The door shuddered in its frame under three heavy blows that landed like the impacts of a battering ram.
“Come in!” I called, curious of who had taken offence to my door.
A stereotype walked in the door, a huge man, easily two meters tall and built like an elephant crossed with a cement lorry. He wore a bowler hat on in slightly too small head and when he knocked it off his head on the doorframe as he entered, his head was completely bald beneath. His features were slightly puffy, giving him a permanent squinting look and his small black eyes glittered like buttons. He wore a white button up shirt stretched accross his massive chest with the sleeves rolled up above his elbows.
He lumbered up to me and in a voice sounding like the grinding of tectonic plates asked “You da interview man?” “That’s me”, I responded, staying seated, a little afraid that getting up might seem like an aggressive act and initiating an unintended pummeling.
He stuck out a hand the size of a ham with sausage thick fingers attached and said “Da lady at da front said to come back here and see you, I’m Bryce Ruiser.” My hand vanished into his and my bones ground together as he nearly tore my arm off in an exaggerated handshake. “Welcome Mister Ruiser” I said, trying to ignore the protestations from my tenderized hand, “won’t you please have a seat?”, gesturing him to a chair.
He looked over his shoulder to the chair behind him, his whole upper body turning, then went over and sat down. The chair creeked dangerously and I wondered if it would last the whole of the interview. He sat down, making the chair look like a child’s toy, holding his hat in both hands on his knees, slumping forward slightly as if he was used to sitting in places where he has to watch his head.
“So, mister Ruiser”, I asked while writing “B.Ruiser” into my notebook and underlining it, “What brings you to me today?”
“I heard you lookin’ for some, muscle” he rumbled.
“So you want to interview for the muscle position in the upcoming adventure?”, I asked. He looked left and right in the empty room as if confused and looking for help.
“Don’t know nuffin about no interview or no adventure”, he rumbled, “I’m just here for bein da muscle. Im good at bein da muscle.”
I carefully wrote “Not too bright” into my notebook and made sure to angle it in such a way that he would not be able to read it.
“Would you tell me a little about yourself mister Ruiser?” I asked.
He looked at me for a second before responding “I tole ya, I’m da muscle.”
Trying not to sigh, I asked “Okay, how long have you been the muscle?”
He peered over my right shoulder with a look of deep concentration on his face long enough that I started looking over my own shoulder to see what he was looking at, before I noticed his fingers twitching in his hat as he counted.
“I been doing da muscle work for six years now.” he managed eventually, looking a little confused.
“Six years as muscle and not dead, he must be pretty good!” went into my notebook.
“How old were you when you started your work as da, I mean, as the muscle?” I asked.
“I was twenty two”, he responded immediately.
“And how old are you now?” I asked as I started writing “28” in my notebook.
“Tirty eight”, he responded after a beat and I realized he didn’t have the fingers for carrying the one. I appended “teen” to the “six” in my notebook and crossed out the 28 and wrote 38 in its place, then wrote “Really” in front of “Not too bright”.
“Mister Ruiser, why did you go into muscle work?” I asked him.
“Dunno”, he responded, shrugging his massive shoulders. “I always been da muscle, ever since I was just a lil kid. I’m good at bein da muscle.”
“Tell me a little more about that”, I asked, “how did you find out that you were good at bein, I mean being the muscle.”
He sat quietly for a few seconds.
“When I was little”, he started “I was always da biggest. All da udder kids was scared of me. Didn’t have no friends. When I went to school, da kids called me dumb. But dey was still scared of me. Den one day I was walkin home all alone and I came ’round a corner and I saw a bunch of da older boy bein mean to little Jerry Grimes. He was da littlest of our class and da older boys was bein real mean to him, hittin him, and trying to take his stuff away. Little Jerry was tryin to fight em off, but he was too little and da older boys was startin to hurt em.” He took a deep breath and went on “So I yelled at em to let him go and dey just laughed at me and tole me to mind my own business. But what dey was doing wasnt right. So I went up to dem and tole da biggest one of em to leave little Jerry alone or dey could come and pick on someone my size” He laughed once, “so dey decided to try an pick on someone my size. Da one pushed me and I pushed em right back and sent em flying. Da udder ones tried to hit me, but I was too quick! ” He put up his hands and mimed out ducking and dodging punches. “Den I hit em right back!” he threw a punch in the air and his hat fell off his knees and onto the ground. He bent down and picked it up. “Dat day I realised that was good at fightin. And good at bein strong. I was neva good at school and stuff, but I was good at bein strong.” He was quiet for a moment then added “That was also da first fight I was eva in.”
