The Journeyman by Todd Zack

A former boxer turned crook is recognised by a young fan who challenges him to a risky sparring match.

Dawson Green was stocking up on junk food at a roadside market, just off a secondary highway in east Texas, when he felt the eyes of a stranger fall heavily on him. Unbothered by this unknown person’s investigative stare, Dawson finished placing his tiny 99 cent cake selections in his shopping basket and continued his way along the aisle. It was a small store with meager stock; one of those overpriced interstate dives with grimy floors and filmy windows, made most of their money off beer, cigarettes and lotto tickets. Only two aisles, one for the junk food – candy bars, gum, cakes, chips – the other for miscellaneous stuff; motor oil, aspirin, air fresheners, condoms. Luckily, there were two sides to the goody aisle. Dawson Green flipped one final cake into his basket, turned the corner and started his way back along the other side, perusing, at his leisure, the remaining junk foods. That’s when Dawson Green got a quick surreptitious look at who it was who had been eyeballing him.

Two white guys, kids really. Early twenties. Biker dudes. Not Harley riders, or gang member types. Sporty bikers. Leather racing jackets with stripes, gloves, jeans, sneakers, those types. Commonly rode in duos. Usually had tattoos too, not black ink tattoos, but fancy colored ones, like pictures from a comic book, girly tats, fruity tats. They were both staring at him, and they damn well knew who he was. Dawson Green could tell when somebody recognized him, although it didn’t happen very often anymore. It was the wide-open unblinking eyes, and what those eyes contained – awe, fear, admiration. It was all there, at the same time, you could measure it up in a flash, and he had.

Dawson Green tossed a couple two-for-one candy bars into his shopping basket. A bag of fried pork rinds, Cajun flavored. Sour gummy worms. You could tell the gummy worms were stale by how hard they felt through the crunchy plastic bag, but this was good, because Dawson Green liked them that way. He liked to chew them, labor over them, work the worms soft before swallowing them. Made you feel like you were eating more than you were. That was about it for the junk foods. That was about all he could afford.

He had come to the end of the aisle when one of the biker kids stepped toward him, giving him one of those half nods of hello. “Hey, man,” the kid said. “Aren’t you Dawson Green?”

“Yep,” Dawson Green said, coming to a stop and looking at the kid, not smiling, not frowning, just looking at him, plain as day.

“Holy shit!” The kid turned and slapped his buddy on the chest with his knuckles. His buddy grew a big spontaneous grin. Then the kid turned back to Dawson, glowing. “Hey, man, I remember when you knocked out Frank Capri in the fifth round! People thought you were gonna be middleweight champ after that!”

Dawson Green looked the kid up and down, disbelievingly. “Y’all too young to ‘member that.”

The kid laughed nervously. “No, no, no, man. I’ve seen all your fights on YouTube. Most of them anyway. My dad was a huge fan of yours. He told me, ‘Dawson Green is a fighter’s fighter, watch his fights’, so I did.”

“Uh, hmm.” Dawson lifted his chin a bit. “How’s yer daddy?”

“Dead,” said the kid.

“I’m sorry, son.”

The kid made a no-big-deal face. “Big fan, Dawson. Big fan. I even know your record – twenty six and seven, eighteen KOs. Am I right?”

Dawson nodded thoughtfully. “Most a dem losses came at the end.”

“Of course they did!” The biker kid asserted. “You were, let me see, you were twenty three and two going into the Spandini fight. Should have been twenty four and one but you got robbed by…” The kid looked contemplatively up at the ceiling.

“Laird,” said Dawson.

“Laird!” The kid snapped his fingers. “Yep! Yep! You were totally robbed by that goofball, and everybody knew it too.”

Dawson shrugged, holding his loaded basket in one hand. “How thangs go.”

“What about Spandini?”

“Hmm?”

“They say that Spandini fight kinda… you know… took the wind out of your sails.” The kid looked a bit embarrassed asking this question, but he got over it fast. “Was Spandini the hardest puncher you ever faced?”

Dawson shrugged limply. “Spandini was on ‘roids.”

The kid’s eyebrows went up in tandem. “I know! He got caught later, after you guys fought.”

Dawson looked to the grimy soda-stained floor. “They only get caught once they ain’t worth shit no more.”

The kid frowned, knowingly. “Yeah.” He pulled his shoulders back and stuck out his chest. “Well, fuck Spandini.” He pointed a finger at the long-retired fighter. “You were the best, Dawson. Best middleweight of your era, man.”

