Muscle Car Undercarriage
A fat county sheriff made a leap for Robert and missed. Janice didn’t dodge left or right of the sheriff who was suddenly in his way. He simply went through the exact space the man was occupying at the exact moment he occupied it. Given that momentum equals mass times velocity squared, it’s a miracle the sheriff didn’t explode into component molecules. He merely bounced off Janice and landed on the pavement with a “thunk.”
The next to give it a shot were six burly guys from the National Guard. They formed up in a classic football defensive line and tried to clothesline Robert; who dodged left, skidded past a parked Fiat, and kept running. Janice rolled through the line like a bowling ball; turning the extreme left and right into a human 7/10 split and the rest into walking wounded.
Up in the chemistry lab the crowd was on their feet whooping and shouting. A naked man bulldozing a half dozen army grunts? This was exactly the point of a university!
The Tri-county, Anti-drug, Community Interdiction, Special Programs, Environmental Task Force Team Pilot Project knew all about Janice. They didn’t move an inch. Likewise Ed stayed put. This inaction frustrated one of the 4×4 groupies who flipped his baseball hat backward and shouted the All-American Battle Cry of Freedom… “Hold my Beer and watch this!”
Any man who has welded a V8 short block onto a rototiller has no fear. Having done such things and more, he was the right man for the job. He took two big strides, vaulted the Gatlin gun’s array of barrels, and caught Robert; shoulder high. Twisting in mid-flight he executed the perfect takedown.
Robert never had a chance. The 4×4 redneck had performed a feat that would have taken out a wildebeast and Robert was a soft college dude. He landed like a sack of wet cement. ‘Merica!
The man from the 4×4 club had many stories. Shockingly, all of them were true. His favorite story happened when he was eleven years old and his older brother was seventeen. His brother had a hopped-up Plymouth Barracuda and the two had been arguing about suspension sag when the Barracuda went airborne (a situation that was surprisingly common). In order to solve this important debate, the two of them labored all afternoon to build a suitable ramp. Then he’d laid on the pavement while his brother jumped over him with the Plymouth. Their mother had arrived just in time to nearly have a heart attack. She grounded them both for six months.
He though he’d never again experience such a heady rush of machismo and narrowly avoided catastrophe. He was wrong. When he and Robert toppled to the pavement he landed face up; just in time to see Janice’s undercarriage as the maniac flew overhead. Reliving the greatest and stupidest feat of an exceptionally stupid youth! What more could a man ask for?