by JRM

August 10, 2006

As the figure drew near, I realized that it was indeed a biped.  From the heavy thumping of its feet, I guessed that it was a man -either that or Mrs. Dick Comer was one large woman.  It had to be Dick Comer. I crouched in the corn and plotted my next move, imagining what must be going through Dick Comer's mind right now.  From the sound of his voice back at the propane tank, I could tell he was the kind of guy who had always dreamed of killing somebody.  He finally had his chance to off a guy and he wasn't going to let a small detail like the fact that we weren't on his property anymore stand in the way.  Dick Comer always gets his man...my overactive imagination was giving this guy way too much credit.

He was almost upon me and I could see that if I did nothing, his right knee would collide with my right shoulder.  Assuming he didn't know I was there, I was actually in a pretty favorable position.  You know - aside from the fact that I was hiding in a cornfield in the middle of the night, two-dozen miles from my warm bed.  I knew that I had to capitalize on my good fortune.  As soon as Dick Comer was within arm's length, the plan was to pop up, give him my very best right jab to the nose, take his shotgun and beat the living shit out of him with it.  I just had to make sure that I could get up and throw the punch before he could fire his weapon.  Speed was very important here.

I said a little prayer as well as my imaginary goodbyes as the figure came so close that I could see nearby corn stalks rustling. Time to see what I was made of...

"Okay, on three," I whispered to myself. I could actually see the dark outline of his feet coming toward me.

"One.  Two.  THREE!"  As I began to spring to my feet, I had a vision of the time that my sister jumped on my bed until it broke and then ran into her room and started to read a book - leaving me to take the blame.  That's me - the perpetual victim of wrongful prosecution. Maybe it's not too late to convince Dick Comer that I'm not the guy he wants.  I could tell him that on the way over here, my friend had been handicapping his chances of being allowed to do all sorts of crazy sexual stuff to his stepdaughter.  We could go after my friend together...I knew where his house was - I could totally make this work!!  

Alas, I concluded that a man with his name tattooed on his own arm could not possibly be capable of rational thought.  I again decided that punching him in the face was the best plan.  My left foot pushed into the soil and I rose quickly...until I put my weight on my right foot so that I could throw the punch.  I don't know if it was some sort of animal shit or just a little bit of wet dirt, but my right foot slid like a dog trying to cover up a fresh pile.  With my foot giving out, I went back down as quickly as I got up...but I still managed to throw a punch. Somehow, I hit him square in the nuts.

My surprise attack had been a total success.  Dick Comer went down like a ton of bricks.  He was lying face-down, rocking back and forth, holding his stomach and coughing.  I couldn't believe that I had KO'ed a grown-up!  Upon recognizing his vulnerability, I initiated phase two of my attack plan - get his weapon.  I jumped on top of him and put a knee in the small of his back.  Dick Comer yelped like a wounded animal.  I grabbed at the weapon, but it was nowhere to be found. There was no gun.  I stopped fighting for a split second and listened to the night.  There were no dogs.  Finally, I looked down at the man I was fighting.  It was not Dick Comer.

I never saw it myself, but my friend insisted that he spent that night and most of the following day coughing up blood.  He bitched a lot, but I never actually saw blood.  Except on his legs - they were pretty bad.  To be fair, he was pretty understanding -considering I had just punched him in the nuts with all the strength and adrenaline I could muster.  It only took him about 20 minutes to get up.

Once we were both on our feet we decided that we needed to stay in the corn field, far enough back that the cars couldn't see us, but close enough that we could see them.  If our friend was still alive, he would undoubtedly come back and get us.  We would run out of the corn, jump into the van and be out of there with sliced-up legs, sore nuts and our lives.  

As we walked, we spent a lot of time debating whether or not we were back far enough to stay out of Dick Comer's view.  I thought we should be back further and he thought we should be closer to the road.  The ultimate test came when a vehicle slowly rolled down the road.  As it neared our hiding place, we decided that the vehicle was traveling slow enough that it had to be either Dick Comer or our driver.  My friend foolishly decided to take a chance and ran out of the field. The driver of the vehicle saw my friend coming out of the field and turned on his lights and siren.

"HOLY FUCK!!" My friend screamed as he ran back into the corn. Okay, now the cops are involved.  What a pussy.  Dick Comer called the cops.  The rest of the night went by pretty quickly.  My friend and I walked the same 500 yards over and over again. Every once in a while we would kneel down to avoid the little searchlight the cops would shine into the field.  Finally, we saw our van rolling by.  I was amazed at how easy it was to spot from the field.  We got out into the road and started waving our hands as though we were landing a plane.  After a few seconds, we noticed an extra person sitting in the passenger seat.  It was a man smoking a cigarette.  We moved to the side of the van as it pulled up.  When the van stopped, we saw that the smoking passenger was a cop...and that he was smoking my cigarettes.  The jig was up.  

We reluctantly piled into the van and the driver was ordered to take us back to Dick Comer's house.  Dick Comer was waiting for us when we got there.  As well as three county sheriffs, my buddy's girlfriend, my friend, the driver and myself all stood in a circle in front of Dick Comer's house.  Apparently, Mrs. Comer had called the cops about the same time that Dick decided to dispatch us with his whiskey tango Charles Bronson impression.  Our driver was stopped by the cops a couple of miles into his attempted abandonment and was detained throughout our cornfield excursion.

We were given a stern talking to by the cops.  Dick Comer also explained to us the fact that we were trespassing on his property and people 'take care of their own 'round these parts'.  He did, in fact, have every intention of killing us.  I was never able to confirm that he had his own name tattooed on his arm.  I was, however, able to confirm that he was a dick. Since we had been scared shitless and my friend's legs were bleeding all over the place, the cops were nice enough to let us go with a warning.  We hopped in the vehicle and drove back to my friend's house in silence.  The next day, Dick Comer called my friend's parents and he got busted.  Then our driver got busted when my friend's parents insisted on knowing who was driving the van.  I was the only one that got away clean.  Until now...stay tuned for the next installment entitled, "The Day That I Had to Fight a Man Named Dick Comer Because of a Story I Wrote 14 Years After the Fact."

Love,

JRM

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