THE PROMISE A.K.A THE PROLOGUE

You got the stopwatch? Good. Reset it. We'll time this. No, no, don't push that start button yet. Just wait. Now the way I hear it, it all began when Thug #1 punched Jimmy as he was walking on the road that went through the woods that Jimmy was known to walk every day after school. Well, not exactly punched Jimmy but tried, came up hard behind him and threw an awkward, crooked-wristed fist in his general direction. Completely sloppy technique—okay—now push the button.

Jimmy ducked, turned, and twisted while pivoting on his standing leg and delivered a forearm throat chop to Thug #1, incapacitating the ever-living shit out of the guy and hurtling his body backward onto the concrete.

Stop the clock. What's it say?

"Not even one full second. Well, almost a second."

Start it again.

Thug #2 comes out from behind a tree and has a shovel over his head like he's going to tomahawk Jimmy with the edge of it. Bad idea. Thug #2 obviously hasn't seen a single kung fu movie in his whole damn life because he still has a surprised look on his face when Jimmy straight leg kicks him in the gut, which makes Thug #2 catapult forward, doubling over, but while Thug #2 is trying to bring the shovel down on Jimmy and regain his breath, Jimmy leg sweeps him with so much force that he goes up into the air backward. Now, Jimmy—get this—comes up out of the leg sweep, stands up and extends his right leg backward into an "L" at the knee and actually clips the guy at the base of the neck with a kick that knocks him out and then, Jimmy doesn't stop there, he actually catches this guy by the back of the neck with the bottom of his foot. Completely cushions him, because, you know, the guy was out like a light, if he let him drop, his skull would've just gone smush.

"I can't even picture that. What do you mean?"

I mean he caught him with his foot. He held up the weight of a full-grown man with his leg extended backwards in that "L" shape. Like the guy's head was an inflated ball.

"I still can't see it."

Dammit, give me that pen. That napkin too. Okay, here:

THE NAPKIN

See? On partial extension, knee at a ninety-degree angle pointing backward while standing on one leg, Jimmy knocked the guy out with an aimed kick to the base of the skull, then he CAUGHT Thug #2 by the back of the neck with the sole of his foot. Then he grabbed the shovel with his left hand and just stayed in that position. STAYED!

"What?! No fucking way. That's not even possible. Physics and shit. Man, Jet Li couldn't do that WITH wires."

Serious. Jimmy just did it for show. To scare everyone watching. Now stop that clock. Time?

"Counting Thug #2's running toward Jimmy and not our little argument, that would be 4 seconds total—4.3 to be precise."

Start it again and keep it running this time.

Because Thug #3 comes running at Jimmy and before he even gets close, he gets smashed in the shins with the shovel head. See, Jimmy pushed passed-out Thug #2 back up to standing real quick, took one giant step and swung the shovel so that it cracked #3's shins, then turned back around and caught #2 AGAIN but with his instep this time just as #2 was falling back over and before his head even hit the ground. Meanwhile, Thug #4 takes a flying leap at Jimmy, as he is supposedly busy trying to keep #2's skull from cracking but still manages to find time to block Thug #4's kick with the shaft of the shovel and then swat him out of the air like a lobbed baseball. BANG. After all that, Jimmy just lays #2 down on the ground gently like his body was some balloon attached to a soccer-ball head.

"I'm still not seeing it."

Ayight, just flip that napkin over. Here:

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE NAPKIN

Got it now?

"I mean, yeah, I got it. I just don't believe it. There is no way that would ever, ever happen."

You don't know Jimmy.

"Yeah, guess I don't. So, what happened after that?"

Jimmy walks to the nearest pay phone and calls an ambulance. The ambulance shows up with the cops and he gets booked for assault and all kinds of other things. Anyway, his mom bails him out of jail that night with the last of his fighting prize money and extracts a sacred promise from Jimmy. She looks deep into his eyes and makes him swear on the soul of his father that he will never fight again.

"Wait, what?"

She made her son promise never to fight again.

"And he did? He promised?"

He did.

"And he meant it?"

He did.

"Whoa."

Yeah. That was the beginning of the end. Oh, so what you got on that stopwatch?

"Time elapsed, 9.6 seconds to send 4 nameless and faceless bad guys to the hospital. Hero doesn't even get scratched. Just like the movies."

Yeah, like the first part of the finale, right before the big boss, but then our hero gets well and truly fucked up.