Punching Tom Hanks: Dropkicking Gorillas and Pummeling Zombified Ex-Presidents---A Guide to Beating Up Anything (5 page)

As soon as he looks back toward the kitten, move up and begin punching him in the calf and thigh again. Make these punches count, while maintaining your balance on the tree. If you fall at this point, the angry mob (formerly known as the crowd) will definitely maul you to death. If some of them are feeling heroic and begin climbing up behind you, kick at the tops of their heads while continuing to fight the man.

Grab the man by a single lapel and pull him toward the ground, over your head. With a quick motion use gravity to hurl him to the ground. Again, using gravity, leap from the tree, aiming for the man’s ample stomach. Land on the man’s stomach with both feet. He will emit a sound like a popped balloon in a cartoon, flying around the yard. He might say, “
Yowee!
” His stomach will collapse and then expand rapidly, like a cushion, propelling you high into the air and over the nearby fence, to safety. Run away.

When you meet up back at your hideout give the kitten an extra portion of food and an extra head scratch. You both did your jobs today, and no one got hurt except that one guy and some other people.

HOW TO BEAT UP A GUY HOLDING A SLICE OF PIZZA

Approach the man holding the slice of pizza. (These instructions are for a man holding a slice of pizza in his right hand. For those targeting left-handed pizza lovers, I’m sorry, there’s no data available at this time.) Look the man in the eye and firmly say, “Stop! That slice of pizza has been poisoned! Do not continue eating that delicious, yet poison-filled slice of pizza!”

He’s not going to believe you. Keep going, and say, “I’m warning you for the last time. It. Is. Poison! I don’t care if you’ve witnessed an entire unbroken chain of events beginning with the pie’s creation last night, ending with you holding the slice before me right this second, which convinces you of its so-called purity. They found a way to get to it!”

Grab the pizza from him while shouting: “I won’t let you!” Take a huge bite from the slice, and then let out a horrific, anguished scream. Gurgle and thrash about, then say, “Ugh … body … fighting off … the poison.… So … very … difficult!!!
YAGHHHH!
… Reconfiguring … molecules … in stomach…”

Bend at the waist, while screaming banshee-like for all to hear, “You don’t get to beat me!!!” Then, suddenly, cease all movement. Stand up, straighten your hair, and say in a calm tone, “It is done.”

The man who earlier held a slice of pizza in his right hand will be totally blown away. A broken, shell of a man, thoroughly intimidated by having just seen you pull off the impossible. Now, at this point you’re no doubt anxious to seize the moment and finish the job with a well-placed kick or throat chop. No. Not this time. You put this one in the bank. Look him in the eyes … and then walk away.

Ten years from now, in some other city somewhere you’re going to meet this man again. Perhaps in the middle of a standoff during a wild shoot-out. You will pull your ski mask off revealing your identity and his eyes will meet yours … and fill with pure terror. “It’s him!” he will shout. “He who cannot be poisoned!” Then, he and his men will fold like a house of accordions.

HOW TO BEAT UP A GETAWAY DRIVER

The getaway driver is probably the easiest member of a heist team to target. The leader/mastermind would be the hardest. He’s intelligent, tough, confident, and capable, in that he’s managed to climb up through the criminal ranks to a position where he knows how to assemble a team of men to help him rob a bank or mansion full of priceless paintings. Could you do that? I know I couldn’t. I’d put out the call on Friday, and Monday morning I’d be staring at my dentist, a buddy with a DUI, my twenty-two-year-old frat boy cousin, and a guy whose knowledge of crime begins and ends with the film
Big.
That’s right, A MOVIE WITHOUT ANY CRIME IN IT.

The henchman is almost equally formidable. He’s large, crazy strong, prone to violence, and definitely armed to the teeth. He is here because he can both fight and look like he can fight. Not an easy out.

The safecracker is a nice choice. But the fact that he’s going into the lion’s den, so to speak, working under pressure to open the safe while at any time a guard could stumble upon him indicates a level of calm the driver may not have. He’s also likely to be armed, for the reasons I just mentioned. It’s also likely that he’s carrying explosives. It’s not certain that he’d be able to rig something up on the fly to blow you up but you never know. You don’t want to be repeatedly striking a guy covered in things that go boom.

So this brings us to the getaway driver or “wheelman”—the most vulnerable man in the crew and the one who you should go after first.

So who is this guy? This is a dude whose sole purpose in life, his raison d’être if you will, is driving a car fast. The happiest he’ll ever be is doing that burnout, tire screech thing guys in high school loved doing in the parking lot. I imagine he was in high school one day, saw someone do that, and was like, “That’s it. I’m done, I want that every day, all day … I’m dropping AP science and quitting football.”

Like a lot of these tutorials, this one is all about separating the target from that which makes him special. In this case, it’s the car.

A car might not seem like a weapon, but in the right hands, it is. Also, a tiny toy car made of bronze, in the hands of a giant, could also be a weapon … Not convinced? Did you know that cars account for up to fifty deaths a year? That’s more than magazine reading and seashell collecting COMBINED. Think about that for a second.

The obvious methods of utilizing a car in a fight are driving into and over a person. There’s that. There’s also the popular, drive toward a person and then hit them with the open driver’s side door. Less fatal, but still effective, he could adjust the windshield wiper fluid nozzle so that it squirts you in the eyeballs. That may sound like a joke, but that distraction might be all he needs to jump out the open car window
Dukes of Hazzard
-style and start taking you apart. Is he holding the cigarette lighter and trying to stab you in the cheek with it? It’s possible. You better hope you can spit on it accurately enough to put it out. And do it while under a serious amount of pressure. Like a safecracker.

