2.
Actually, we’ll have more on Stu now.
Rule #27: You will never think of the perfect witty pun until at least five minutes after it’s too late to be funny any more.
“So tell me Stu, what was it about me that made you suspect my undercover nature at the diner?”
We’re sitting in a late night wi-fi bagelry/coffee shop in the Paradise City tower district called Two Muggs. Neither one of us sports anything like a flashy, new laptop computer, or even the old waffle-irons, but the place has a certain kind of library-esque charm about it that I love. All hush-hush for the occupants, yet you can eat and drink here as well. Hidden speakers emit sullen ambient tones in the manner that has been dubbed “elevator music” – that which is so quiet as to be on the verge of inaudible. Add to this the soft and dampened lights throughout the premises, and what you get is corporate-promoted rampant unconsciousness; so much so, that one must purchase large amounts of their coffee product just in order to keep from being booted from the store for sleeping at a table. An irony, but a profitable one.
“What are you talking about, Seamus?” Stu replies, a little lazily, from the other beanbag chair across the corner table from me. We’ve known each other for three weeks now, and have had a few “joint ventures,” if you know what I mean.
No? Well, you will soon.
“Wasn’t it you who gave the code signal first?” I reviewed. “I certainly had no reason to suspect that you were what you are before that move.” We speak in low tones, partially for the atmosphere, mostly for the conversation’s confidentiality.
“I suppose you’re right,” he retrospected, scratching the cranium covering his occipital lobe beneath the brim of his bowler hat. “I don’t know, I just went out on a limb there and got lucky, I guess. If I remember correctly, it was a natural enough way to speak code without sounding odd to an outsider, just in case.”
“Hmmm. Maybe so.” I allowed. As he, roused from stagnation begins to talk about other times he had tried busting the code in other situations on other people unsuccessfully, I reflected on what I had learned the first day or so about my new friend.
Francis Stuart Montgomery. Raised in the backcountry of Llangefni, Great Brittain. He and his family had for many generations participated in the sport of fox hunting. Stu had a champion bloodhound as a hunting partner named Roxey, and they always took first place in any of the competitions they entered. His family swore by the old nose of that hound, and had given him a funeral service when he passed on some years back. He tells me the Mongomerys keep Roxey’s ashes in the trophy cupboard next to all the metals they had collected (perhaps a little too much braggadocio for my taste; a sentiment I never uttered to Stu). It was after relating this history that Stu sprouted his trademark mischievous grin, and leaning close to me, uttered, “You know, the fool dog was dumber than mud! Couldn’t tell a fox from a brick! All’s I could ever train him to do was to run where I pointed.”
“So how did you two win all those competitions?” I asked askance.
After a dramatic pause, and with a sly grin he whispered, “It was me.” As it turned out, Stu has an extremely sensitive sense of smell. I reiterate: extremely sensitive.
Let me demonstrate.
Some few days after our first meeting, we had been “on the haunt,” looking for trouble, or for those who would cause it. For a superhero, free time is crime-fighting time, for evil never sleeps. Anyways, we were not long in the search when, on a dim-lit street in the business district, we witnessed a Quatrahooligan Beamerectomy freshly underway in a near-empty parking garage. Now in superhero lingo, this qualifies as a Class III situation: Four culprits, armed, expensive property in jeopardy, and possible trauma or fatality to a civilian. Normally, this is a walk in the park for me, but it was nice having backup that night. Besides, I wanted to see what Stu was made of.
