Just this morning, Thursday June 21st, I was at a bus stop waiting on the #55 when a man with dark skin, a muscle shirt, cargo pants and cornrows disembarked from the #40 and headed my way, halting and checking me out as if he could not quite place me. It was already 95 degrees at 8:01 AM and I was hoping to avoid trouble. This was, after all, Stupid Stan, the man who once missed me with a sucker punch while I let him out the front door of a grocery store after just firing him. [See Andy Boy.] Although Stupid Stan is not a compulsively violent man he is, well, stupid, and I did not want to leave our fate in his witless hands.

I always liked Stupid Stan, even now, after seeing the painful sorting process as his brow furrowed, wondering if I was ‘that man’ or not. I don’t really have that much to add to our encounter, since I soon boarded my bus and left him to his dull musings. However, he does bring to mind other stupid folks who have succeeded in projecting their stupidity to the point of violence. So, without further ado, I give you some challenged individuals in action from the Harm City archives…

Cheat was a big, big dude. He stood six foot five and weighed about three-sixty. He agreed to escort his buxom wife and her two hot friends as the designated driver so they could get trashed barhopping and not have to worry about being groped and harassed by the rednecks of Eastern Baltimore County.

Later in the night, three "small drunk rednecks" followed Cheat and the ladies onto the parking lot of a bar, accusing Cheat of "Hogging all the pussy, man!" and other such breaches of redneck ethics. Cheat waved them off and walked toward the car with the ladies.

A hand reached up and grabbed his shoulder. Cheat reverse pivoted with a backhand slap and KO’d the "scrawny dude." One of the others was now busy struggling with one of the girls, so Cheat "went apeshit." He measured the closest man by placing his left palm on his head. While the man tried to pry the giant paw loose Cheat swung a bolo style uppercut into the much smaller man’s groin, who collapsed with a groan.

By the time Cheat got to the guy that was struggling with the girl he was in a rage and "stomped him up and down." This constituted a side knee stomp which brought the "runt" to his knee, then an ankle stomp with the size-16 boot to the ankle, which caused the man to roll on his side, followed by a head stomp, which bought Cheat a weekend in jail.

Tricky was all cracked up and decided to steal a bag full of deodorant from the grocery store so that he could sell it right now—and stay cracked up forever!

His master plan was foiled by two managers. Tricky was not named Tricky for nothing. He managed to squirm and claw his way free and actually ran up a glass storefront window in his epic bid for freedom. When he broke free the younger manager attempted to chase him. Now, Tricky was "like the fastest mofo in SOBO [South Baltimore], man" and took up the challenge eagerly. As he ran across the parking lot at breakneck speed he looked over his shoulder and called taunts and names to the "tie-wearin’ prick" who had the gall to try and challenge his foot-speed. Tricky was pulling away, the pursuer losing heart, so he spared one last glance over his shoulder and yelled, “Eat my dust, mofo!”

As soon as he turned to face the direction he was running toward, a 260 pound cop, dismounting from a still moving car, clothes-lined him at a sprint. Tricky’s final taunt died in his throat as his feet arced higher than the six-foot cop’s buzz-cut. He was pronounced a "dumbass" at the scene by the prescient cop as soon as his back arrived at the pavement. This was, however, not the end of Tricky’s troubles. For some reason the cop had a hard time getting him into the back of the cruiser, and kept banging his head against the roof.

Go figure.

Pat was a God-fearing, hard-working dude who hated thieves. When I, the Ghetto Grocer, urban diplomat extraordinaire, approached Braids, a muscular young man with 500 dollars in hair extensions on his head and fifty dollars of my soap in his liquor store bag, about the fact that he was leaving my store with my goods, he took offense. My assertion that the goods were not in fact his simply because he had not paid for them met with a sneer of disdain. Had not I heard of freedom of speech he paraphrased, indignantly?

Pat, at six-four and two-twenty came up beside me and Braids said, with a sneer, “So you sickin’ dis big redneck muthafuca on me!”

I seized the bag of soap and Pat answered, “Yep, boy!” and grabbed Braids in a bear hug.

Braids walked up the front window trying to get away, through the roof apparently. Aware now that we were dealing with a superhero who might be able to call down the wrath of some elder race from another galaxy, Pat and I hustled out into the vestibule, I with my soap, him with his shoplifter. Braids was now kicking the carts, his arms still pinned by Pat’s flannel encased man-locks. I said, “Please do not strike my carts. They are innocent of oppressing you.”

Braids then began to say some version of the F-word. Pat cut him off, “Are we out of the camera angle, boss?”

I answered, “Yep.”

Pat then power-bombed Braids to the carpet-covered concrete. Braids was now threatening to beat Pat "within an inch a yo life bitch!" while Pat ground Braids against the wall, ruining his Bob Marley T-shirt. I eventually convinced Braids to stop antagonizing Pat, pointing out that the responding officer would be here soon and that he did not want to be seen struggling then.

When the officer showed up he was a black ex-marine who had no time for Braids' "trifling" about "redneck brutalality en what-not." Braids was awarded, for his heroic one man war against "The Man," with an arrest.

There you have it, three samples of functional stupidity from the Harm City archives. The next time I’m unlucky enough to run into Stupid Stan I’ll be sure to do another installment.

A Fighter’s View of Predatory Aggression: The Forever Autumn Press Edition