He could also use the car to flee the fight, if things start to go against him. If he suddenly runs to the car, fumbles, drops the keys while trying to unlock it, then drives off—that’s probably what happened. Of course, if he received a phone call just prior to this, frantically asked the person on the phone, “Is Mr. Jeepers okay?” and THEN drove off, it’s probably less to do with you and more to do with something awful befalling his pet.

Wait for his crew to enter the bank. Then get him away from the car, either by approaching him when he’s outside the car or by grabbing his monogrammed bank robber’s jacket from the backseat and running someplace he can’t follow in a car. A third option is to approach him and inform him that he’s won “A brand new car!” in a contest, and that you’d like to take him to it right away. You definitely want to think up the name of the made-up contest before approaching him. Do not fool yourself into thinking, “Hey, I’m a pretty funny guy, I’m fast on my feet, I’ll just ad-lib something
if
he asks me.” He will ask you. You don’t want the following happening.

YOU:
“Congratulations! You just won a car in our contest! Allow me to bring you to it, right down this dark alley.”

HIM:
“What contest?”

YOU:
“
Uhhhh …
It’s …
Whoa!
What’s with all the questions?!? I mean it’s called Contest … Car. Car Contest. Winning … for … Winning. Look, do you want it or not?”

Try to get closer to this exchange:

YOU:
“Congratulations! You just won a car in our contest! Allow me to bring you to it, right down Winner’s Alley.”

HIM:
“What contest?”

YOU:
“The Official Government Rewards Clearinghouse Annual Contest!”

HIM:
“What kind of car?”

YOU:
Uhhhh …
Shit. What’s with all the questions?!?”

Do you see how the second one is better?

As soon as the car is out of play, take the fight to him. He’s not used to hand-to-hand combat, and there’s a good chance you can intimidate him with your directness. He’s relied on having his gang there to back him up for far too long, and he’s gone soft as a result. Don’t worry about defense right now, just pour it all into laying him out. I’m guessing you’re looking at about thirty seconds before it’s done.

This last step is optional, and quite risky, but if pulled off, is an absolute delight. Get into the driver’s car and drive to where he’s supposed to be waiting for his gang. When they come running out of the building lugging sacks of loot, smile at them, then gun it the fuck out of there. It’s going to feel awesome.

Perhaps you throw in a little middle finger action, here. Sure, it’s overdone and been co-opted by the lesser types a bit too much for my liking. But hell, if this isn’t the moment for it I don’t know what is. I mean, you’re gunning a stolen car down the street, away from a gang of bank robbers whose wheelman you just left for dead in an alley! Treat yourself! They could start shooting, but you’ve probably got a few seconds since their hands are occupied with the bags. Just don’t stall the car out and you’ll be fine. If it works, and you’re able to burn rubber while flipping them off and yelling triumphantly, you might want to think about getting an image of it tattooed onto your chest. Others will want to see this. The story alone will not do the moment justice.

HOW TO BEAT UP THE AUTHOR OF THIS BOOK

For many months prior to the publication of this book, I have been recuperating. Recuperating after a life-and-death battle beyond all reason or explanation. I’d recently decided to take some time away from civilization to truly test myself. To see if I, myself, could beat myself, me, up. What follows is an account of that night.

I traveled to a remote desert location and then stabbed myself in the leg, to see what,
if any,
effect it would have on my body. Surprisingly, it had ZERO EFFECT ON ME. Like, absolutely none.

In fact, upon impact my body absorbed the metal from the blade of the knife and distributed it among my organs and limbs where it was needed. I now literally have an iron jaw and nerves of steel. Well … one nerve of steel, it was a small knife. But, I’m getting ahead of myself …

The journey began the other night with me lying in bed after a hard day of contemplating fight scenarios. That’s when I decided to leave. But, and this is where it gets weird, I don’t even remember making the decision to journey to the desert. I was somehow suddenly just … there. (Must remind myself to research teleportation and other forms of reality phasing. Perhaps it was the handiwork of some playful adversary of mine?) Suddenly, I was
in the desert
and found myself fighting off creatures that defied description. And then one creature who specifically looked like a turtle with a hat and a gun. (I feel like maybe the other creatures knew they’d be impossible to describe and were already resenting the turtle, knowing they’d get short shrift in this story.)

After I beat them down—using the upside-down turtle like a skateboard, zooming around on it while punching them—I was suddenly, inexplicably, back in my high school gymnasium … but like it wasn’t my gymnasium, if you know what I mean. Then my dad showed up and I was late for a meeting or something? But not really? You probably have no idea what’s happening here and neither did I. That’s when I used the knife and, again, let me stress, it felt like a tickle to me.

Then my teeth fell out and soon after that I tried to fly. It worked! But apparently I blacked out and flew the rest of the way back home on pure instinct, because I have no memory of returning, opening my front door, using the retinal scanner to deactivate my alarms, and then getting back into bed. Randomly, that’s where I found myself once my memory returned. Insane, right?

What I learned from all this was: It’s good to test yourself now and then, and it’s even better when you ace that test and the teacher asks you to stay after class and then sits cross-legged on the front of their desk across from you, just smiling at you with love and pride and the knowledge that your existence justifies their entire career choice. Since I was the teacher, I just did all that in front of a mirror. I won’t lie, it was a nice moment. Anyway, that’s what happened when I tried to beat myself up.