Crab Town Read Online Free PDF Page A

Town,” Jack continues. “That’s right, the place a lot of you try to pretend doesn’t exist. I can tell that some of you are residents of Crab Town, or on the verge of becoming residents of the shit hole. For the lot of you, I apologize for this inconvenience. Rest assured, your patience will be rewarded. As most of you know, the House of Cards doesn’t commit crimes for our own financial gain. No, we do this for you, the little crabbies. All the money we make goes toward helping you crabs build a better life. We put money toward water filtration systems, so that we don’t have to drink that toxic sludge that comes out of the sinks. We put money toward books to educate Crab Town children. We buy medicine. We buy food. We repair buildings. We are your friends. We do this for you.”
    The guard in the yellow hat chuckles. “Yeah, you’re a regular Robin Hood.”
    Sailboat stomps on his back for interrupting.
    “Unfortunately, for the rest of you,” Jack of Spades says to the guard, “you are not friends of the House of Cards. You have used us and thrown us away like garbage. Crab Town citizens aren’t even allowed to get jobs because of you, because we disgust you. You don’t want us working in your restaurants or factories. You won’t even let us wash your floors. Are you afraid living out there in the impact zone has made us radioactive? Are you afraid we’re going to track radiation onto your side of town? Are we biohazards? Or are we just too ugly and dirty for you to look at?”
    He looks down at the bank manager’s wife, who is lying on the ground with one arm around her little boy. She stares at Jack’s boots as he peers down on her.
    “The sad thing is,” Jack continues, “we’re not even asking you to care about us. You don’t have to help us. You can be as self-absorbed as you want to be. We’re just sick and tired of you doing everything you possibly can to keep us down, making absolutely sure we can never get back up again. You made us into bottom feeders, and you want us to stay bottom feeders. Until you give us a chance to work, give us a chance to pay back our debts without garnishing the majority of our wages, the House of Cards will continue to rob your banks and steal your wallets.”
    He nods at Doomsday. She steps away from the front door.
    He continues, “Now, if you’re a resident of Crab Town, you are free to leave. We don’t want you mixed up in any of this.”
    The Crab Town citizens look around, then slowly begin to stand up.
    Jack points his shotgun at a blonde woman as she gets to her feet. With her clean shirt and designer perfume, she’s obviously not a Crab Town citizen.
    “Crab Town citizens only,” he tells her. “I’ve lived there long enough to know the smell of a crabby. If you don’t smell like one you don’t get to leave.”
    About nine people get up and go for the door. Miss Doomsday escorts them out. One of them smiles at her as she leaves, and mouths a thank you .
    Jack looks down at the bank manager and tosses him an empty duffel bag.
    “Now if you can fill this for me we’ll be on our way.”
    The bank manager looks up at him. Jack smiles behind his mask.

Jack once had a wife and daughter. They led honest lives in a lower middleclass neighborhood. When the government proposed the idea of CRABs, Jack thought it was a great opportunity. He was a brilliant handyman, who could fix just about anything from plumbing to electrics to generators. His plan was to single-handedly renovate an apartment building in Crab Town, so that he could own the property and make a better living by renting apartments out to decent people. Then he would move on to another building and renovate that one, then another, and so on. He saw it as a way to get out of his dead end job and give his family a better life.
    But things didn’t work out the way he had intended. The buildings in Crab Town couldn’t be renovated. It would be easier to tear them down and build new