“Strong sense of right and wrong – might not be villain material” went into the notebook.
“What happened after the fight?” I asked.
“Well”, he responded, “Jerry ran away while I was fightin da older boys, but the next day durin re-ses”, he said, pronouncing the two syllable separately, “Jerry came up to me and gave me his apple and a cool-drink” he said smiling fondly at the distant memory. “Neva had no cool-drink before dat day. Jerry an me was good chums afta dat. Da udder kids was not so scared of me no more. Always when da older kids would try an do somfin nasty to em, I would sort em out and tell em not to mess wiff my buddies.”
“That’s just great Mister Ruiser, really a heartwarming story, but I must tell you, not really the typical story of a muscle man. How did you go from being a school body guard to being a muscle for hire?”
He sat silent for a moment, as if his brain was parsing and reworking the questions.
“Well”, he started, “afta school, I had to start making some money. Couldn’t stay home no more and needed to make money, so tried a few jobs but I never could keep em long. So my friend Jerry said I should try goin to da army. They always lookin for good strong men in da army he said. So I went to da army and learned all about guns and fightin and stuff and I was real good at it too!” he said, an edge of excitement showing in his face and voice. “I made bunch of real good buddies while I was in da army and once we got out we started workin as doormen in da clubs. Den one day Mista Da-Silva asked me come with im to a meetin that he was kinda nervous ’bout. One of da guys at da meetin got real upset bout sumfin and tried to hurt mista Da-Silva. So I hurt ‘im
instead. Afta dat, I went wiff mista Da-Silva all da time. Afta a time mista Da-Silva started askin me to do some not so nice things. I did em cos he asked, but I did not like it. Dat’s when I went to work for Miss Teak at Teak Pro-tek-shun-ser-vi-ces. But dat was kinda borin, lots of sitting round while people talk about fings. One of Miss Teak’s ladies tole me to come here and talk to you guys about something a bit more exciting maybe.”
I underlined my note about his strong sense of morality.
“Tell me more about what you learned in the army” I asked him.
“Well, I aint supposed to say too much about all dat, but mostly we learned to shoot things a long way off with da long guns, and short things close by with da shorta guns and learned to sneak into places real sneaky like, den we also learned to jump outa air-planes, sometimes real high up sometimes real low too. We also learned to go places with dose tanks on your back to help you breath…what they called again…oh yes, skoo-bah…its real easy sneakin into places with dose! But yeah, das about all I fink I can say bout dat.”
My eyes slightly wide, I wrote two words into my notebook: “Special Forces”, then tapped on the notebook with my pencil.
“Mister Ruiser, I feel I have to tell you, normally a person of your, ah, qualifications are more suited to a role supporting the villain” I started and he got up immediately saying “Naw, thank ya mister, but I don’like villains.” “Please, sit back down mister Ruiser, I havn’t quite finished” He slowly sat down again, giving me a suspicious look from his dark little eyes.
“Like I was saying, your qualifications usually make you more suited to a rile supporting a villain” I went on and held up my hand as he once again started to rise. “However, you seem to have leaning much more in tune with the hero’s point of view. I take it that it would not bother you to be cast in such a position?” I asked.
“What would I have to do?”, he asked.
I smiled as I said “Well, mister Ruiser, from what you’ve told me so far, you’d just have to be yourself”
An answering grin split his face and he said “I can do dat!”