by Mark Lemke
CHAPTER 8
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It was just before midnight when I rolled out of the plant and headed back into town.? The security staff usually ran drills on swing shift, between 4 p.m. and midnight.? It was after the day shift staff went home, so the number of people roaming around the plant would be at a minimum, with only operators, a couple of maintenance technicians, and some chemistry and radiation protection techs to get in the way.? They didn't want to hurt anyone and preferred to run the drills when the plant was mostly deserted.? They also didn't want others to see how they responded to an assault on the plant.? It was best to avoid prying eyes, watching or documenting their response strategies, trying to impress a wife or girlfriend by making some entry on Face Book or Twitter.
I was heading to The Tavern for a beer and a chance to decompress and check my e-mail.? Every town has an out-of-the-way bar where only the locals go, and Willits was no exception.? It didn't take me long to find it.
The Tavern looked like it had seen better times, though that was debatable.? It probably looked like this when it was new.? It was a ramshackle place, with a rusty tin roof and a dirt parking lot.? The neon sign out front did actually light up and was on when I arrived, but the glass was broken in one corner, and the remainder was dirty and discolored from the heat of the bulbs and dust from the parking lot.? It looked like it had been there for thirty hard years.
The Tavern was located off a side road that you could easily assume led to some commune off in the woods where self proclaimed 'artists' or bikers set up camp for themselves.?Parked out front was an old step-side, short-bed Chevy, paint faded by years in the weather and few attempts to clean or wax it.? It was hard to tell if it belonged to a patron, the owner, or was abandoned in place.? Alongside it was a nondescript four-door sedan with an Avis license plate cover, screaming 'rental'. To the locals, this car might seem out of place-trucks, motorcycles, and old cars are more the norm-but I was used to traveling and seeing rental cars wherever I went, so seeing one here didn't register with me as being unusual.? That would prove to be a mistake.
Besides being a remote location and one not likely to be frequented by anyone who might recognize me, it was one of those spots that actually got cell phone reception in this sleepy backwater community.? I thought it odd, really, that regardless of how much people who lived in the backwoods shunned technology, everyone seemed to have a cell phone.? They all wanted the perks of the society they so often criticized, but they didn't want to support that same society with their taxes or their time.? Many certainly didn't want to join the military and fight for it.? That used to bother me more than it does now.? Now I just write it off as ignorance or narrow-mindedness. ?I actually didn't want to make a call, but I wanted to check my e-mail on my iPhone, and I could do that while I had a beer.
I had my choice of tables, which wasn't unusual for that time of night.? Other than a middle-aged, slightly bored-looking waitress, nobody appeared to pay much attention to me as I walked in. I wanted to just decompress for a while.?Beer sometimes helped that. I didn't sleep particularly well anymore.? Survivor's guilt, I think they call it. Others call it purging my demons. All I knew was that I just wanted a beer.
I expected to see leather jackets, beards and long hair, blue jeans, footwear that used to pass as boots, tattoos, piercings, and yellow teeth . . . on both the men and women.? ?So it was surprising to see two guys dressed casually in jeans, sport shirts, and hunting jackets, in a corner near the bar, at a table with a red-checkered plastic tablecloth, nursing a couple of beers of their own.? They weren't exactly dressed like locals, and if that was going to cause a problem for anyone, the two looked like they couldn't care less.? But then, there weren't enough people in The Tavern to care.? It was late and most of the locals didn't come out for a beer or a burger at this time of night.
Despite their casual manner, the two men looked up and took notice of me after I sat down.? My guess was they belonged to the rental car, which meant they were passing through, but from where and to where, I didn't know.? More to the point, I didn't care.? They apparently had been in there for a while and appeared to have a good buzz going.? So long as they stayed on their side of the room, we wouldn't have any trouble.
I picked a table where I could sit with my back to a wall, and got out my phone while I waited for the waitress to come over.
"Hi, hon," she said with mock sincerity. "What'll it be?"?Everyone is 'hon' or 'sugar' in a bar like this, men and women alike.
"Whatever you have on tap will be fine.? Maybe some peanuts or pretzels if you have 'em," I replied.
"Cold out there tonight, isn't it?" she asked as she wiped down the table with a damp rag that was probably clean when she started her shift many hours ago.
"That it is," I said, not wanting a lot of conversation, but not wanting to be impolite either.?
From the other side of the room, one of the men at the other table hollered in a loud, rude manner, "Hey!? Can we get some more beers over here or what?"
The waitress stops wiping my table.? She looked over at them and said, "I'll be right with you boys," as she turned to go get them their beer.?
"Well hurry it up!"?
Assholes, I said to myself.? I noticed the cook in the back looked out over his grill at what was going on.? No doubt he'd seen this type of behavior before, but he wasn't being paid to be a bouncer.? He turned his back and busied himself with whatever it was a cook does at this time of night.
Once behind the bar, the waitress filled a glass with Blue Moon on tap for me, put a slice of orange in it, grabbed a bowl of peanuts, two more bottles of Bud for the assholes and headed back to my table.?
