Hank was one of those people who had a decent job and busted his ass every day for every single penny he earned. He had always been a hard-working person, which was a trait that was passed on to him from his father who spent most of his adult life slaving away at a factory that made radiators and other automotive parts. It was a hard job that consisted of back-breaking manual labor and many hours of mandatory overtime, but not once did he ever hear his father complain. The inside of the factory where his father worked was always scorching hot in the summer and freezing cold in the winter, but it really didn't bother him as much as it did most of the other people who worked there who bitched and moaned about the work conditions constantly. He felt fortunate to have a job no matter how difficult it could be at times, and just being able to provide food, shelter, and anything else that his family needed was reward enough for him. Hank didn't get to spend a lot of time with his father due to the fact that he was almost always at work, but he never resented him for it (unlike his estranged sister Donna who always complained that their dad was never around when they needed him as they were growing up) and understood at an early age that he had to work so much so he could take care of his family.
Just like his dad, Hank started working at a very young age. While most kids his age spent the summer break away from school sleeping late, swimming, riding bikes, and just messing around in general Hank was busy working on his uncle's farm. From the time he was eight until he graduated from high school he spent every single summer there working in tobacco, planting and watering the crops, pulling weeds, milking the cows, feeding the chickens, and doing other countless chores that needed to be done around the farm. He enjoyed every minute of it and none of it seemed like work to him at all. Most kids would consider spending ten to twelve hours a day baking under a hot sun while they toiled away in a nearly endless garden to be an unpleasant, torturous task, but to Hank it was always a treat. He just couldn't understand it when he heard his classmates complaining about how their parents made them take out the garbage or do the dishes, things that he often did happily at home without having to be told to do so.
In reality he enjoyed the actual act of working itself more than he did the money he got for doing it, and he couldn't quite comprehend why some people didn't want to work. At first he was just confused when he heard stories about some people living on welfare and others trying to get put on disability because they were just too lazy to work, but as he got older and saw more and more people buying whatever they wanted who didn't have jobs (thanks to the government giving them money and food stamps) it started making him angry. He had no patience for lazy people and didn't think anyone was entitled to a hand out if they did nothing but lay around the house all day getting drunk and playing video games. He was so against charity of any kind that he refused to donate any money when his church took up collections for needy families around the holidays and thought that the poor starving kids in Africa and other countries would learn to take care of themselves if people would just stop giving them food and money as they would be motivated to get off their lazy asses and get jobs.
It was no shock to anyone that he skipped college after high school and went right to work at a factory in town that manufactured ball bearings. It was a very hard job and most of the people who worked there didn't stay very long (it really was a terrible place to work and in reality was pretty much a sweat shop), but Hank was the exception of course. He worked very long hours for very little pay but he didn't mind. He was a very hard worker and the people above him eventually took notice, so it wasn't long before he was promoted to another position that was still physically demanding and required him to work unbelievably long hours (he once worked for nearly twenty-four hours straight) but paid a little bit better. Over time he was promoted again and again until he eventually became the head foreman. It was supposed to be a cushy job with great pay that required him to do very little actual work, but being Hank he made sure that he got out there on the floor with all of the workers under him and busted his ass just like he'd always done since the day he'd clocked in for the first time.
Most of the people who worked under him hated his guts (upper management did too because he made them all look bad due to the fact that he was such a hard worker). He was a real hard ass who didn't tolerate any sort of playing around or slacking off when his employees were on the clock. He told them all the time that they had been hired to do a job, and by God they were going to do it while he was in charge of them. It wasn't uncommon for him to yell at people if they were just a few minutes late reporting to their shifts, and God help anyone who didn't make it back from lunch on time as Hank made sure that they got stuck doing the hardest jobs around the factory for several days as punishment (after yelling and them and letting them know that he had never, ever arrived late from lunch the entire time he'd worked there). He'd fired countless people for various reasons and had even had people walk out of the factory on him because he was pushing them so hard that they decided to quit no matter how desperately they needed a job. Needless to say, he wasn't going to ever win any kind of award for being boss of the year anytime soon, and when new people were hired on there the few workers who had been there awhile warned them about him.