The poor wealthy businessman was flung from the front seat of his BMW, landing on his particularly large nose on the asphalt, richly bloodying his shirt as he rose to his knees. Midsplat, the thugs were slamming the car doors, about to make their getaway, when the lights in the garage shut off suddenly, bathing them in perfect darkness. As the headlights come on, revealed to the quartet of criminals were the bleached silhouettes of we twain, in battle poses, and in full regalia. I am wearing my usual Hot Links attire – a lightweight ankle-length jet-black trench coat with a divided tail and a tall flipped collar, tightly-fitting black leather gloves, black cargo pants of a loose cut (for easy maneuvering), and a thin black turtleneck with a stark white simplified icon of a skull in the center of the chest. No form of headwear adorns my smooth-shaven scalp apart from the yellow-tinted Maui Jim shades, worn despite the late hour. To finalize the image, around my left forefinger, I spin a Celtic cross suspended on a long, thin gold chain. Draped across Stu’s bones are the clothings of a Victorian-era englishman – a solid wool, burgundy frock coat hanging down to knee length. It remains loosely unbuttoned to reveal the white shirt (complete with grey cravat) and drab green vest (complete with chained pocket watch) lying underneath. Above all this, across the shoulders loosely draped, is a flowing black rain cloak. A black bowler hat secures his curly blonde locks above a pair of vintage octagonal lenses with the faintest of pink opacities. Brown flexible fibers constitute the trouser matrix, flowing down to ankle-height, where feet are clad in none other than a pair of brown Nike Air Maxes. In one of his white-gloved hands he grips the angular crystalline head of an otherwise solid black wooden walking stick. Four perfect silent seconds pass as the villains try to figure us out, and then we begin the purposeful, intimidating strut that we both have practiced so well. An unobtrusive observer could not help but hear the retro-70’s “Bom-chicka-wa-wa” in the background.
The garage lights come back on as out of the passenger seat pops the Alpha Male, outraged at the apparent challenge. In a fury, waving his piece in the air, croaking words I care not to repeat here, he proclaims our imminent doom, levels the pistol, and draws back the hammer.
Calmly, lowly, unflinchingly, Stu utters a single word.
“Pussy.”
The man pauses, lifts the pistol and squints his eyes, saying, “What did you call me?”
“You heard me. Anybody can shoot his way out of a challenge. It takes a man to fight his way out. Pussy!”
“Oh, you didn’t!” 38 strait seconds of cursing and mama-insulting brings this fellow to red-hot-facedness, along with the posse, who now flank him. Hogan-style, this fellow actually tears off his shirt and throws it to the ground, revealing an equal number of muscles and tattoos, neither of which I bothered to enumerate at the time. “Come on!” He proffers with raised hands and a fighting stance, gingerly stepping from foot to foot, “Let’s see who’s the pussy! Feel like having some fun?”
Stu ceremoniously removes his cloak, hat, jacket, and gloves, revealing his slender, yet athletic build. His is the musculature of the ectomorph, built for brain, not brawn. Not quite the finely-sculpted similitude of Bruce Lee, but Stu had previously told me, “Someday. . .”
He duplicates the fighter’s pose, and moves in suddenly –
– Directly into a heavy blow to the center-face sending Stu sprawling backwards onto the ground, accompanied by the soundtrack of the other hoodlum’s laughter and tauntings. Alpha Male struts back and forth, daring Stu to stand up and take some more. Stu sits up, spits a mouthful of blood of the ground, and as sure as shine stands up and says, “Come on, pussy. That was nothing! Kick me. Kick me pussy, I dare you!”
Somebody said, “Hooooo boy!” as Alpha comes at Stu at a run and, hopping back on his left foot, thrust powerfully forward with his right, right into Stu’s stomach.
WHAUUUUGH went the air out of Stu’s lungs like a miniature fog horn in puberty. He fell to the ground clutching his chest in pain and gasping. I was purposely keeping uninvolved so Stu could show me his madd skillz, as per previous arrangement, but about here I started having my doubts. For at that time, Alpha Male aped forward to grab Stu’s head with both hands, and lifting him into a stand, finished him off with a massive head butt. Again Stu fell to the ground, dazed. Alpha turned his back to Stu and walked away, pleased with himself. I was about to lift my hand to effect a Chain, when to my surprise, instead of moaning or vomiting, Stu suddenly began laughing, drawing everyone’s attention. After stabilizing for a few seconds on his hand and knees, he lifted his reddened, bruised head, and, with a blood vessel deeply engorging the center of his forehead, infuriatingly shouted, “Friend, now I’m going to royally kick your arse!”