When the loudmouth saw her heading to my table first, he hollered, "Hey, bitch, what the hell you doing?? Get our beer over here now!"
It was hard to tell if the waitress was offended or not.? A place like this gets all kinds sooner or later.? She looked at me with silent exasperation in her tired eyes.? I just nodded at her that it was okay, and she altered her course to bring the loudmouths their beers.? She deposited them on their table when one of the men grabbed her by the arm.? Holding onto her, he looked over at me with something akin to a sneer, took the bowl of peanuts, and then let go of the waitress.? The loudmouth took a swig of beer, didn't touch the peanuts, and just kept looking at me.? I could see how this night was shaping up.? I was really in no mood for this.? I was tired and just wanted some down time.? Even in out-of-the-way places like this, I guess you can find jerks.
The waitress headed back to my table, put my beer down and said, "Sorry about that, hon," with a nod to the other table.? "I'll be right back with another bowl of peanuts.
"I don't think you need to bother," I said, as I looked back at the guy staring me down. "It doesn't look like I'll be here that long.
The waitress turned with a nervous look at the two jerks.? She was probably thinking I looked like a nice enough guy and was feeling a bit of regret thinking I was going to get my ass kicked.? It was, after all, two against one; and by her reckoning, I was not as big as the other two men.? I got that a lot.
I took a long draw on my beer.? It was cold and it went down easily.? I didn't think of myself as a drinker, but I learned to drink out of necessity.? As a Green Beret I frequently had to meet with local community leaders or tribal chiefs in various countries.? Custom usually dictated sharing a drink with strangers.? So I would take what was offered.? It was a sign of respect and how we gained influence with them.? I got used to drinking all kinds of liquor, home-brewed and otherwise.?Some of the stuff I had to drink was very potent.? Hard liquor, for hard men in a harsh situation.? But tonight, the taste of a cold beer is all I wanted, and the Blue Moon just hit the spot.?
Despite the fact that I didn't think I would be there all that long, I figured I had a few minutes to check my e-mail before the two assholes screwed up their courage to come over and pick a fight.? Quite a few work-related e-mails had come in since the last time I'd checked.? Business was good and I w
as in high demand.? Seems there are enough issues out in the world to keep people like me gainfully employed.
As I looked over my e-mail, I took another draw on my beer, drained the glass, and looked over at the other table.? I'm generally slow to anger but have a low tolerance for mean-spirited people.? The two guys sitting at the table across from me certainly seemed to qualify.? There was a time in my life, before I joined the Army, when I would have averted my eyes and avoided the conflict altogether.? But not anymore.? I didn't look for fights, but I didn't back away from them either.? I'd come to believe that all men have aggressive tendencies.? It was a 'survival of the fittest' thing that probably went back thousands of years.? My own tendencies had been drawn out and refined through some of the harshest training in modern military history.? You were either good at this or you weren't.?As it turned out, I was very good at it.? The two men staring at me either didn't know that or didn't care.? It was a mistake they would soon regret.
With my beer gone, I turned off my cell phone and leaned back in my chair.? It was time.? I looked over to study the two guys.? They were big men, probably six-two or six-three, 210 pounds, maybe twenty-eight or twenty-nine years old, and appeared to be fit. They looked like ex-football players, with large necks, broad shoulders, and relatively narrow waists.? Maybe they grew up on farms, throwing 120-pound hay bales around most of the summer.? They had close-cropped hair, which could signify that they were either ex-military or para-military. They appeared to be spoiling for a fight with me, though, and that told me they weren't too bright. ?They didn't know me and what I was capable of.? Or worse, they did know about me, and chose to think they were better than me.
They finally stood up, one after the other, and started across the small room toward me.? They moved easily, which told me they'd done this before, though I doubted they'd been in life-and-death situations.? They looked more like hired muscle and guys who'd always gotten by on their bulk, not their brains.
In the movies, it always seems that the good guy would wait until the first punch was thrown or he would try to talk the bad guys down.? But this wasn't the movies and that was usually a stupid strategy.? There were no points for being nice or fair in a bar fight.? There were winners and there were losers.? When attacked, it was generally best to respond hard and fast and with a weapon that inflicted the most casualties right away.? It tended to demoralize the enemy.? As far as I was concerned, I'd already been attacked as soon as the guys stood up.? The gloves were off.
I was carrying my Sig Sauer with me, but I doubted it would frighten them off.? It would probably only postpone the inevitable, and unless I was prepared to use it, I would leave it where it was. ?I guess I could cap one in the knees and wing the other one, but then the local police would get involved.? And I didn't need that.? A couple of guys in a bar fight in this place would probably not raise too many eyebrows.? But use of a firearm would draw all kinds of unwanted attention. So my weapon of choice would be me.