He never got married and had no desire to ever do so (not that any woman in her right mind would have him anyway). The girls pretty much stayed away from him when he was younger (due to a combination of being a pudgy red-headed guy that no one found attractive and the fact that he was a total horse's ass to everyone around him) so he didn't go on many dates and never had a steady girlfriend. It never bothered him though as he preferred working as opposed to going out with girls anyway, so he was perfectly content being a fifty-six year old bachelor who didn't have to support or answer to anyone (though he did regret the fact that he had never even kissed a girl or seen a boob in person). Since he lived alone and didn't have any friends who may come over and visit from time to time not a single person no one was aware that he didn't come home from work one night.
It had been a usual Tuesday night. He had spent his usual ten hour shift in the hotter than hell warehouse (In the summer months the heat was almost unbearable for most people but it didn't really bother Hank) yelling at people and telling them that they needed to stop bitching and get to work. His dad's motto was "A little hard work never killed anyone" and it was something that he was constantly telling the lazy workers when they slacking off and not doing what they were supposed to be doing. He supposed that it was his motto as well, and he even had a plaque that he'd bought at the Family Dollar store in town with the expression etched on it that he kept on his desk (he'd pointed it countless times over the years to the people he had to pull into his office to motivate to work harder).
As he was walking to his car he walked by a homeless man in the parking lot who was leaning against a beat-up Dodge Omni that Hank didn't recognize (he made a point to know who drove what just in case the information was ever needed for something). The man had a stained hoodie pulled over his head so it was impossible to see his face and he was holding a bottle of vodka in one hand.
"Can you spare a little change, Mister?" the man asked, holding out his free hand.
"Why don't you get off your lazy ass and get a job you useless piece of shit?" Hank roared, shooting him a dirty look.
He continued toward his car and had just reached into one of his pockets for his keys when he heard the sound of someone running up behind him. Before he could turn around the homeless man blasted him in the back of the head with the bottle in his hand. He hit the ground face-first and lay there seeing stars before a second blow to the head shattered the bottle and made Hank lose consciousness.
XXX
Hank woke up some undetermined amount of time later with a huge knot on the back of his head and a pounding headache. He staggered to his feet and after a few moments of shocked observation realized that he was in what appeared to be a prison cell. He looked around and tried to figure out exactly where he was, but the best he could come up with was that he was in some sort of homemade cell in someone's basement. On the other side of the bars was the homeless man who was just sitting on the floor staring in Hank's direction.
"What is all this? Where am I?" Hank growled as he grabbed the bars of his cell and started tugging on them.
"You're not a very nice person, Mr. McFarlane. You're not nice at all so I've decided to punish you as a result of your negative personality." His apparent captor replied.
"What are you talking about you crazy bastard? Who are you?"
The man pulled his hoodie down to reveal a bookish-looking young man with dark hair and several pockmarks on his face. He wasn't a very big guy-as a matter of fact he was downright scrawny and probably couldn't ride most roller coasters due to his height- and had on a pair of thick glasses that reminded Hank of the ones that his ninth grade science teacher wore back in the day. Hank knew the face almost at once, and while he couldn't think of the guy's name (Doug? Don? Dave? Something like that the best he could recall) he was aware of the fact that he had worked at the ball bearing factory for a short period of time. It was less than a month if he remembered correctly, and he was certain that it was on a rainy Monday morning when he fired him.
"I'm nobody important, just one of the many people you have fired over the years." The man answered with a smile on his face.
"Is that what this is all about? You kidnap me and lock me in a cage because I fired you?" Hank asked.
"That's part of the reason."
"What's the other part?"
"I've already told you. You're just a bad person in general and the world would be a much better place without you."
"You're going to kill me?"