The best. Dawson suddenly felt hollow inside. If these kids only knew what he’d been up to since retirement, all the shit. Wanted in three states for robbery, assault and battery, drug charges, breaking and entering – enough outstanding warrants to fill a glove compartment. Dawson shuffled his feet. “Nice talkin’ to ya, fellas. I gotta be goin’.”

The talkative biker kid stepped back, respectfully, standing shoulder to shoulder with his wide-eyed friend. “Oh, okay, Dawson. Thanks for talking to us, man.”

Dawson Green took his groceries to the cashiers table at the front of the store. As he unloaded his items from the shopping basket, one by one, the cashier, a skinny old Indian man, gave him a concerned look. “Were those men bothering you, sir?”

Dawson shook his head. “Nope. Just talkin’.”

“O-kay.” The Indian man plucked through Dawson’s goodies, tagging each one with a red laser beam. “We get some characters, you know. Troublemakers come through here,” the Indian man drew a long arm through the air, “out of the blue.”

“Bet dey do,” said Dawson.

The Indian man fed Dawson’s items into a plastic bag with many crunching sounds. “That’ll be eighteen dollars and fifty nine cents, sir.”

Dawson handed the man one of his very last twenties and he watched, forlornly, as the cashier gathered his change from the register, which amounted to one measly dollar bill and a few coins.

“Have a nice day, sir,” said the Indian man, handing the bag over the counter.

“Yep,” Dawson said. “You too.”

Dawson Green exited the market, stepping out onto the cigarette strewn sidewalk, into the bright Texas sun, and, looking up, there were the two biker dudes, waiting for him.

The kid he’d been talking to inside just a minute ago approached him once again, this time less tentatively. “Hey, Dawson,” he said, in a conversational way, like an old friend even, “you know, I box a bit.”

Dawson sighed, despondently. “Sheee-it.”

“Yeah, actually I spar with this guy, a local amateur guy, Mike York? You heard of him?”

“No,” said Dawson.

The kid looked surprised. “No?”

“I don’t follow that shit no more, son!”

“Right, well, look, I was thinking, if you would just go one round with me, nothing hardcore, man, like a sparring round…”

“Sheee-it.”

“My friend will time it! We’ll go easy, Dawson, three minutes. Just one round.”

Dawson looked down at the sidewalk and swayed his chin side to side. “No, no, no.”

The kid held up both hands, with the fingers fanned out, like a car salesman. “A hundred dollars.”

Dawson lifted his eyes. “Naw,” he said.
The kid turned to his buddy, who was standing, as usual, two paces behind him. “Jay, how much money do you got on you?”

“None,” said Jay, cautiously.

“Oh, bullshit. Come on! How much?”

“Damn. Twenty, twenty five dollars, I think.”

“Give it to me.” The biker kid held his hand out to his cohort and his buddy came through for him, stuffing his palm full of crumpled bills of various denominations. “Okay,” the kid spun around and held the money out, “Twenty five from him.” Then he went deep into one of his jeans pockets. Dawson watched expressionlessly as the kid came up from his pocket with one crisply folded C-note, perched between two fingers. “And a hundred from me.”

Dawson tilted sideways a bit, feigning disbelief. “You wanna fight?”

“Yeah!” said the kid. “Just a little bit, Dawson.”

“I’m fitty figh years old, son!”

The kid pouted, made an exasperated-looking face. “Yeah, but you’re Dawson Green for Christ’s sake!”

Dawson stared at the cash, specifically, that crisp C-note fluctuating so temptingly in the kid’s hand. “I don’t know,” he said.

The kid bent at the knees, in the way of a little boy begging his mommy for a toy. Then, suddenly aware of his infantile posture, he stood up straight and got himself cool again. He peered over Dawson’s shoulder, spotted something off in the distance and his eyes lit up. Now, he pointed one finger out and away, still clutching the cash in his palm. “Over there, Dawson, behind the store.” The kid smiled brightly. “There’s a picnic area, a couple of benches in a yard. We could go one round on the grass. One three minute round. A hundred and twenty five cash.”