“No, now you’re going to die!” Alpha screamed as he charged. But his first wind-producing punch met solid air, as did the second, as did the third along with the first kick. Stu deftly dodged every attack as though he knew what moves he would make even before the monkey’s own muscles did. Punch, punch, jab, SMACK! As Stu lands a beautiful uppercut, judo-style to Alpha’s jaw. Alpha staggers back, and in shock, spits out a small piece of tongue. From the pain and shame he is stirred into a newer, untapped plateau of rage. Punch, kick, jab, punch, WHAM! As Stu dips to the side and scores on Alpha’s right kidney. Oh yes! There will be blood in that urine for weeks! Painful quick outbursts from Alpha’s lungs, followed by a loud gasp for breath, and back to battle. Punch, punch, punch, fake, punch, punch, KABLAM! As Stu leaps in the air, his foot making a perfect arch into a roundhouse kick to the temporal lobe, and Alpha staggers beneath the force, head drooped along with eyes, he sways to and fro, and to again, to finally crumble to the ground, lights officially out.
No time to glorify.
“Get’um!” One of the others shouted. Aroused from shock, the punk who took the pistol while the fight commenced fired off his clip at Stu, gangsta' style.
Incredibly, Stu ducks far behind, arching his back to dodge the first few bullets, then twists sharply to the left, bouncing lightly off his hands into a semi-erectness, and busts a triple-axle foot-to-gun disarmament, breaking a trigger finger and probably a few others as well. The painful outburst affords me time to make a dramatic flare with my arms as the lights above us shatter into thousands of sparks (of course, I effected the Chain that caused that to happen hours before, but I can’t resist the temptation to appear omnipotent sometimes). Stu steps forward in the newly created dark, and with another sweeping kick, spin, and punch, flattens the gunner. But I wasn’t finished either. As the two last gang members started to run, an electrical conduit broke loose from the ceiling, javelining the one in the face, while a patch of oil caught the other off-balance, landing him with a heavy concussion and a dislocated shoulder. One more blow from Stu subdued that final evildoer into candyland, and our job was complete.
Of course, our civilian friend was not just an idle spectator to this frenzy. He had slinked off to a neighboring park and had called the police long ago. When they finally arrived, they found the car appearing for all evidence to be untouched, with four bloodied and deeply abused pussies just coming back into consciousness to be carted off to jail. Of course, the businessman was bewildered and overjoyed that his Beamer was still present, let alone all in one shiny piece as he had left it. One curio, however: lying on his front seat was a roughly scrawled note reading, “Complements of Bruiser and Hot Links.”
As we had walked away, I asked Stu why he allowed himself to be beaten so badly before opening up on the poor devil.
“I have to learn his scent before I can anticipate his moves,” he told me. Stu then lectured me on how everyone gives off pheromones, or something very much like it, in anticipation of any move they make. Once he smells these chemicals, and can identify to what they pertain, his highly trained martial art machine can react peremptorily in such a way as to foretell what moves a man will make before his own muscles can know. All Stu had to do was survive the first few hits, and then he was essentially untouchable.
I then ask him incredulously, “And the whole dodging of bullets?”
He chuckles, and with a smile shakes his head and says nothing.
As it turned out, I was wrong about the judo-ness of his uppercut, and right about the Bruce Lee-ness of his build. Stu was a student of Bruce Lee’s jeet kune do art of combat and physical training, and idolized the man and his philosophies.
* * * * *
Back in the internet café, I come out of my reverie only to realize Stu had been talking idly for five or so minutes about predicting the weather based on the smell of the atmosphere. At that point I think to say, “So you could say you ‘sniffed’ my ability out of me, then?” But, of course, it is too late now to have any humorous effect.
Just to spite Murphy, I laugh at my little esprit d'escalier anyway.
