Ed. note - Jessica ‘Lobster Mobster’ Hudnall’s read-through of Tank Abbott’s Befor There Were Rules, A Trilogy By #1 MMA Cagefighting Legend David “Tank” Abbott, Book One, Bar Brawler, A Novel continues today, and if you haven’t caught up with her SparkNotes yet, now’s the time to do it.

Part 1 – Foreword, Prologue, Chapter 1

Part 2 – Chapters 2-4

Today: Chapters 5-7. Not a lot of fighting, but a ton of introspection, and at least a few racist epithets! Enjoy.

Chapter Five – East Meets West:

It’s the day after Walter’s fight with the giant bouncer, and luckily he doesn’t have any classes to attend. The guys at the weight room are a bit disturbed by his messed up eyeball, but he relishes all his trophies, whether they be cuts, bruises, black eyes, or fat lips. Walter gets done benching 495 pounds for four sets, then heads to the wrestling room to throw around a chump, and then it’s back home to hang out with Adolf and get drunk.

Now it’s a few weeks later and Walt’s friend Tim calls to say that he and Poppa Chulo are stopping by to “pre-tune” before heading to the Dead Grunion for more drinking. Walter finishes off a six pack of beer waiting for them to arrive at his place, has a few more with them, and then it’s off to the Dead Grunion for more drinking. Since Tim and Poppa Chulo are small guys, Walter knows he’ll have to watch his own back because the Dead Grunion is a wild place (I’m pretty sure if there wasn’t a drunk idiot with a short-temper always looking for a fight, it would be much calmer). Things are uneventful and 2:00AM rolls around without incident. Everyone files out of the place and heads to the parking lot (The same general area Walt had his fight with Donovan), where there are some East Coasters looking for a fight. The East Coast guys start making fun of Walter’s clothes (Especially egregious since they’re wearing hockey jerseys, gasp!), and that’s enough to instigate a fight in Happening Beach. It looks like it’ll be the three members of Kaos against four East Coast loudmouths, and Poppa Chulo especially is ready to square off. Before anything happens, someone breaks a bank window, and security starts swarming everyone. Tim gets handcuffed, but Walt and Poppa Chulo sort things out by threatening to beat up the security guards if they don’t release Tim. Tim heads for his car and doesn’t look back, leaving Walt and Poppa Chulo behind.

They hockey jersey-clad East Coast guys return and Poppa Chulo steps up to confront the biggest one. It’s Walter’s job to handle crowd control, but he does a piss-poor job as a second East Coaster breaks from the fight circle to jump on Poppa Chulo’s back because Chulo just mounted the first guy. Walter charges and clotheslines the guy off of Poppa Chulo, but that just sparks the crowd to turn into a mob. Since he was yelling at everyone during crowd control, Walt is the sole target of the mob, so he goes into fullback mode and starts plowing through people. He makes some progress, but the crowd clings to his back and legs, and Walter tumbles to the asphalt. The crowd beats on Walter for a while until the security guards arrive. The mob scatters and Walt gets handcuffed. The security guards continue to disperse the crowd, a Dead Grunion walks up to the handcuffed Walter and boots him in the face. Foxx screams at the guy, catches another boot, more screaming and a third boot before the cops arrive to haul Walter off to jail. Poppa Chulo gets tossed into the back of the squad car, but the cop is pretty lazy, so the guys only spend a few hours in jail and get released the next morning.

Fight Stats:

• Did Walter fight? Eh, not really, just caught a beat down

Key lines: “From behind me in the crowd I hear, ‘Kill the ass in the orange shirt!’ Shit! I’m wearing an orange shirt!”

Uh-oh, Spaghetti-Os!

“You cowards will jump on a guy when you’re in a mob – a guy that would put you down like a canary in a gassed-filled coal mine one-on-one – but you wouldn’t dare look me in the eye if you passed me on the street alone.”

YOU WOULDN’T EVEN LOOK WALTER IN THE EYE; ALL HE WANTS IS DIRECTIONS TO THE BANK, YOU PUNKS!