Dawson was thinking this thing through, carefully. Fighting at a roadside market’s picnic area didn’t sound like a wise idea for a wanted felon. After all, somebody could call the cops, and then where would he be? Up a creek, that’s where. Up a creek and into a waiting cage, for a handful of years, at least. But then Dawson began to think about this idea of the kids from a different angle. It was one round, three minutes, hardly enough time to cause a big scene. Sheee-it, the kid just wanted to go at it a little bit with one of his heroes, test his damn mustard. An admirable thing, really. Ballsy son of a bitch, Dawson thought. Even if I’m way over the hill and down the slope some ways, the kid’s a ballsy son of a bitch. And the money. Now, Dawson could really use that money. A hundred and twenty five bucks would carry him clear through to Tennessee.

The biker kid was looking at him with a starved expression, like Dawson was just a big ol’ ice cream cone who refused to be licked.

Dawson sighed. He’d made his decision. “Let me put my groceries in my car, then we can dance a lil bit.”

“Yes!” shouted the kid, jumping for joy.

When Dawson Green met up with the two biker guys in the picnic area behind the market, the kid he was fixing to fight had his money all pressed together nice and neat, like a pamphlet. “Here you go, Dawson,” the kid said, humbly. “I made the bills look nice for you.”

Dawson received the cash from the kid’s hand, folded the bills once down the middle and pushed them deep as they would go into his right pants pocket. “What’s yer name, son?”

“Greg.” The kid jerked a thumb toward his friend who was sitting atop one of the picnic tables looking back at them nervously. “And that’s Jay.”

Dawson waved one hand side to side, palm down, as if he were petting a large invisible animal. “We gonna do this in the grass here between deez tables?”

Greg shuffled his feet, excitedly. “Yeah, yeah, what I was thinking, Dawson. It’s about the size of a boxing ring, right? Just… no ropes.”

Dawson shrugged. He turned to the biker kid on the picnic bench, Jay his name was. “You gotta watch, for ta time this thang by?”

Jay quickly held up his phone. “I have a timer on this, sir, ready to go.”

“Don’t be callin’ me sir,” said Dawson, “and I won’t be callin’ you fruity tat.”

Jay crossed his eyes, like he was trying to spot something on the tip of his nose. “Uh… okay.”

Dawson looked sharply at Greg, the kid he’d be fighting. “You gonna lose that jacket a yours? Can’t swing in dat.”

“Oh, oh, yeah.” Greg shed his sporty leather jacket and tossed it out flat atop an empty picnic bench to one side of their imaginary ring. He was wearing a white wife beater T-shirt, and sure enough the kid had colored tattoos all up and down his arms, just like Dawson suspected he would. Twin dragons on his right arm, one green one purple, and a half naked lady with a motorcycle helmet on the other, her skin sort of yellow. Wife beater T, thought Dawson, fruity tattoos. Typical young tough guy shit. He’d seen it all before, and it still made him chuckle to himself.

Dawson began rolling his shoulders, stretching out the long-hibernating gears. He clenched his fists, pumped the digits into his callused palms, then relaxed his hands and shook out the wrists, shook out the fingers.

Greg was watching him in awe. The other kid, Jay, who wasn’t even fighting, he was the one who looked piss-scared.

Dawson Green raised his hands in tandem and suddenly they were fists again. He began to circle his opponent, slowly. Dawson’s face was perfectly blank, betraying no emotion. “Three minutes,” Dawson said to the kid. “Here we go. Bring it on, young feller.”

Greg put up his fists and bladed his body sideways. His eyes narrowed down. A hot smile crept across his face. He licked his lips, once, twice. “Ding ding, Dawson Green,” said the biker.

The two men approached each other beneath the shining east Texas sun, their bodies casting long shadows across the pale yellow grass.

Dawson knew what the kid’s game plan was. The kid was going to unleash on him, try to knock him out, impress his buddy – never mind all this talk about gentlemanly sparring, that was garbage. At first the kid would be cautious. He would jab. As a Dawson Green fan he’d know that Dawson had a crafty right cross, and he’d be watching for that. But if the kid was telling the truth and had some real experience in the ring (and no reason to doubt it, thought Dawson), once he saw how slow Dawson was, the kid would let his hair down and go for broke. He’d only have three minutes to put his idol on his ass, so he’d have to work fast.

The kid got off first, two quick left hand jabs. Dawson leaned off the punches, catching one, partially, off the side of his own left hand. The kid’s nostrils flared open, like one of those cartoon dragons he had on his arms. Dawson returned the favor, jabbing once, a feigning punch, halfway to the kid’s chin. The kid didn’t blink. He was focused. The kid was a fighter alright, Dawson knew this now, didn’t take long. Now let’s see how good. The kid tried again, two jabs. Dawson simply sank back on his heels, judging the kid’s fist-speed accurately, and this time the punches came up short, all air. The two fighters moved like clock hands, intuitively aligned, turning their bodies ninety degrees along an invisible circle in the grass.

