two met in the middle of the street, twenty to thirty yards from union picketers stomping dirt to obliterate the entrance gate’s painted white line.
“What’s happening?” Jonas desired complete intelligence beyond trucks gathering.
“Nothing so far.” Paul’s voice high-pitched, eyes darting hither and yon.
Jonas subdued irritation. “Saw six trucks at Kanosh Electric. White, no markings.”
“Strikers half hour ago alerted by truck rumor.” Paul’s oblique step kept focus on picketers and back from being exposed to striker majority. “Cell phones created a beehive of shouts and running excitement. Picket Captain Bob Hunter dispatched two men to nearby intersections.”
A faint diesel engine blast sailed through the motionless air, repeated, growing into an approaching roar. In front of the Jove gate, nine picketers locked arms.
“We need to hustle to the gate,” Jonas said. Paul jogged. Jonas gripped baton and marched forward in double-time. “Okay, fellas.” Jonas scanned faces to target friends and neighbors. “Need your help.” He gazed at darkened driveway divisional line. “Staying calm will protect everyone.”
“Go home,” an unidentified voice shouted behind Hunter’s organizing efforts.
“Can’t do that. Sgt. Anderson and I need you to follow the rules.”
“Yeah,” Paul said. He pointed a rounded baton end at Bill McNamar.
McNamar slapped the baton sideways. “Don’t you threaten me?”
“Easy, Bill,” Jonas said. Slow-wave arm motion alerted Paul not to let strikers surround him as McNamar attempted smirking-stare distraction. “If you’re picketing, that’s fine. Let’s me see feet move.” Jonas personally didn’t want to try and force the strikers to unlock arms although they really had to. The law gave the company a right to use the gate for deliveries. He couldn’t take sides.
He surveyed the Jove Foods docks until interrupted by a west intersection air horn blast and the lead truck signaling a right turn. A man in a dark blue jump suit half-collapsed on the sidewalk. From the burn barrel a striker, with two others racing after him, ran toward the slumped man who clutched stomach. Jonas didn’t witness any truck or person hit the man laying in a fetal position.
The lead truck exited the intersection and continued its tortoise advance toward the Jove Foods gate. Jonas pressed the 9-1-1 portable radio emergency button sequence. “Kathy, Jove Foods, need ambulance, intersection Galway and Fourth. Put Walsh and Cannon on alert.”
One-by-one the truck convoy activated left turn signals. Within twenty feet of the gate, the lead truck’s front tires angled for the gate’s center. Convoy air horns blasted in sequence.
No striker at the gate twitched a muscle; shuffled a boot sole.
White cabs and trailers obliterated Jonas’s view of the fallen man near the intersection. A siren blared; turret lights flashed. The fire department ambulance screeched to a stop in an intersection’s crosswalk, blocked short of the fallen man by the turning eighteen-wheelers. Convoy truck grills nearly glued to tailgate bumpers, no adult skinny enough to squeeze from one headlight to the opposite side. Trucks didn’t break ranks; the ambulance detoured around.
“C’mon, guys,” Jonas pleaded. “Give the trucks a path. Don’t want to see anyone hurt.”
Chants of “scabs, scabs, scabs” and “turn back, turn back, turn back” overlapped to fill the late morning air. Hoisted bats, sticks, and picket signs waved menacingly. Three uniformed security guards jogged from a warehouse door across the parking lot and halted, grouped together. While the Sheriff’s Department displayed batons as their sole weapon, the rent-a-cops un-holstered stun guns.
Jonas feared the worse, an out-of-control riot. The air horn must’ve been a signal. The Jove Foods steel wire gate rumbled noisily as it retracted from its closed position. The security guards spread out, equally spaced in a line ten feet inside the opening gate facing the strikers.
“Keep together,” McNamar shouted.
“Solidarity forever,” Hunter echoed.
Two eggs splattered on the lead truck’s windshield. Wiper blades never arced. Jonas missed identifying the thrower. Eighteen wheels of each truck rotated to inch forward, grills protected by gleaming stainless steel bars, three across, curved around each fender to shield the headlights. Black electrical tape covered each headlight lens. Fifty-three-foot box trailers unmarked, two with reefers.
A dark ski mask, similar to the earlier Econoline guards, hid each trucker’s identity.
“Sgt. Anderson,” Jonas yelled. “Take the left fender. We’ll walk this truck in.” Paul complied, his back centered on the headlight to Jonas’s left. To the strikers, Jonas shouted, “Move, get out of the way, this truck’s coming through.”
No striker moved; the official plea ignored. Jonas raised baton to parallel across squared chest. A left eye glimpse confirmed Paul positioned himself likewise. The truck’s grill bars bumped Jonas’s buttocks. Three short paces separated him and four strikers. “Join your friends, guys. I’m ready to arrest anyone who interferes. Touch either Sgt. Anderson or me and the charges will be assault on a law enforcement officer.”
“Pig.” A saliva wad struck the asphalt at Jonas’s feet.
“Move aside, Bill,” Paul called out.
The last four strikers in unison executed one backward step. The security officers, stun guns braced in extended hands, marched one left and one right pace closer to the gate opening. “Hold on, guys,” Jonas barked to ready-to-advance security guards. “These strikers are still on public right-of-way.” The center security officer’s laser stun gun barrel threatened McNamar.
Jonas’s eyes rotated to bore deep into Hunter’s eyeballs. Neither blinked. McNamar squared body in front of Paul as he and Hunter remained after two buddies scrambled sideways. Jonas shuffled feet to maintain balance feeling the truck nudge him.
“Unless you two want to burn from a stun gun’s jolt, step aside.”
McNamar’s hurried rear glance and jutting jaw indicated four feet weren’t moving. Jonas released one hand from baton, grabbed Hunter by the shoulders, and shoved him aside. The pony-tailed striker stumbled to one knee, left hand fingers grabbing the wire fence to prevent fall.
Paul followed his boss’s lead to toss McNamar forcibility out of the way. Jonas and Paul dived in opposite directions to avoid being run over and crushed by the lead truck. When Jonas scrambled to his feet, four trucks had passed the gate, warehouse security guard line, and fanned out to separate Jove Foods loading docks. Jonas swatted pants to shake off dirt covering knees.
Vision temporarily blocked by the last two semis, Jonas couldn’t see Paul although he heard shouts: “Pig. Company whore.” Wood clashed against wood. The Jove Foods gate clanked closed. Strikers, more than the original nine who blocked the gate, formed what Jonas interpreted to be a fight ring. He squinted and couldn’t see Paul.
A voice cried out, “Hit’em again.” A louder voice, “Kick’em in the balls.”
* * *
Melanie Stark expanded
