Chuck Norris shifts into park and grumbles, “Used to be a kuh-ratty champion and silver screen star.  Now I’m doing stoopid-ass videos fer YouTube and TikTok.” 

I jump out of his truck and walk around the hood so I can bring him back into the frame of my phone/camera.  “C’mon Chuck, this is a longtime fan of yours.  Plus it’ll get you some needed exposure.”

He rummages around in the backseat cabin, pulls out an M60 machine gun, and slings it over his sleeveless denim vest.  It’s complemented by a pair of automatic pistols on either hip, crossed ammo belts over his chest, and a giant bandolier of heavy fragmentation grenades.

“Chuck?”  I raise an eyebrow.  “We’re going to clean a hoarder’s house, not assault an enemy fortress.”

“You goddamn millennials and yer avocado toast!” he barks.  “Need to go back to the goddamn 80s, when we was allowed to uphold the Second Amendment!”

“Pretty sure that one’s still allowed…” 

“Shut yer cum-hole!”  He slams the door and starts walking toward the hoarder house.  “Sorry, that wasn’t called for—yer people invented kuh-ratty, and God knows where we’d be without a good ol’ roundhouse.  HYAH!”  He throws a head-level kick in the middle of his stride (pretty impressive, considering he’s wearing 80s-tight jeans and a shitload of ordnance).

“ ‘My people?’  Korean-Americans?”

“You know what I mean!” he snaps.  “Quit messin’ with my damn intellectual!”

“Riiight.”  My brow furrows, but I don’t press the issue. 

The inside is pretty much what you’d expect.  Giant stacks of years-old newspapers, cheese-crusted boxes from various pizzerias, and looming piles of mish-mashed junk.  Chuck puts his hands on his hips and glowers at the filth.

“How the fuck can you live in this mess?” he growls.  “Must be a daggum Satan-blowing commie!”

“Not sure how any of those connect, but we have—”  I check my watch, “—a little over three hours before they get back.  We’ll have to work fast if we’re gonna make a dent.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbles. 

We start wading through the sea of junk.  Right before we get to the bedroom, Chuck snaps up a fist, causing me to freeze.

I lower my phone.  “Are you okay?  Did something—”

“Shhh.”  His paranoid gaze ticks back and forth, then locks onto a flash of movement.  “Holy fucking shit,” he murmurs. 

“Calm down,” I say.  “It’s just a roach.  There’s bound to be some pests in all this—”

“They’re in the GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKIN’ WALLS!!!”  His M60 snaps up to his waist, going full auto in less than a second.  “AAAAAAHHHHHH!!!  COMMUNIST BASTARDS!”  As he fires from the hip, casings fly in busy arcs, showering the deck with tinkling brass. 

I cover my ears, shouting what the fuck and stop fucking shooting, but I’m drowned out by his screams and the chatter of ammo.  He starts backing out, cuing me to run behind him toward the exit, because his field of fire is ridiculously wide.  He’s sweeping from side to side, gunning from the hip, peppering anything and everything with rapid-fire death.  Out of the corner of my eye, I see him drop the M60—he’s run out of belts.  So he pulls his machine pistols and dives around in a series of shoulder rolls, unleashing full-auto hell on fixtures and drywall.

While I’m running for the truck, he sprints up next to me and pulls the pin on one of his bandoliered grenades.  He chucks the whole bandolier into the house and yells, “Keep running, Kent!  I smelled a gas leak in the kitchen!  We’re in for one hell of a flame jump!”

“What the FUCK, man!” I shout.  “Why would you—”

Then I’m caught in a slow-motion inferno, bicycling my arms and legs as the grenades explode, the gas catches, and the resulting wave of heat and pressure lift and carry us through the air.  Chuck is yelling “EEEEHHHH-HOOO!” at the top of his lungs.  I’m just howling in sheer fucking terror. 

We make it to the truck, but it doesn’t stop there.  Chuck kicks a lever near the hitch, causing a twenty-barrel minigun to pop up from the bed and unfold in a series of whirs and clacks.  He front-flips onto its rotational platform, mans the grips, and zeroes in on the flame-engulfed house. 

“Chuck, DON’T—”  My pleas go unheard as he unleashes fifty rounds a second, tearing through shingles and studs, siding and floors.  In less than a minute, the front wall sags, then collapses into a ruined heap.  Somewhere in all that bullet-ridden chaos, Chuck manages to slap on a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses, light a stogie, and puff half of it away through a clenched-teeth grimace. 

No options left.  So I open my eReader to a Kent Wayne novel, activating its mind-bending reality distortion powers.  Magic flash. 

A rack of dumbbells and stand-up mirrors appear next to the truck.  They immediately capture his full attention.  “Come on, Kent!”  He rips off his clothes.  “Ain’t nothin’ better than some butt-nekkid curls while making eye contact in a full-length mirror!”

“Uh…”  I lower my hands from my ears and rise shakily to my feet.  “Think I’ll pass.”

He starts jacking out curls, looking alternately between his giant-bushed reflection and his swelling arm veins.  “Suit yerself, pussy!  Yer the daggum reason our country’s gone soft!”

Kent Wayne wins again…I think?

Have you spent the day with Chuck fucking Norris, only to have him go full-fucking auto in a blaze of 1980s glory?  Never fear!  Buy my books, summon some strategically placed mirrors, curl-ready dumbbells, and distract him from his rain of full-metal carnage!

Get A Door into Evermoor here: A Door into Evermoor.  Get Weapons of Old here: Weapons of Old Get Kor’Thank here:  Kor’Thank:  Barbarian Valley Girl.  Get Echo Vol. 1 on Kindle here:  Vol. 1 on Kindle.  Vol. 2 on Kindle here:  Vol.2 on Kindle  Vol. 3 on Kindle here:  Vol. 3 on Kindle  Vol.4 on Kindle here:  Vol. 4 on Kindle  Echo Omnibus here:  Echo Omnibus  Echo Vol. 1 & 2 Combined Edition here:  Combined Edition  Musings, Volume 1 is available here:  Musings, Volume 1  Here’s the miscellaneous gear that I use to try and become an uber-human:  Optimization!    

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