I blame Darwin

Evolutionarily speaking, I am a step or two behind a modern human.
No, I do not have a bony ridge on my forehead or multiple layers of teeth.
I am lactose intolerant.
I get depressed without a steady supply of red meat.
I am considered "obese" by the modern BMI.
I cant sleep for longer than 4 hours at a stretch.
I have certain triggers that completely trump my thin veneer of civilization.
Like a fish.
Its like this, if you are fishing, and the fish wont bite. If they are just full up with bugs, or little fish, or whatever it is that they are eating and wont even look at what fly or bait or whatever it is that you are tempting them with.
You put something red on the hook. Just a little flashy piece of red.
Blood in the water.
Its instinctive, hard wired into their cold little brains.
They see blood, they hit it.
Every year, on the forth of July. My little family rides our bicycles over to the park to watch the fireworks display.
We have been doing this for 14 years now.
Same park, same route, same everything.
Its a tradition.
This year was no different, we loaded up the backpacks with blankets, the cooler with drinks and the bike basket with the little plastic snap glowing things that the kids love to run amok with, and headed out.
Fun for all.
Child 1 (15 and beautiful) was in the front, followed by me, child 2 (10 and beautiful) was behind me and the wife (beautiful) was pedaling rear guard. Just a normal traditional fourth of July.
There was a plain black car, following us all, politely slow and fairly well back. The streets were thronged with park goers and the energy and excitement that Americans have for this Holiday was buzzing through the air.
Then this fucking hipster opens his door and knocks child 1 off her bike and into the street.
She did not hit the door, he hit her with the door. Right on her side. She spun a full circle and landed on her back in the street. The backpack full of blankets and her helmeted head hitting the ground.
The hipster stood up, had he, at this point, rushed over to the child, expressed remorse in any way, behaved or acted in any way apologetic. I like to think that the outcome would have been different.
Perhaps not.
What he did do, was raise both his arms in this relatively new gesture that has come to mean "WTF!" and yell to the world "What the Fuck! My Car!"
Blood in the water.
I hit him with my right hand 2 running steps after jumping off my bike.
To his credit, he reacted fast and tried to hit me back.
Sadly for him, he appeared to be an evolved human. 6' 4 or 5", well built, a milk drinker, an eight hour sleeper, a chicken and vegetable eater, a perfectly proportioned BMI.
I grabbed the wrist of the hand he was swinging at me, and his collarbone with my left hand. Then i hit him about 30 times.
Maybe more.
He tried to get away at some point, by crawling into his car.
So i bounced his head off the roof of his car a few times, denting it and his head.
Then I crawled into the car after him.
Still hitting him, and choking him.
You see, I really needed to tell him something.
Through the roaring in my ears I suddenly became aware of several things.
A childs voice, coupled with a bike bell. Ding ding "daddy stop" ding ding "daddy stop"
A wifes Voice, yelling at me to come check child one.
And another voice. Machine amplified. "SIR! SIR! STEP AWAY FROM THE VEHICLE" these amidst the normal cacophony of holidaying humans.
So, I hit him a few more times.
Then I whispered a few words into his ear.
Just a few.
Exiting the car I found my way blocked by a small man pointing a taser at me.
He was saying some thing?
I could see my child then, behind him, still laying in the road.
Blood in the water.
I forearmed the small man to the ground and went to my child.
She was ok.
Helmets and a backpack full of blankets kept her injuries to a sore arm and a mild concussion.
The black car?
Yes, a policeman.
He saw the whole thing, and like me, he thought the hipster had done it on purpose.
The hipster had been drinking, a lot. He and his wife were actually sitting in their car fighting about how much he had been drinking.
So, as darkness fell this fourth of July. I found myself, with my family, sitting on a curb.
Waiting.
Other policemen arrived.
They took statements.
Asked questions.
Gave me the eye.
The first Policeman, who has Daughters as well, convinced the Hipster not to press charges against me.
By the simple method of telling the hipster that he would support me in my counter-suit for causing "intentional bodily harm" to my child.
All's well that ends well.
We continued to the park.
Watched the fireworks.
Went home.
The hipster, a bit rough looking now, what with the bruises and dried blood, apologized to my child. His wife apologized to my wife. There were tears.
My ears were still roaring.
The only things I could hear were the voices of my Family.
I said nothing.
At home I kissed them all and sent them to bed.
Then I sat.
Alone in the dark.
Smoke blowing in the night sky.
Fading, diluting, vanishing.
Blood in the water.

Clout

I was asked the other day what my "clout" score was.
This surprised me. I had thought that the only ones that kept track of the clouting, were Santa with his naughty list at the north pole and St Pete and his list of bad shit people do.
I have not really kept track of the clouting in recent years. No notches in my belt or self mutilation, tattoos or stickers.
So I gave it a quick think.
Most recently I clouted a van. With my boot first and then my special fiberglass and steel reinforced clouting glove.
It was late, I was tired, and the damn juggalos inside the van threw a beer can (1/2 full, I am an optimist) at me. I guess they didn't know that with the kickstand down the motorcycle stands all by itself.
wonders shall never cease.
The wonder to me, even as I was busy trying to clout in the passenger door of the van, is that 6 very large humans of indiscriminate gender and/or sobriety would run from one guy. Not actually "run" per se, but reverse in their jugavan away from me whilst screaming like frenzied frolicking female ferrets.
Not actually "large" either. More like morbidly obese.
Toms clout score: 6 (5 for the door and one for the widow)
Juggalos clout score: 1/2. Had the beer can actually hit me I would have given them 1, had it hit my bike I would be writing this from jail.
I guess I could count clouting the inmates, I could probably even count the clouting of Dan with the golf cart.
How far back do they want this scoring to go?
Do you get a negative clout if you get clouted back?
If your Brother clouts you or you clout him, is that different from clouting strangers?
What about clouting with objects?
If I clout someone with, say, a baseball bat. Is that more or less points if I clout them with the handle I broke off a refrigerator?
Its confusing.
I answered by saying I wasn't sure, but probably somewhere in the low thousands.
To my answer I received an incredulous look.
and a mystifying reply. "That's impossible, Justin Beiber has the only perfect clout score , and its 100"
Bullshit says I. If that little androgynous nymph has ever clouted anything in his life I would eat garden snails. In fact, the only way he has a clout score at all is if you somehow get points for getting the shit kicked out of you in first grade for being a whiny little floppy haired troll.
Blank stare.
Then I saw his piggy little geek eyes light up.
"Its K-L-O-U-T. Its your on-line influence."
I said, no, its C-L-O-U-T, and it means "to hit, or strike."
He sniffed at me. Then started to go into a long explanation of this new "scoring " system that involved your followers, who you follow, what you like, blah blah blah blah. He droned on and on. He started to get supercilious and condescending at the end of his tirade.
So I smiled, and to demonstrate the reality of my argument.
I clouted him.
Tom: 1
Stupid Geek: -230
(he gets -1 for the clout, -1 for being silly and -228 for the squeaky little sound he made when he got clouted.)
Luckily for him, I was not wearing my special clouting gloves.