George spent a lot of time by the old wharf that summer. He thought of everyone that worked there as his friends, although they didn’t pay much attention to him when he’d show up. They were busy with more import things, like catching marlins and playing practical jokes.
All the old guys, Darryl, Mr. Stevenson, and Warren were unhappy with the way barge management treated their wharf. There wasn’t always a guaranteed job for you, it was either catch fish or be lambasted by the old man up at the bar. It was pretty clear the old man was the owner, but he didn’t like to say so. He liked to watch his crew work while sifting through the newspaper methodically, until he would inevitably get drunk.
George brought his woolen cloak and hat. He would walk right past the old guys, down to the far end of the dock, over the barricades and down the rocks. He’d stop to say hello when he had the chance, or if they looked busy he’d do his boyscout act and salute them.
He’d have to climb and fall two feet from the end of the dock onto a wide shaped rock. He’d dangle his foot off as far as it went, never reaching the bottom. From there, the rocks took him out to the breakers, and around to a small island. On the center of this small island lived Dorp, a space traveling man who’s ship had crashed here years before.
George was bringing Dorp all of the parts he said he needed to fix his ship. Dorp would say, each time, “I’m not sure if this will work, let’s hope this works!” Before trying in vain to reassemble his missing fuselage with parts from old transistor radios, washing machines, or toasters. George’s mom had noticed the washing machine had started making a louder thump which grew louder on each rotation, and the toaster would only warm its contents but never create toast out of them anymore.
Dorp’s ship was what you would consider an escape pod in most scifi lexicons. It was basically a hatch with a door on it, like a white powdery egg. To Dorp it was large, but even George dwarfed it.
The front opened with the sound of a walk in freezer, and the hazy inside hid Dorp’s figure for a moment. He was revealed to be holding a wrench, one of George’s fathers, and tightening a lugnut. It turned out he wasn’t tightening a lugnut, but caving a similarly tiny man’s head in with this wrench.
George stepped back from the entrance. “I have to admit, Dorp, I’ve never seen a real life corpse before.” He emptied his backpack, an alarm clock and a car radio. Dorp dragged the little mans body out with him and insisted George dig him a grave. “It’s easier for you, you’re twice my size,” He pleaded. Dorp remembered to take the man’s wallet out before they set him in his grave, retrieving 50 space bucks and his license and throwing the rest of the contents into the sea. Pictures of the mans many children spread out in the shallows.
“Oh good, I can get back to work,” Dorp said, lugging the alarm clock and the clock radio one by one into his workspace. He cracked both open with a hammer, taking only the shiny things out of the insides.
George was still feeling ill at ease. Looking up from his work, Dorp noticed this and made his way across to see his young friend. “Look, they sent him back from the future to kill me,” Dorp oversimplified the story. “He was going to confiscate what was left of the ship.”
“I hope you’re right, Dorp, otherwise we have a cold blooded murder on our hands.”
George spent the next week at school with visions of Dorp flashing through his mind. It seemed like Dorp was comfortable with killing if he had to, a desperate man driven to the wilder part of mans nature. He remembered in earlier times when Dorp would crack a coconut open, how hearty the cracks he took with the wrench. He would keep striking, wap wap wap wap wap, it took him hours sometimes. He remembered in retrospect how alien the little man’s strength seemed, the disproportionate size of his biceps.
George regretted telling his friends about the little alien down by the wharf. George had earned notoriety at the school for being “that weird kid who thought he knew an alien”. At first, George attempted to give up his alien friend, but couldn’t resist the urge to head down by the rocks. He didn’t care what those other kids said.
At his locker, a friend of George’s met him with a iron and a portable TV. Billy wore a backwards hat and overalls. “So how’s Dorp doing, when do I get to meet him?” George was offended by the quality of people who believed in his story. It was always the most nieve kids, the ones who knew no better than to believe anyones story about aliens. These kids were as bad as the disbelievers, he thought to himself. No one was on the middle ground.
“Hey thanks for the stuff, Dorp will enjoy it,” George ignored the initial question. Unable to resist, George gave up the whopper, “This weekend when I went down to Dorp’s island, there was another little man there and he killed him with a wrench.”
“Wowza! Billy cried out.
Later that day, a crowd of children overran the wharf. By the time George showed up, there were many wandering aimlessly with quizzical looks on their face, unsure how to reach the tiny man’s island. The fishermen shooed the children away like they were seagulls, and when they saw George they would shine a disapproving look over his way.
George shrugged and smiled at the dock workers and ran down the peer as he usually did, this time with a crew of other kids following him in a straight line. He made the jump first from the dock to the rocks without any caution at all, and was lucky to stick the landing.
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