"That depends on you, Mr. McFarlane. Your actions will decide if you will get out of here alive or if your current prison will be your final resting place."
"What the fuck are you talking about? Speak English you smarmy little prick!" Hank shouted.
"Such anger. You should probably watch that, it will only get you in trouble if you aren't careful." The man said in a matter-of-fact tone.
"Why are you doing this to me? I never did anything to you!"
"That isn't quite accurate. You fired me, don't you remember? I would consider that as you ‘doing' something to me."
"I had to! You were clumsy and always messing up! You never had any idea what you were doing and to be quite honest you were lazy. What was I supposed to do, ignore the fact that you were doing a horrible job each and every day? "
"I am a lot of things sir, but I am not lazy. I worked as hard as I could during my time there and I gave 110% every single day. True, I may not have been as skilled as some of the other workers but I tried my best. Still, it wasn't good enough for you, was it?"
"No, it wasn't. I don't care what you say; you were just like everyone else I've ever fired over the years. All of you were lazy and half-assed everything you ever did. None of you ever appreciated good old fashioned hard work and would rather sit on your asses collecting welfare checks while everyone else slaved away day in and day out. I'm glad I fired you and I'm not going to apologize for doing it." Hank said, feeling proud for saying what most people didn't have the balls to say.
"It's a good thing that you aren't like the rest of us then. Since you like hard work so much then you won't mind what you're going to have to do if you ever want to see anything other than your prison cell ever again." The man smiled.
"What the fuck are you talking about?"
"There's a bowling ball in the cell with you. It's over there in the corner. That's your key to surviving your situation."
"What am I supposed to do with this? Fuck it?" Hank asked, picking up the fifteen pound ball and looking at it.
"Here, you'll need this too." the man answered, handing Hank a piece of sandpaper through the bars of the cell.
"I don't get it. What the fuck do you want me to do with this stuff?"
"You're going to use the sandpaper on that bowling ball. I'd be careful with it since it's the only piece you're going to get and if anything happened to it your task would be impossible to complete."
"Task? What task?"
"Actually it's a three-part task. You are going to sand that bowling ball down to the size of a baseball. Once you've accomplished that I will reward you with some nice, cold drinking water since I'm sure you will be parched after working so hard." The man explained.
"You're crazy! That's impossible! There's no way in hell I can sand this down to the size of a baseball!" Hank protested.
"Part two is to sand it down to the size of a golf ball. Once you've done that I'll feed you."
"Let me out of here, you crazy motherfucker!"
"Now listen, because the final part is the most important. Using what is left of the sandpaper I want you to sand the ball down to the same size as one of those small ball bearings that your beloved company makes. You know the ones I'm talking about, the ones that are the size of a BB pellet. Once you've succeeded in doing that you are free to go."
"There's no way in Hell! That ain't even humanly possible!" Hank cried.
"Sure it is. All it takes is a little hard work. Don't tell me that you are afraid of hard work, Mr. McFarlane." The man shot back with a smile.
"Let me out of here!"
"If I were you I would get busy. It's hot in here and I'm sure you're going to be pretty thirsty in a little while, especially since you're going to be slaving away to get that ball down to the size of a baseball."
"You can't do this! Let me out of here you son-of-a-bitch!" Hank howled, grabbing the bars of his cell with both hands and shaking them, reminding the man of the time his mom took him to the zoo when he was a little boy and he saw a monkey do the exact same thing.
"I'll be down in an hour to check on your progress, Mr. McFarlane. If you get discouraged I'd advise you to follow the advice you are always giving others and remember that a little hard work never hurt anyone." The man said, before he turned and walked away.
The man took a moment to push the kerosene heater up in front of Hank's cell and turned it all the way up for motivation. He thought that if it helped make the cell even hotter than it already was that it would help Hank focus on his task. He was correct as he saw him pick up the sandpaper and start working on the bowling ball, half screaming and half laughing both at the same time as he tried his best to get it down to the size of a baseball.