I'm going to kill you, you hairy little b.a.s.t.a.r.d!

DAVE:.

Do I nede to dog anuther hole?

DAVE:.

Dg.

DAVE:.

Dig. s.h.i.t.

DAVE:.

Dog. Haha. That's funy.

RUSS:.

We're even now, Tom!

STEVE:.

Except for the gay part.

TOMMY:.

How do you sleep at night, Russ?

RUSS:.

On a really soft pillow, you black b.a.s.t.a.r.d!

DAVE:.

Whut kind of pllow you use? I nede a new one.

STEVE:.

Great convo, guys. Thanks for including me. I'm going to go huff some paint and try to forget this.

DAVE:.

I huff gas.

STEVE:.

Thanks, Dave. You're always an intellectual powerhouse. See you guys at the game tomorrow.

Dwayne didn't respond to the text thread this time. He simply sat back and watched. It pained him to see how out of control Russ and Tommy had become. Having s.e.x with each other's wives was far outside the code. Their behavior was a bitter disappointment.

After showering up with Estelle and having a heaping helping of morning nookie, Dwayne made breakfast for the family and took Alex to school. He drove to his office and parked beside his Audi.

Dwayne's fingers gripped his steering wheel tightly. He suddenly felt the urge to skip work, get high, and drive fast. He kept telling himself that regardless of the mounting pressure, he had to remain a Jedi.

He hopped out of his truck and walked to the back, grabbing his baseball gear out of the bed of his truck and throwing it in the trunk of the Audi. He then hopped into the Audi and hauled a.s.s home.

The Audi squealed to a stop in front of Dwayne's house. Dwayne went inside and put the Batman costume on again, and then rolled a behemoth joint. He hopped back in the Audi, sparked up the joint, and turned up Metallica's cover of the Queen song "Stone Cold Crazy."

Dwayne pulled onto Interstate 30, headed east, and put the pedal to the floor.

The Audi reached 150 MPH with ease. Dwayne loved the intensity and adrenaline of driving at breakneck speeds in traffic. It often involved utilization of the road's shoulder, which could prove tricky if debris had gathered there. He cracked the sunroof and blew pot smoke out of the opening. He was weaving wildly in and out of traffic like a maniacal professional.

After a few short miles, Dwayne blew right through a speed trap that had been set up on an overpa.s.s. He was clocked by police at 161 MPH. Naturally, they decided to try to pull him over. It started with one motorcycle cop and one cop in a sedan. Once they realized there was a possibility that Dwayne wasn't pulling over anytime soon, the number of police joining the chase began to increase.

It wasn't that Dwayne didn't realize there was a growing party of law enforcement personnel pursuing his beautiful black luxury vehicle on that fine morning; he just didn't care. Since when were bada.s.s grandmaster caped crusader Jedi-ninja motherf.u.c.kers held to the same rules as the common folk?

No less than a dozen cruisers were on his tail as he neared the edge of Fort Worth and entered Arlington. The Arlington Police Department was already well aware of Dwayne's impending journey through their city and had ten officers join in the chase as soon as he crossed into their territory. Twenty-three police vehicles were behind Dwayne when he pa.s.sed the Dallas Cowboys Stadium.

"Bring Aikman back, Jerry!" Dwayne yelled out of his window as he went screaming past the large sports dome, home of his favorite NFL team.

Dwayne messed with his MP3 player until he got to Pink Floyd: The Wall.

He sung loudly at the top of his lungs about all of humanity merely being bricks in the wall.

Several times, whenever Dwayne's speed dipped to 120 MPH, the police would pull up beside him and instruct Dwayne to pull over. He would simply take a hit from his joint and wave. The police didn't know how to proceed. They'd never pursued a pot-smoking Batman at racetrack speeds before. No precedent had been set.

By the time Dwayne made it to Dallas, there were thirty-one cop cars and eleven motorcycles hot on his tail. In his peripheral vision, he saw that three helicopters monitored the chase from above. Never having been a big fan of the city of Dallas, Dwayne decided to head back to Fort Worth.

Dwayne, thirty-one police cars, and eleven police motorcycles all put on their right-hand blinkers and took the next exit. A dozen Dallas Police Department cruisers had already been en route to join the chase and were soon intermingled among the other police vehicles, all traveling at over 130 MPH.

On the other end of the DallasFort Worth metroplex, Estelle was returning home from her morning yoga cla.s.s. She had been having a nice relaxing morning of exercise and green tea.

Estelle slipped out of her sweaty clothes and out of habit flipped on the bedroom television. A breaking news flash came across the screen. A man dressed as Batman was leading a high-speed police chase from Fort Worth to Dallas and was now heading back to Fort Worth again. Estelle immediately jumped over and turned up the volume.

"We're in the KJTX traffic chopper here, Gretchen, following a Batman impersonator who appears to be yelling angrily out the window at the Dallas Cowboys Stadium. Like many of us, he appears to have some pretty disparaging words about the owner, Jerry Jones."

"Thanks, Todd. Now, you said he was a Batman impersonator. In order for someone to be an impersonator, doesn't the person who they are impersonating actually have to be real? Are you implying that Batman is actually real? Is that the story here?"

"Jesus, Gretchen, are you being serious?"