Written from memory on 6/15/2022
Paul and Leanna from Missouri were in town at a hotel…
The Man of Mystery had been found by a bounty hunter in the Great Smokey Mountains after taking a detour…
Sean rises before 6 A.M. and was getting tired.
So I left the handful of men at the house and ambled on down the road to the gym, hoping the jersey contingent was okay.
Black Metal had taken the outside corner of the mat. I decided on keeping with the coolest place, by the side door and slept with my feet wrapped up in a dirty shirt, a boot wrapped in a wash cloth for a pillow, and my Teamsters hoody for a blanket.
Some time about midnight I heard a commotion up at the house. I found out the next morning, that our host, an officer of the law, was scandalized when Backfist Mick and Marcus Mickus rolled up in a truck with Jersey plates, and stumbled out of in a cascade of empty beer cans…
I went back to sleep, shivering in the moist night, like a bum should.
Then a roar of an engine, the lights of a high beaming pickup truck, and the slamming of truck doors next to the gym caused Black Metal to stir in his sleeping bag to my right, and the Irish quarter of my blood to rise to meet the drunken night.
“That’s right, fucking Jersey is here, taking names, kicking ass and crushing hopes!”
“That’s right, assholes from jersey will ruin anything, including a good night’s sleep!”
“Fuck yeah, the Jersey Shore—but we forgot the Dominican Whores!”
“So sorry! We’ll tell them you said high!”
I ambled out half asleep, “Hey Guys, nice to see you.”
Marcus Mickus: “Man Weekend—James fucking LaFond, the man that puts it down like it is—brother, we drove all this way to see you, glad you’re not asleep like all those pussies!”
Backfist Mick was smoking a cigar. Both were drinking beers. Marcus Mickus handed me his beer and I drank as he popped another and Backfist Mick [who had been unable to train with me two weeks earlier in Jersey due to a back sprain] opined, “I almost pussied out, James. The back is killing me. But then I remembered that this is not Sand in the Vagina Weekend, but Man Weekend!”
“Fuckin’ right,” said Marcus—Man Weekend. “I’ve got a terminal condition that is hereditary and will have me checking out at right about sixty, so fuck it, I’m in for the ride—not raising any pussies in this world—I’ve got sons!”
Backfist: “James, you’re looking good, Brother, lost some weight.”
James: “Yeah, I’m going for the cancer look.”
Marcus: “Bro, don’t tell us you got cancer, we’d have to feel bad for a moment!”
James: “No, I’m just trying to get the undead look, become like a skelatal avenger upon Planet Faggatron.”
Marcus: “Hell yeah. You have to bring it in this world. That’s why we started drinking and driving in Jersey and invaded the Confederacy three-sheets-to-the-wind.”
James: “Did you bring your guns?”
Backfist: “No, we didn’t want to take stupid to that level. Look at us here, smoking, drinking, keeping these better men awake before we beat their asses tomorrow. Sean’s up there like a goddamned saint.”
Marcus: “You know he wants to kick my ass.”
Backfist: “You called him out.”
Marcus: “He’s a stud, why not. I’m coming to your rescue old man. Just like when your outfit can’t get the job done back in Jersey, they call my outfit in!”
Backfist: “You know that ain’t right.”
Marcus: “We gotta put on you guys—all a friendly rivalry.”
Backfist: “James, did Mescaline come?”
James: “He’s in a tent back there.”
Backfist: “Fuck yeah, what a man—comes straight at you every time like a fucking cyborg. What about Jumping Bean [1] with the stick?”
James: “Oh yeah—he’s here with two of his guys from Baltimore.”
Backfist: “Great—fucking dude is amazing, flying through the air whacking people with a stick—can’t wait. I’m trying stick and steel.”
Marcus: “Fucking dull steel machetes! There is nowhere else where you can get this kind of action but Man Weekend! I’m so glad for this opportunity. This guy finally talked me into joining BJJ and I’m down to 205, been working my ass off. I’m the least guy there, but it’s a great experience and I figure the higher the level I train with the better I’ll be on the street. I’m looking forward to boxing.”
James: “You’re to damned big for me to box.”
Backfist: “I haven’t seen him in the ring. But he’s got dangerous hands—I’ve seen him on the street throwing hands.”
Marcus: “I’m bedding down.”
The tall man with short dark hair with some gray accents, then reaches into his pickup truck, pulled out a sleeping bag, laid it on the gravel driveway [2] next to his rear wheel and beds down, asleep just like that.
Backfist: “What, just like that? Look at this guy—You wouldn’t do that shit back in the Stan!”
We laugh.
“Want another beer, James?”
James: “Sure.”
We stood behind the tailgate and looked at the falling moon as we talked of boxing, Dominican dancing girls and how glad we were not to be cucks in a tranny world. Finally, the moon fell behind the trees, and fairly certain that the sunrise was not far behind, we bedded down on the wrestling mat until breakfast was on up at the house.
At breakfast, among other things, we learned that Backfist Mick intentionally took another kid’s teeth out in a lacrosse game as a boy and that our buddy Mescaline Franklin once bit his way out of a pack attack and three voices chimed in, “We always figured you for a biter!”
Paleo-Anthropological Notes
-1. The Brick Mouse AKA Bad Smitten
-2: Two to three inch cracked wash rock, some of it looking like Old Stone Age hand axes
Nice story read on selection day.......