Dawson decided to show his opponent what he was waiting for, the famous right cross, get that out of the way, bait him a bit.

He threw the right cross.

Smack!

The fucking kid ate the punch, right behind the left ear, where the skull sticks out a bit. First right cross Dawson had thrown in a quarter century and he’d nearly flattened the youngster on his hero-worshipping ass with it.

“Oooo,” said Jay, their lone audience member, wincing atop his picnic bench with his timer phone held out before him.

The kid, Greg, stumbled a half step sideways with the weight of Dawson’s punch. He turned his chin around and glared at Dawson. In the wake of that right cross bullseye the kid was mad, embarrassed, maybe even hurt already, and worse than he bargained for. Dawson could read the bad intentions brewing up behind the kid’s eyes. He knew that look. That look told him a storm was coming. The kid was getting ready to make it rain. Dawson shifted his weight to his heels and prepared himself.

And, sure as shit… rain it did.

Smartly, the kid went for Dawson’s midsection, where he was most soft. Three, four, five punches to the solar plexus, hard ones, both hands, left, right, left, right, left. Dawson was late getting his arms down around his belly, defensively, and then, once he had, the kid came up craftily, “Snap! Snap!”, throwing with ambidexterity, catching him at the temple on one side of his face, eye bone on the other. Good sharp punches those last two. Quick, tricky punches.

Dawson, using his arms like logs, pushed off his opponent, creating space. He took three steps back, shook his head briskly, cleared his vision, took inventory of himself. There was pain, bright pain, but nothing was broken. Kid could hit a little bit, but he wasn’t built for breaking bones, even barehanded. Inveterate spar-fighters were like that often enough, Dawson reflected. Still, the kid wasn’t done and he wasn’t waiting for Dawson to recuperate. He was coming at Dawson again, silver spittle flying freely from both sides of his mouth.

This time Dawson had his defense ready. The punches came at his ribs in wild pairs and triplicates, but Dawson Green was able to deflect them with the ample meat of his forearms. The kid, in his haste, was leaving himself wide open throwing all this stuff. Dawson had all day to take aim and uncork a straight jab to the kid’s chin. He threw the jab.

Pop!

Got him.

The kid backed off in shock. The true pain, on temporary delay, was just now coming over him. Dawson may have loosened a tooth or two. Delivered with a glove, a punch like that, straight to the chin, would travel to the back of the neck, the nearest musculature would tend to absorb the weight of the blow. With a bare hand, however, the damage was localized, directly where you got hit. “You old bastard,” The kid mumbled. He was wiping at his bottom lip with the back of one hand as if he expected it to be bleeding, but it wasn’t. Not on the outside anyway.

Dawson, winded as he now was, almost laughed. Old bastard, the kid said. Dawson thought about it. Yeah, he was old, yeah, he was slow, but one thing these two whippersnappers didn’t realize is that Dawson Green wasn’t fighting as a middleweight today. Nope. Today, thanks to two decades of indulgence in fast food, soda and beer, and otherwise just keeping the hell out of shape, Dawson Green was fighting as a heavyweight.

And there was a difference.

“You wanna call it a day now, son?” Dawson managed between huffs and puffs. “Call it a draw? You got some good ones in, dincha?”

Greg, still in his fighting stance, turned to his buddy, Jay, and asked him, “How much time do we got left?”

Jay studied his phone. “One minute and counting.”

Greg spun back to Dawson, elevated his elbows, flexed his fists. “Come on, Dawson, let’s finish this thing,” he said.

Dawson nodded, made fresh fists out of his hands, and moved in towards his opponent, low and tank-like, casting a fat square shadow on the grass.

This time the kid really wound himself up and tried a couple of haymakers, first the left hand, then the right. The left hand missed, sailing wide over the roof of Dawson’s dodging head. The right hand made sure contact with Dawson’s left shoulder emitting a sound like something halfway between a vigorous bitch slap and a murderous thud. Dawson, sinking low under the inertia of the received punch, bent at the knees and came back with a slow, pathetically telegraphed uppercut that found only air. Swoosh.

