so loud that the male figure who started walking away could hear it clearly.