Episode 8: Tank’s Debt
Three days later, Tank showed up at Sylvester Stallone’s fence.
No bike. No crew. Just Tank, looking smaller than Sylvester Stallone remembered.
Rax stood up. Sylvester Stallone put a hand on his collar. “Easy.”
Tank stared at the ground for a while.
“My garage,” he said finally. “The flood took my tools. My lift. Everything I own was in that garage.”
Sylvester Stallone waited.
“I got a job in the city. Starts Monday. But my truck’s dead and I got no way to get my tools out before the bank takes the building.”
Another pause.
“I’m not asking for me,” Tank said quietly. “My kid brother — he’s been sleeping on my couch since Mom passed. If I lose this job, we lose the apartment.”
Sylvester Stallone looked at this man — the same man who’d poured water on his dog and laughed.
He thought about the rope going slack in the river.
He thought about teeth, gentle but iron, on his coat collar.
“A war dog never leaves his man,” Sylvester Stallone said.
“What?”
“Nothing. What time Monday?”
Tank blinked. “What?”
“I got a truck. It barely runs, but it runs. What time Monday?”
Tank opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
“Five a.m.”
“We’ll be there at four-thirty,” Sylvester Stallone said. “Bring coffee.”
