ROAD AND DORK
Somewhere in the parking lot of Komptwood Central, Pusha T-Raw gets off of his nine-to-four at Ring Depot. He gets ready to get in his Jab’d Up Jalopy when he hears a whimper from underneath. To his astonishment, he finds something a true Pusha at heart could not resist: a beaten creature.
On the corner of Jabbity Klub Drive at T-Raw’s Krib, a test tube plays on his B-Box 2000. The Ganja Grin’N Bastard of the Carswood Project is completely entranced in his game, but should be training instead of twiddling them sticks. And yet how could he help it? Pugiliz Kronicles was one of the dopest action role-playing pugilism games that came out in XX03. But that’s beside the point.
The front door opens with a little scurrying of the feet. Ganja pauses Pugiliz Kronicles and roadwalks to investigate. “Oh good grin punk, you didn’t!” Ganja grins ear to ear as he sees T-Raw and an odd-looking mutt at the doorway. “You’ve finally done something kool with your life T.”
“You mean besides Push for you and support you with my nine-to-four,” T-Raw shakes his head at Ganja disdainfully. “Ganja, you finna make me start talk’n the ounces in a minute. You should be out getting ya roadwork in Dork!”
Ganja brushes the verbal jab as he slips in, “G’mon T-meister, stop the presses! Ga’know morning runs are the best way to get training started,” Ganja still grins while in awe of the little creature.
T-Raw tips the brim of his snapback down. “Well did you roadwork this morning, when I left for work?”
Ganja grins with a shrug of the shoulders. The Pusha charges up his jab as Ganja is within hitting distance. “Jab Check, Grin’N Bastard!” T-Raw jabs Ganja in the arm.
“JMD!” Ganja rubs his arm with clenched teeth. He gets a closer look at the dog. “So what’s the deal with the dawg? Odd look’n mutt isn’t he?”
T-Raw gives Ganja a “You’re one to talk look” and explains how he found the sparky companion. The odd dog signature steez had a portion of his upper jaw caved in. A mixed breed between a chihuahua and a boxer dog, short coat hair with a nutmeg color mix. Although tyke in stature, had the energy of ten fist fiends hopped up on Lace, running circuits throughout T-Raw’s Krib.
“Hyper dog,” Ganja grins to himself. “So what should we name him?”
T-Raw chuckles with a thought, “Her and I don’t know Dork. How about Dawg, but you know–spelled differently, like D-A-W-G?”
“Woof,” Ganja grins. “You may be good at brainstorming tactics, but you stink at names.”
T-Raw jab checks Ganja in the arm as retribution. The dog continues to roadwork throughout the house, stops for a brief second to look at Ganja and T-Raw, then proceeds to run around again.
“I jab’d one,” Ganja snaps. “R&D, short for Run and Dope.”
“Well, she’s certainly a deranged odd pup.”
After a round or two, R&D stops for a reprieve, during which Ganja goes to pet her. The feisty rabble-rouser dog gets in a fight stance, ready to use feral tactics.
“That Dawg’s been beaten by life more times than you’ve been beaten in the ring Ganja,” T-Raw verbally jabs.
Naturally, they would have to spend more time with their newfound hyper furry companion.
In the morning, Ganja takes R&D for roadwork around the neighborhood, which was easier said than done as he spent the equivalent of three Regular Ol’ Box’N rounds trying to get a collar on. Instead of going Ganja’s normal route, R&D detours in the opposite direction. Sometimes the DOP fiend would outrun Ganja, prompting the test tube to up his roadwork game.
Along Roadwork Alley, Ganja decides to stop by King’s Store, bugging Bonita Applekeys on her shift. “How ya box’n Ganja Grin?” Bonita entranced in a medical book while sitting behind the cashier’s desk. Before Ganja can answer with his usual verbal jab, R&D let out a bark. Bonita lays the book down on the counter canvas and leans over to see the disturbance. “Is that a dog – (gasp) You got a dog?!” Bonita rapidly fires. She goes to pet R&D, but upon further inspection could see this was no ordinary dog. “Huh– what did you do, ya Grin’N masochist!?” Bonita jab checks Ganja in the arm.
Ganja couldn’t help but grin after getting socked in the arm by the fair Bonita, “Nuthin, T-man found him-her like that. So now R&D is part of the tribe.”
For some reason whether you want to call it a solidarity thing or not, R&D allowed Bonita to pet her. “You don’t deserve to be with such a maltreated creature when you can barely fend for yourself in the ring.”
“You’re jabbing me in the grin Ms. Bonita. You can beret me, jab me, and insult me, but I’ll just keep coming back just to see you Ms. Applekeys.”
“Gross, get out of my shop, but bring Puppycat back anytime soon.”
“Gemini and grin!” Ganja grins.