I knew they thought they could take me.? I could tell they were overconfident by the look on their faces and the way they walked.?? That would work in my favor.? I didn't spend a lot of time thinking about what to do, why this is happening, or what the outcome might be.? I just started processing information.? The first man was only a few feet away now and moving toward me.? Despite my first impression that perhaps the guy was slightly drunk, I noticed he was moving in a deliberate manner. ?And drunk or not, the man looked powerful enough to inflict real damage.? I clearly couldn't take this for granted.? The guy's buddy, who was moving toward me, came from a slightly different direction, a second or two behind the first.? Strategy.? But that strategy would work against them.? By coming at me from two directions and a few seconds apart, I would have the opportunity to only fight one of them at a time.? Big mistake for them.
I felt my heart rate go up as an adrenaline surge hit, and because I knew with certainty that I was already in a fight that just hadn't started yet.? All I'd wanted was to have a quiet beer or two.? That didn't matter now.? I was here, the two men were approaching me, and that was that.? There was no doubt in my mind as to what I needed to do.? There was no hesitation.
I slowed my breathing, which relaxed my muscles.? The first man coming my way was at least one neck size bigger than me.? His buddy was about the same.? They didn't get that way naturally, so they must have had some training.? No matter.
I stood up and moved quickly to intercept the first man now barely five feet away.? As I closed the distance between us, he was taken aback for a split second.? I was sure the look on my face had changed from just a guy having a beer to something else, something hard.? I looked at him with unblinking eyes.? I could see the guy's hesitation now. He probably expected me to fight back but assumed that would happen only after he got to me and established his position. Just about the time that thought was going through his mind, I slammed my fist into his nose.
He fell back and instinctively dropped to his knees, putting his hands to his face.? Blood streamed from his nose, and tears from his eyes clouded his vision.? The man had no doubt been hit in the face before but probably never that hard.?I doubt he even saw the fist coming.? The raging pain I'm sure he felt in his nose and face was immediate and real.? Pain from having his brain slammed against his skull from the sudden change in direction would come later.? That would slow him down, but he was still a threat.? I just needed to deal with the jerks one at a time.
The other man was up and coming on hard now.? Seeing his buddy down spurred him on.? I timed my distance to the second man and a split second later bring my knee up to my chest and got off a powerful side thrust kick to his knee, bending it backward into an unnatural position with a sickening sound of something like wood breaking, sending him reeling backward over a few tables and chairs.? He went down, knowing with certainty in the blink of an eye that he'd be walking with a cane the rest of his life and regretting how that had happened.
Although both men were down, they still had some fight left in them.? I knew better than to assume that that was the end of it. ?The damage I'd inflicted on the two men, while debilitating, was not meant to be lethal, but I wasn't done with them yet.? They'd started this, but I was surely going to finish it and leave no opportunity for them to come after me later when I left here.
I turned back to the man whose nose cartilage and sinus cavity had just been shattered and watched him struggle to stand upright again.? He looked at me with blood streaming from his nose and tears from his eyes.? With a vicious animal-like sound, he lunged forward, bringing his right arm around as if to land a haymaker on my jaw.? He still had some fight left in him, though it wouldn't last.? I brought my right arm up to the inside of his wrist and swung my left arm across his elbow.? The effect of this was to trap his elbow and snap it backward at the joint, causing him to howl in pain.? As he stood there looking at me, with his arm distended and immobile, I put my right leg behind his, brought the palm of my right hand up under his chin, and snapped his head backward as I swept his legs out from under him.? He went down hard to the floor, unconscious.
I turned to his buddy who was picking himself up off the floor.? He only had one good leg left but he apparently wasn't done yet.? As he limped toward me, I swung my right leg up in a circular motion and connected my foot to the side of his head, causing him to pirouette around like a drunken sailor and fall to the ground with what I was sure was a major concussion.? He lay face down on the old floor, breathing but not moving.
I just stood there for a few more seconds with my knees unlocked and ready to move, to ensure the threat was gone.? Finally assured that neither man posed any further problems to me, I stood up, relaxed my fists, and took a deep breath.? I looked over at the waitress and the cook, who were both staring at me.? This hadn't turned out the way they'd expected.
I looked around the place at the carnage I'd just created, got out two twenties, and put them on the table.? I went over to the other table where the two men had been, grabbed a fe
w peanuts and threw them into my mouth.? I picked up one of their beers, took a swig out of it, and then went back to the asshole that grabbed the waitress by the wrist and pour the rest over him.? It would have been the final insult to the two, had they been in any condition to watch me do it to them.???
The whole thing lasted less than a minute.? I decided it was best to leave before the waitress had too much time to notice any particulars about me.? Attention was not what I wanted.? So I casually walked over to the door, opened it, went back outside, and took a deep breath of cold, bracing night air.?My heart was still racing, but it'd slow down in a minute.? The deep breathing would help that.
I found my car where I'd left it, climbed in and started it up.? As I was backing out of the parking space, I noticed a truck had arrived that wasn't there earlier.? A man was standing by it, casually, as if waiting for someone.? Even in the low light, I caught a glimpse of him.? He appeared to be looking at me in more than a passing way.? Not wishing to pursue it at the moment, I just kept moving.