The Riptide Ultra-Glide by Tim Dorsey

feel?”
    â€œI’m sorry,” said Serge. “I thought you had completed your transaction and were reorganizing your wallet.”
    â€œThat’s what you get for fuckin’ thinking!”
    Serge thought: What does that mean?
    The man tried to wedge himself farther between Serge and the machine.
    â€œPlease stop leaning against me,” said Serge. “I’ll just get my money and she’s all yours.”
    â€œAnd then you just walk away, motherfucker?”
    Serge got his money and walked away.
    Ten minutes later, Coleman sat in the passenger seat as the ’76 Gran Torino tooled down the Overseas Highway. “That guy was unbelievable.”
    â€œI still can’t process what my eyes just saw,” said Serge. “But you were there. I’m not imagining things, right?”
    â€œNo, man. That dude was off the charts.”
    â€œIf you tried telling people this story, it would sound like bad fiction some guy wrote in a book,” said Serge. “But it really did happen to me. And it was a nice shopping center; that’s what threw me off balance.”
    â€œHe just went on and on,” said Coleman. “Still yelling even after you left.”
    â€œThat’s the nature of the twat-heads,” said Serge. “The second I responded to his initial insult with patience, he took that as a weakness green light to unload all the emotional bile he brought with him to the ATM from breakfast. And I should know: I have the same perpetual loop spinning in my head of people who have fucked with me going back to kindergarten, running nonstop, over and over, driving up my blood pressure and pissing me off until I find myself muttering out loud and honing the absolute perfect comeback ten years later: ‘Oh yeah? Well, you’re wrong.’ . . . That kind of pent-up rage will eat you alive unless you get your arms around it and recognize the problem.”
    â€œSo by knowing that it’s just inside your head, you’ve learned to turn it off?”
    â€œNot exactly,” said Serge. “Some jerk crosses my path and I beat the piss out of him for what all those other people did to me. Then I can turn it off.” He turned to Coleman. “Is that normal?”
    Coleman shrugged. “I thought everyone was looking at me in the post office.”
    Serge pulled over to the side of the road and opened the door.
    Coleman got out his own side. “But you still didn’t do anything to that ATM guy. That’s progress.”
    â€œYou know me when I put my mind to something. It’s all about coping mechanisms.” Serge stuck his key in the trunk and popped the hood. “Where’s that tire iron?”
    Coleman gestured with his beer. “Under those rags by the spare.”
    â€œGood eye.” Serge reached for the metal bar. “What was I talking about?”
    â€œCoping skills.”
    â€œThat’s right.” Serge raised the iron high over his head and brought it down hard like a carnival mallet.
    A curdling, muffled scream from under duct tape.
    â€œOooooo!” Coleman winced. “You got the ATM guy right in the kneecap.”
    â€œFor some reason that always sounds to me like pottery breaking.”
    Coleman chugged the rest of his beer. “How do you feel?”
    â€œNow I can turn it off.” He reached in the trunk again. “Every day you spend sweating the small stuff is such a waste. Snatching dicks like this out of parking lots is much more constructive.” He yanked hard.
    Another ghastly, muffled scream echoed from the trunk well.
    Serge stood back up. “You can’t allow the jerks to get inside your head.” He held out his hand.
    Coleman looked at Serge’s bloody palm holding a diamond-stud earring. “It’s just like that other jerk in the store. Do all assholes wear those?”
    â€œOnly the ones who are overcompensating for a face that looks like a