Dancing-with-Baptists-Createspace-Final--A4

DANCING WITH BAPTISTS
“No thanks. A little hot and early.”
“Man in uniform turning down a drink? No wonder we’re…”
“No wonder we’re what?”
“No wonder we’re getting our butts kicked.” “Stop the car,” Greg ordered.
“You spot your pants?” “No. Just stop the car.”
“What is this, a date?”
“Look, you old drunk. Stop the car and let me out or…”
“Or what? You gonna get your hippie friends to love me to death? I thought I was helping out
a soldier. I’m gonna take you out here and beat the quitter out of you.”
The denture less old man steered the car roughly off the road again and slid to a stop between
several tall cacti. Greg got out as the old man came around the front of the car with a Louisville
Slugger.
The swoosh of the bat came close enough to Greg’s head for him to hear the air. The suddenly
deranged old fart started a backhanded swing; Greg blocked it and knocked the old man down with a
strong left hook.
“You knocked out my teeth you son-of-a-. I hope a rattler, Gila monster, and tarantula suck the
life out of you before you get out of here.”
The old man got back in his car, holding his jaw, and started to drive off. His rear wheels spun
in the sand. Greg thought about grabbing the bat and knocking out a headlight. Once the old man
gained traction, the Mercury lurched forward. Instead of getting back on the blacktop, the old man
turned the car and raced back toward Greg. Greg dodged the dinged up car as sand fishtailed behind it.
Greg ducked behind a large cactus. The tail-finned, sand tank clipped spines off of it as it zoomed by.
The old man spun the car again, threw it in low, sited Greg through his homemade hood ornament,
and floored the gas pedal. Greg jumped out of the way moments before the old man’s Merc slammed
into the largest blooming century plant in that part of the dessert. The old man was thrown from the
car on impact. He stretched out to reach the bat lying in the sand a few feet away before losing
consciousness. Greg kicked the bat away and got his gym bag out of the car. He started to walk toward
the highway. Twenty yards from the old man, Greg looked back at him lying in the hot shadow of the
century plant.
As Greg knelt to check his pulse with his left hand, he kept his right fist cocked. “Crazies have
superhuman power,” some of his medic friends that had worked in institutions before the Air Force
told him.
The old man came around just as Greg was setting his shoulder. He moaned, swung at the air
with his good arm, and passed out again. Greg dumped the old man in the backseat and then climbed
behind the wheel. The Mercury’s front end had surrounded the trunk of the century plant like a
grandmother hugging her youngest. Greg put the chugging chariot in reverse and, after a moment, the
car released its hug and started smoking as it backed up. Once cleared of the tree, Greg put the car in
gear and then stopped. Stuck on several spines of a large cactus only thirty yards away were Greg’s
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