The two fighters, breathing heavily, moved in a clockwise ballet around the invisible circle, inside the imaginary ring, forty five degrees. Things had gotten heated. The last salvo of punches were clock cleaners – misses, but clock cleaners nonetheless. Anybody eats a punch like those last three – the haymakers, the uppercut – they wake up in an ambulance, or, maybe later than that, at the hospital, or, who knows, maybe not at all.

“Thirty seconds,” Jay announced, reading the numbers from his safe station atop the picnic bench. His face was worried-looking and shone with a glaze of sweat.

The kid was looking tired. His pain had caught up with him. Dawson was feeling forgiving. He decided to lock his opponent up in a clinch and wait for the clock to run out. It wouldn’t look like an act of mercy, he’d lean heavy on the kid like he was tired too. Of course, he actually was tired but the trick was to make it look worse than it was.

Dawson stepped forward, faking a punch, and the kid covered up, as expected. Halfway through the feigned punch, Dawson dropped his chin and collapsed his weight into the kid, grabbing him in a bear hug around the shoulders, locking the kid’s arms to his torso. That oughta do it, Dawson thought to himself. Call it a draw, whippersnappers.

But the kid had other ideas, and he was crafty about them. Somehow, with a jerking move, the kid slipped an elbow loose, then a shoulder. Dawson still had him in a half clinch, but the kid was quick, and he wasn’t wasting any space. Looking over his opponent’s shoulder, Dawson saw the kid’s loosened arm pulling back, low and long. The kid released his next punch like a slingshot. The punch struck Dawson Green smack dab in the testicles.

“Umph,” Dawson moaned.

Low blow.

Dawson Green didn’t like low blows, never had, didn’t now, never would. It was unfair, cheap, classless, insulting, and it hurt like hell.

Dawson grabbed the biker by the throat with his left hand and pushed the kid back, holding him for a second at arm’s length, long enough to cock back a right arm of his own and take aim for this ball punching bastard’s face. In this moment of pause, the kid stared at Dawson in newfound horror, like he was seeing a ghost. A murderous ghost. In reality, it was almost that bad. Dawson Green, fuming in anger over his opponent’s butch-league transgression, let go with the straight right hand, an old money punch, smashing the biker kid’s nose like an overripe strawberry. KA-POW!

“Time! Time!” Jay yelled, leaping up from the picnic bench.

Dawson, obedient to the clock, released his opponent’s neck from his grip. The kid’s face was a bright red wreck shining in the sun. Dawson stepped back from the melee space, crossing his arms at his chest.

“Greg!” Jay rushed forward and held a teetering Greg by both elbows, helping him to remain standing. “Are you okay? Oh, man!”

Greg’s eyes were closed, his chin tilted to the gleaming sky, as if in rapturous prayer.

“Greg!” Jay shouted into his friend’s ear.

At last, Greg’s legs went out from beneath him and he appeared to pass out, or maybe even die. Jay dragged his limp bodied, broken faced friend backwards to a picnic table and placed him in a sitting position. Greg’s chin dropped to his chest and stayed there. Jay turned to Dawson with a look of horror. Accusingly, he shouted, “You killed him!”

“Naw,” said Dawson.

“You put his nose right into his brain!”

“Naw, I didn’t.”

As if to bring an end to this ominous misdiagnosis, Greg slowly lifted his chin from his chest and wagged his head back and forth. His eyelids fluttered, then opened. He gazed at the two men who were staring back at him, one with terror, the other with an even measure of fatherly concern and everyday curiosity. Dreamily, he wiped his face with one hand and stared down into his palm, glistening brightly with blood. “My nose hurts,” he mumbled.

“I bet it does,” said Jay.

Just then, a sharp voice called out from the distance. “Hey!”

Jay, Greg and Dawson turned their heads and saw, coming from the direction of the parking lot, a cop marching toward them through the grass. This cop was heavy set and jowly, but pretty agile by the looks of it. He had his hand on the butt of his holstered gun and the belt that held the gun to his waist jiggled rhythmically in the fashion of a hula hoop. Several paces behind the cop, at the edge of the grass, stood the elderly Indian man, pointing at them, accusingly. “Those guys! Those guys there!” the Indian man was chirping. “Fighting! Out of the blue! Out of the blue!”

The cop approached the three men, shaking his head with disapproval. He pointed a finger at Dawson, then flicked it over at Jay as well. “You two clowns sit down next to this guy!” he said, meaning Greg.

