"Hey, buddy, can you ..." - suddenly I clocked him with a left-to-right uppercross straight to the jib! He crumpled like clockwork. I looked around to see who saw.
No one.
I was in the clear. Another bum victimized, another bum punished by a sudden outbreak of my violence. What kind of a man am I, who would dish out such a sucker punch to some poor shmoe too hard on his heels to expect much luck from life?
I'm a bad man, that's who. I looked back and kept walking, having not so much as broken stride. Soon I was laughing long and hard, openly about it. Blissfully unaware that my own comeuppance was in the mail - coming hard and fast via Federal Express!
"Ding-dong," said the deliveryman.
I stopped short. A tall, lanky individual had stepped suddenly out from a side alley to block my path. There was something unfamiliar in his eyes - something cocky - but I dismissed it. I knew the type at a glance: disheveled. Ten-day growth of beard, and probably not showered in that long. Dressed in layers. In short: another fucking bum for me to deal with! I grinned wide as I readied myself to dish it out yet again on this fool. Two in one day, I thought: not bad.
I swung hard, and my right arm went taut as my center of gravity upended, feet leaving the pavement, pulled on an irresistible pivot to which I was only the pendulum: up and over! WHAM! - my whole body hit at once, stretched hard at length across the white concrete. Then - another full-length impact! Softer. I had bounced! Tasting blood, reeling from the unbelievability, I rolled up to one knee and elbow, raising my chin to regard this guy - my foe, my adversary - my nemesis!
CRACK right in my out-thrust chin! Clocked in the jaw by the hard-swung heel of a Teva-sandaled hammer of a foot! I flailed back sprawling, spine shot through with zinged electric jolts, skinning my left palm and landing on my back, legs akimbo and wiggling like the limbs of a string-cut puppet. But my reeling eyes cleared as I fixed them on this implacable figure. Did I know him? His slate eyes were blank of content as they were of color, but his mismatched plaids and pocket-heavy drab fashions marked him as an outsider, as one who does not fit into life but must carry it with him. He looked like a bum - an ordinary bum, someone with no appeal to society, to authority or to protection - like one of any nameless, masterless, numberless bums I'd come across, knocked over and trundled under, laughing on my callous way. "Who are you?" I rasped, again tasting the blood that was running, a little from my lips, but mostly back and into my gulping throat.
"My name's not important. My mission is. I'm here to punish you. You and all your ilk, who spit on and fuck over those who are too helpless and powerless to fight back, because life has already beaten all the fight out of them! I am one of them," he said, voice flat and menacingly emotionless, "but I am also their champion. Call me: The Human Bum!"
Gaping I gasped, astounded. Surely this was the karmic payback Jean and I had been arguing about earlier, over sushi!
I'd need to apologize to her, for the way I'd scoffed.
2 comments:
I wonder if his super power will involve his buttocks?
To me, he seems more one of those 'grim crusader' type guys, with no actual super powers.
But it could be that he just plays it down low, to keep being underestimated!
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