When our sports writer resigned from the newspaper where I work, my greatest fear became a living nightmare: Dr. C. asked me to cover a sporting event at the local college.

Though I still wasn't thrilled about it, I did feel better when he let me know that it wasn't anything to do with running, or throwing or dribbling a ball. There wouldn't be any tackling, holding or sacking going on between the participants. This thing I was going to cover, he insisted, was all about punching.

"It used to be called Rumble on the Hill, but these days it looks like they're billing it as something different," he said. "It's an annual contest where a lot of men and women enter a boxing ring to beat the hoo-ha out of each other for a grand prize."

I asked what the grand prize was. When Dr. C. told me, I immediately picked up the phone to call Citizen Jim and tell him about this event.

Unfortunately, I forgot to disengage the Internet connection on line one, and slammed down the receiver when the high-pitched whining and squealing of a busy modem filled my ears.

I tried again, this time on line two.

"Porn Dog's," Citizen Jim said when he answered the phone.

I thought I had the wrong number, as Citizen Jim hadn't told me anything about changing the name of the bookstore. "Is this Jim?"

"I told you not to call me at work! Gah!"

"I need you to come to Glenville," I said. "As soon as possible, today if you can."

"I am busy as fuck right now," he snarled, making me wonder if he'd changed jobs altogether. "What is it?"

I told him I knew a sure-fire way we could make a ton of cash.

"If this is another one of those pyramid schemes you're always getting sucked into, I swear to God, I'll—"

I assured him this was the fastest pile of dough we could ever hope to make, and all it would involve was his coming to town and showing me love in the same way he has been for years.

"I'll let you beat the hoo-ha out of me, and then we'll split the loot!" I said. "Can you think of anything easier than that?"

The line went dead, and Citizen Jim was pounding on my door within four hours. Shirtless and barefoot, he was decked out in a pair of purple silk shorts with neon green piping. He was already wearing his padded head gear, a mouth protector, and brass knuckles on each hand.

"You want me to give you a couple practice whacks?" he asked, pulling me outside and crouching down. He punched at the air in front of him, grunting and snorting every time his fists whizzed past the sides of my head. "It's been a while since I really got a chance to beat the hoo-ha out of you."

I declined his generous offer, as we needed to be there in less than half an hour.

When we arrived at the campus address written on the paper Dr. C. had handed me earlier, I was a little confused. "This doesn't look like a boxing arena," I said, and checked the paper again.

"What're all these desks for, I wonder?" Citizen Jim asked, scowling.

Every few minutes, another person or two entered the room and took their seats at the desks. They all had notebooks, pencils, pens, and a few carried backpacks. One man had a fishing tackle box, from which he pulled a sandwich and a bag of Doritos as soon as he sat down.

When the pencil-necked geek reporter from the Parkersburg newspaper entered the room with his tape recorder and digital camera in tow, I figured we were in the right place.

"Look, it's that toothpick boy we smacked the snot out of at Farmer C.'s," Jim said. He stepped in the reporter's path, dodging from side to side before finally letting him pass.

"Are you covering this thing, too?" I asked him.

He turned red and nodded, taking a seat at the very back of the room and staring fearfully at Citizen Jim for a long time.

Crossing his arms over his chest, Citizen Jim's nostrils began flaring. "Yeah. Uh huh. I get it, now. IT'S ANOTHER TRICK!" he screamed. "I'm gonna beat more than a load of hoo-ha out of you for this!"

Just then, Elsie—a lady I recognized from the local Board of Education office—walked into the room carrying a pile of books in one arm, with a red and white hula hoop draped over the other. She dropped everything she was carrying onto a table at the front of the classroom, and put her hands on her hips. "It'sgoodtoknowthereare peopleherewhoreallyneedhelp," she said so fast I could barely understand her. "Now, sitdownbeforeIcancelyourregistration and kickyououtofclass!"

"Lady, I'm not here for any kind of class," Citizen Jim said. He threw his arm toward me and said, "I'm here to beat the hoo-ha outta Chicken Sheets so I can win that money and buy me some new tires for my Jeep!"

The geek reporter from Parkersburg stood, thrusting his tape recorder forward. "Where are the other contestants? Do you agree with anti-violence groups that these sorts of events are a blight on society and detrimental to establishing healthy dialogues between—"

"No comment," Elsie said before he finished, then turned her attention back to Citizen Jim. "Areyouevenregisteredyet?"

"What was the purpose behind renaming Rumble on the Hill? Was it an intentional deception, or a public relations gaffe?" the reporter asked.

"I don'tknowwhatyou'retalkingabout," Elsie said to him. To us, I think she said, "Asforyoutwo, youmightwanttoleaveif youthinkyouwanttobeatthe livingdaylightsoutof—"

The reporter broke in again before she could finish. "Ma'am, would you say that the $500 pay-out to the winner of this contest is a blatant endorsement of mindless physical violence? How many evolutionary rungs ahead of the chimpazee would you say we are at this juncture? Or do you think they're ahead of us now?"

"Ialreadytoldyou twice, Curtis! I'VE GOT NO COMMENT!" Elsie shouted.

In a flash, we watched as a paperweight flew toward the back of the room, grazing the pencil-necked geek reporter's head. He screamed like a little girl and crouched down with one arm shielding his face. "Will you be competing during the matches tonight?" he asked, holding the tape recorder high in the air above his head while he kept his body low to the ground.