Dawson and Jay sat down at either side of the bloody faced, half conscious Greg.

“What the hell’s going on here?” the officer demanded, one hand on his still holstered gun, the other hand taking root in the belt line by his opposing hip.

Jay shrugged. Dawson said nothing. Greg, who now appeared to be coming around, spat a mouthful of blood down at the grass. “We were just sparrin’, officer,” he said.

“Just sparrin’?” The cop made a phony face of astonishment and his double chin morphed suddenly into three gelatinous segments. Waving a hand at Dawson, he said, “This big brute was about to kill you! Look at your face. Damn, you’re all messed up, boy! Your mama’s gonna shit her pants when she sees you!”

Greg turned to Jay. “Is it that bad?” he asked his friend weakly.

“Not really,” said Jay.

The cop turned his hips a bit, set his eyes on the ex-middleweight contender, and frowned. Still looking at Dawson, he pointed one finger, thick as a country sausage, at Greg. “Why were you beating on him like that?”

Dawson rubbed his two wet hands nervously atop his kneecaps. “He wanted ta fight, Officer,” Dawson said. “He paid me ta fight his ass.”

The cop let out a short, disbelieving grunt. “Paid you to? Sure he did.”

“I did, officer,” Greg admitted, spitting a mouthful of blood into the dirt.

“Did you?” said the cop, shaking his head. “Well, it’s still illegal, doubly illegal, and you’re doubly stupid as shit.” He pulled his shoulders back, striking an authoritative pose, and turned his head so as to look at the three men sideways. All the while, one hand resting, casual but careful, upon the butt of his gun. “Okay, all three of you busybodies need to show me some identification. Take out your IDs and put them down here at the end of this table.”

Thirty yards away, the irate store owner stood stationary in the dry yellow grass, glaring at the troublesome trio with a pinched mouth.

For the first time in a long time, Dawson Green was scared. This cop wanted IDs. That means he’d soon be running their IDs through dispatch. Dawson’s ID was fake, but the result of having it run would be just as bad as if it were real. He’d be put in jail. Soon enough they’d get a fix on who he really was, his history, his warrants, and, with that, he’d be staying in jail for a long, long time. No doubt about it.

Dawson had a decision to make. A crucial one. And fast.

As Greg and Jay began digging for their wallets, under the watchful gaze of the officer, Dawson Green pushed himself up from the picnic bench and sprinted, well as he damn could, in the direction of the parking lot.

“Hey!” the officer yelled.

Dawson brushed past the flabbergasted cop, dropped his head, arched his heels and put his elbows into his run, swinging them like dual working pistons. The pale grass crunching away beneath his thundering feet. He dared a look over one shoulder and saw the heavyset lawman making chase, fumbling to release his gun from its strap. Dawson turned back to face the lot. He had a decent lead and knew that the cop wouldn’t shoot him in the back. As Dawson ran, out of the corner of his eye, he could discern the frail Indian man stepping back into the market’s shadow.

Grass gave way to the sidewalk. Dawson Green leapt from the sidewalk, landed on the parking lot’s asphalt and kept on running. There was his car, a navy blue ford Tempo, with the cop’s patrol car parked right next to it. A few parking spaces away, on the opposite side of his car, were the two kids’ motorcycles. Dawson reached his car, huffing and sweating. All this fighting and running was more exercise than he’d had in years. He dug into his pants pocket to claim his keys. Cash, nothing but cash. Where were his keys? Wrong pocket. Okay, try the other pocket. Hurry! There they were, jingle jangle. Dawson hit the automatic unlock, threw the door open, shoved himself into the car. He started the car up, put the shift in reverse, backed up out of his parking space, swinging the wheel wildly. Looking sideways out of the passenger side window, there was the cop, just now stumbling into the parking lot. The cop had his gun out, jiggling it in front of him like a handkerchief. Dawson put the Tempo into gear and went screaming off toward the highway in a cloud of reeking rubber.

Out on the open highway, heading east, Dawson got the Tempo up to ninety and held it there. That’s as fast as it would go. It was an old car and it vibrated and rattled at this speed, threatening to throw off its tires. Regardless, Dawson kept the pedal down, plastered to the floor. It was doubtful he’d be able to outrun the cop, but he had to try.

