The Shipyard Series - Part II

Uperman’s shipyard ran east along the nothern part of the Midtown coast that bordered the ocean. After a good stretch the coast and shipyard turn south for a bit more before rising into sheer rock cliff, too jagged and high for any ports. Old Midtown starts where the borders of the sandy coast meet the start of the rock cliffs. Most of the coast that was sandy beach in Metropolis sits dominated by the shadows of the ports that feed Uperman’s shipyard. Nobody went to the ocean’s edge to bathe or swim or anything else. Uperman’s ports never held any local fisherman, only sailors from the north or east in for the night on older ships, but that was rare. Most of the freight ships were completely automated and didn’t need any more than two or three to the crew. Most of the time the little crew would never leave the boat but instead stayed on board in their cabin. It didn’t make any difference to Stewart who never saw any of the ships or the sailors. Stewart worked in the yard in a little corragated aluminum metal shed of a portable. A long time ago the orignal Uperman had set up a system for the shipyard that divided the whole thing into sections. Each section of the shipyard had a little portable office with the assigned personel to run it. Stewart’s Section was called the East 101, which he never understood since his section was the furthest northwest in the yard, closest to Uperman’s Adminstrative office where Uperman himself sat everyday atop the fifth floor in an office that overlooked the yard.

Stewart worked with another guy, Fred. Fred and Stewart were both Inventory Managers and their boss was Mr. Barrowker. All three shared the little portable that sat looking small amidst all the stacks of of frieghts, each two to three times the size of the little office. At one time the office had been a single room but a while ago, before Stewart worked there, Management looking to increase space effeciency installed a metal wall and divided the little office into two, leaving one space bigger than the other. In the smaller room worked Fred and Stewart. Each had a desk on adjoining walls and shared a waste basket in the corner where the desks met. For the most part they worked together without any problem. On occassion Stewart and Fred would back out of the desk at the same time and their chairs would collide or they’d both lean back and hit heads but they made do. Fred was a small guy like Stewart with olive skin and jet black hair. He talked fast about most anything and for this reason Stewart avoided any conversation that might lead to something deeper than the weather or invoice numbers. Something in Fred left Stewart tired. Sometimes Fred would get talking so much and so fast that it felt as if he’d used up all the oxygen and Stewart would have to step outside just to breathe.

In the bigger part of the little portable office was Mr. Barrowker. The wall the divided the two sections stopped short and his door was simply the opening left over. Barrowker stayed in his office most all of the time, calling both Stewart and Fred on the phone and sending them faxes and e-mails. Stewart had never seen Barrowker come or leave the office. Not even for lunch. Barrowker was always angry and spent a good amount of time yelling at Stewart and Fred, the two other guys in the adjoining room, one at a time over the phone. Stewart always secretly wondered if maybe Barrowker originally had the whole office to himself and was still anry about the division of it by Management and was now taking it out on him, but he was never sure.

Bedtime (sorry for the poor edits but I am sleepy)

The Shipyard Series - Stewart and Fred

Related in Cahoots:

1. Shipyard Series - Stewart and Fred
2. The Shipyard Series - Part I
3. Shipyard Series - Stewart vs. Freight