Elsie then pulled a collapsible tire-iron from her pocket. With a flick of her wrist, it extended to its full length and she hurled it at the reporter, sending his tape recorder flying when the two objects made contact. The man who'd been eating his Doritos scrunched down in his seat until his knees were on the floor and his chin was almost touching the desktop.

Citizen Jim jerked his head in Elsie's direction and said to the rest of the people in the room, "From the looks of this one, I guess I oughta be glad I only need to worry about beating the hoo-ha out of Chicken Sheets."

"SHUT UP! Shut UP!" Elsie screamed, grabbing a wooden stick meant to be used for pointing at the chalk board behind her. She began whacking a metal table leg to punctuate the key points that followed: "This is! (CLANG!) An ANGER! (CLANG!) MANAGEMENT! (CLANG!) SEMINAR! (CLANG CLANG CLANG!)"

"Jaysus jumpin' on a pogo stick! How's come it's always the goot-looking women who turn out to be crazy as run-over dogs?" Citizen Jim said, then yanked at my arm. "Let's go! I don't need new tires or some $500 that bad!"

As we scrambled to leave the room, the geek reporter tried to follow behind us, but Elsie caught him with the hula hoop she'd had on her arm when she arrived. Poor Curtis kicked and howled and screamed something awful as Elsie dragged him back into the room. We could hear his shrieks—as well as the sound of glass shattering, bones cracking and groans of disgust from the spectators in the room—even after we reached the exit of the building.

When we got outside and started walking toward my car, I said, "I'm sorry I had you come all the way up here for nothing."

Citizen Jim just grunted.

I looked over the hood of the car at him. "I really did have your best interests in mind when I called you today. I was so sure we could win that $500," I said.

He shrugged and kicked the hubcap on the front right tire of my car, then turned his back toward me.

"I would have let you keep all of it, no split," I said.

"You're pushing it," he said.

Hearing this immediately cheered me up. "Are you mad at me?" I asked.

"No!" he said, turning back around and glowering at me.

I smiled. "Mad enough to punch me?"

"No, only mad enough to BASH YOUR HEAD IN with a BRICK!"

"Oh. Good," I said, making a fast sign of the cross.

"Maybe we oughta go back there," he said. "I think that kooky lady with the hula hoop could help with this anger problem."

"But I love your anger. I don't want it fixed," I said. "Your anger is what makes you—"

"I'm not talking about ME! I'm talking about YOU, you DOLT!" Jim shouted, banging his hand on the hood of my car and kicking the front passenger door.

"Me? I don't think I'm the one with the anger management problems in this abusive partnership," I said.

He threw back his head and showed all his teeth. "Oh, ha! Ha ha ha! I'm not the one who flipped out in the middle of Delchamps and beat that poor little pixie-faced Traci to the floor with my fake leg, now was I?"

"Well, no. That was Jane," I said. "And it was Peyton she beat with her leg in the middle of Delchamps, not Traci."

"Oh. Yeah, I guess it was Jane," he said, squinting at me. "But are you gonna deny the day you snatched the I through P volume of Books in Print from under the special order desk and threw it at the guy who used to come in the store and read whole books in fifteen minutes then leave with out paying? That poor speed reader was in a damned coma for three days because you couldn't control your temper!"

"You're thinking about Granny. Granny did that," I said. "Can't you remember anything the way it actually happened?"

Amused to Death Roger Waters

"I sure as shit remember it wasn't me who ran like a lunatic out of that convenience store in Tennessee after the Roger Waters concert screaming, 'It's too COLD in there! I need something HOT to drink!'"

I couldn't protest this example. It was definitely me who had done that.

"You're right. I'm out of control most of the time," I said.

"Damn straight," Jim said, nodding once. "And I still say you shouldn't have grabbed that girl by the hair and slammed her face on the concession counter for not having cherry-flavored Laffy Taffy when we went to see Silence of the Lambs with Donald that one time."

"That is NOT TRUE! First of all, I saw Silence of the Lambs with Mitchell and Donald because you were afraid you'd have bad dreams later. And second of all, the afternoon I lost my temper at the concession stand was when we went to see Pulp Fiction for the third time," I reminded him. "So I think it'll be okay if I hold off on the anger management thing until the next seminar."

Throwing up his hands in surrender, he said, "Fine. But you're only hurting yourself—and any chance of keeping a woman if you ever find one. Womens hates the bad tempers."

Before I could contradict Jim, Dr. C. came staggering out of nowhere. He was holding a blood-soaked rag against his head, and the lenses of his glasses were shattered. His shirt was hanging on him in shreds, and one of his pant legs was completely missing.

"What happened to you?" I asked him, grabbing his arm. A coil of film fluttered out of the open back of a camera hanging around his neck, and I noticed he was only wearing one shoe.

As if he'd heard only a voice asking the question without seeing the source of the sound, he limped out of my grasp, muttering, "Oh, those dang ladies at the Senior Center are mad as hell because I didn't cover their Bridge Tournament last week. I can't be in five places at once," he went on from farther away. He was several yards past us when he said, "I can be in two places at once, but five's a stretch..."

Read a random GC installment!

Complete Archive