Dawson looked up at the rear-view mirror and the cop was there, a quarter mile back and gaining. His lights were flashing, red and blue, and Dawson could hear the police siren, mewling high hell. Sheee-it. All this excitement was making him hungry. Dawson Green wanted a chocolate cream mini-cake like nobody’s business. He told himself, if the cop clipped him and ran him off the road, he’d stuff his face with cakes and gummy worms before the cop could cuff him, or shoot him dead if that’s how things turned out. At least he’d have himself one last frenzy of treats.

The cop had closed the gap already. He was hanging just a few yards out, behind Dawson’s rear bumper, probably waiting for backup before he made his move. It might take a while for backup to arrive, out here in the open desert, but once the back-up cars showed they’d fishtail Dawson’s car and have their way with him. For now though, that three-chinned copper would have to content himself riding Dawson’s tail.

Dawson really wanted one of those cakes. Dang, he was hungry! The grocery bag was in the backseat. He’d have to reach for it and steer at the same time. He needed that bag! Dawson checked the rear-view to see where the cop was. Same spot, ten feet off his bumper. Dawson looked down, spied the bag of goodies, and throwing caution to the wind, reached into the backseat with one arm, stretching, stretching. Got it! He held the bag up before the rear window, showing his cakes off to the copper. “Cakes!” Dawson shouted, jubilantly. “Ya ain’t gonna get my cakes!”

That’s when Dawson heard a familiar sound, a very dangerous sound – Bang!

Gunfire. Sheee-it. The crazy ass cop was shooting at him!

Dawson faced the road. He tossed his bag of junk food onto the passenger seat beside him. So much for waiting for the reinforcements, the copper had gone and upped the ante all by himself. Lone wolf hero shit. Illegal as hell. You had to respect it, thought Dawson, even if you were on the wrong side of things. He shrank himself down in his seat, making himself as low a target as possible. Bad idea showing off his food. The copper thought he was getting his chops busted.

More gunshots. Bang! Bang!

Good lord, this cop was crazy!

Wait. Was it the cop shooting at him, or was it…

Dawson reached up from his huddled position with a shaky hand and turned the rear-view mirror down, adjusting the scene. He removed his hand from the mirror just in time to see the cop car spinning off the highway in a cloud of yellow dust. He shifted his eyes back to the windshield. Just then, Dawson heard a huge metallic crashing noise. He looked up at the rear-view again, saw the police car flipping and bouncing and flipping again, away from the highway, into the desert, chopping down cacti and throwing up mountains of dust. “Damn!” Dawson shouted. A moment later, from out of the dust, came speeding forth two motorcycles.

Greg. Jay.

The two bikers split the highway and approached Dawson’s car, one to either side. As they rode up on him, holding pace outside his windows, Dawson could now tell them apart. Greg’s bloody face was visible through the visor gap in his helmet. He was riding three feet beyond the driver’s side door of Dawson’s car, smiling, waving a pistol triumphantly in the air.

Dawson rolled down his window and gave the kid a curious look.

“Dawson Greeeeeeeen!” the kid howled, jabbing his gun at the sky.

Dawson nodded. He turned to the passenger window. He saw the kid named Jay riding likewise alongside the passenger side door, one hand on the throttle of his bike, the other giving him a firm thumbs up. He gave a thumbs up to Jay, then turned left and gave a little wave to the kid whose ass he kicked. And then the bikers were off, speeding out ahead of him, with their engines screaming in stereo, racing madly for the horizon.

He watched those bikers until they’d disappeared from view.

Dawson Green drove, and it didn’t take long before he remembered how hungry he was. He reached for a cake, captured it, popped the air-filled plastic wrapping with one hand and squeezed the contents deep into his treat-craving mouth. As he consumed the chocolaty goodness he thought about how screwed they all were; himself, the two biker kids. You couldn’t murder a police officer on the open highway and expect to get away with it. And in Texas? Whoooweeee! Sooner or later, there would be hell to pay. Those biker boys had messed up something awful. Still, Dawson mused, making a concerted effort to see all sides of the issue, those two boy’s hearts were in the right place. He thought about it, what went down today – the fight, the chase, the rescue – and in the thinking, by and by, his spirit turned a corner. Maybe, just maybe, those boys wouldn’t get caught for what they’d done. And maybe, just maybe, he’d still make it home to Tennessee.

He finished his cake, dropped the empty wrapper out the open window and watched it go flying off through the glistening desert air, like a little cellophane butterfly.

You had to hand it to your fans, Dawson thought to himself.

After all these years…

He had forgotten how much he’d missed them.



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