Having his roadwork nearly completed Ganja starts to slow up as R&D runs ahead. Simultaneously a van drives along the hyper dog. In a premeditated plot, a slab scoops up the odd pup and wheelworks off. Ganja attempts to tail the van, but to little avail, as he has become winded by that point. Ganja doubles back to King’s Store to tell Bonita. She jab checks Ganja and tells him to get Puppycat back, otherwise she’ll jab check him somewhere other than his arm. Ganja hid a grin spot-punching he might like that, but shrugged off the notion to appease Ms. Applekeys. After Bonita’s shift, they go back to T-Raw’s Krib to spot-punch the details of R&D’s disappearance.
With Pusha T-Raw still at work, the unlikely couple recruit M.D. Q to spot-punch possible whereabouts. They give him a rundown of the events “Ding, I think I know where those fist fiends might’ve taken ya dawg,” M.D. Q injects. The Grin Unit gathers in Q’s Kross’d-Up Kontraption. Juxtaposed to T-Raw’s Jab’d Up Jalopy, Q’s Kontraption was full of wrappers, receipts, and leftover bones from a Chicken GLUV.
“Ging Q, and you get on me about dental hygiene with my wires,” Ganja pushes aside some gunk in the back seat.
Q counters him with a dirty look. “That’s a knockout coming from you L-Seven since T-Raw tells me about the mess you leave in the bathroom. He also tells me, you sometimes kiss your bestus and call it Bo–”
“Gotta get that Ga-Ca-Ha!” Ganja conjures the phlegmiest fake cough he could muster. “Sorry– wrong pipe.”
Bonita in the passenger seat looks back to give Ganja a weird look. He averts his gaze in response, spot-punching the chicken GLUV bone down on the floor. A passing street light shines on the left side of Ganja’s dome as he grins to himself.
The Grin Unit proceeds down the warehouse district of Carswood. Some warehouses only act as a front to more shadier and brutal displays of pugilism. The Kross’d Up Kontraption arrives at a seemingly vacant warehouse.
“Back when I dealt with Lace myself, this used to be the spot where some of the hustle’n pugilists and fist fiends would BEF in illegal bets,” M.D. Q says as he leads the unit with a combination of verbal P’s and Q’s. “And Ganja try not to act like a Gackass.”
They walk up to a steel door, where M.D. Q jabs in a rhythmic sequence on the door leading to the complex. A small latch opens. “Password,” a deep voice jabs from the cold steel-ringed interior.
Q tersely says, “No B-Steeze Snitch’n.”
The latch slides closed and the entrance opens. The boxed warehouse is teeming with a flux of Lace dealers, BEF betters, and notorious fist fiends. They stand around mock ghetto-made mini rings and trenched pits. In one pit there’s a mongoose that has BEF with a krait snake, while another two cats with bestus claws attached to their paws scratch it out. A two-bit Warhol with the stage name, Jive, stands in an empty bloodied sand gravel pit giving a familiar introduction.
“Welcome to Primal BEF,” Jive jovially jabs. “Watch beast fiends go paw to claw with each other and see whose top of the food chain in the animal kingdom! Tonight, a deranged odd four-legged challenger primally BEFs our reigning champ, Madd Kourage!”
A beast fiend saunters into the ghetto ring. With the slab of a Doberman, but the aura of a killer. Madd Kourage’s signature steez included bloodshot red eyes, black short-coat hair, toned muscles, and a portion of his left ear gnawed off, most indefinitely from a previous BEF. On the other side, R&D is stuck in a cage, whupping and hollering. The slab that knabbed her from before lets the sparky tyke out. The BEF between the two beast fiends commences as Madd Kourage pursues R&D,
“That’s our new Grin Unit down there Q, we gotta jump in and save her,” Ganja eagerly ready to jump in the ring.
“Hold up a second ya Gackass!” Q clothesline Ganja. “I told ya before, these pugilists don’t play and you for sure do not want to be on their radar.”
Unbeknownst to Q however, a soon-to-be fist crusader had his sights set on the illegal betting scheme that same night. The lights to the entire complex shut off as if turning the place into a desolate cave. Crash! A window from the ceiling above shatters, as a silhouette drops down center ring. A single light fixture turns back on revealing the shadow figure. The shadow wore a midnight leather jacket, a protective vest known as Lacellar armor underneath, and a neoprene mask that forms close to a feline. Warhol Jive calls out to the figure, “Woah…woah slow your roll there partna. Do you know who owns this establishment? Show us your mug and identify yourself!”
“I’m your worst lights out,” the shadow pugilist gruffs in a poorly disguised low grumbled voice. “I am BIP… I am BEF… I AM KROSS KAT!”
Warhol Jive snaps his fingers and two lace fiends with marlin spikes on their bestus face off with Kross Kat. The masked pugilist dismantles them with the unforeseen tactics of a B-Steez that uses a mix of multiple forms. Some spectators marvel at the presence of this BEF, while others rush out in fear of getting caught by Pugil Police.
In the ensuing chaos, Ganja hops into the pit to knab R&D. Before he can do so, the odd pugilist is confronted by Madd Kourage who grits his canined grinna at Ganja’s slab. The four-legged killer slowly enclosed his prey. Ganja feels around in his pockets and finds M.D. Q’s chicken GLUV bone from before. The inner machinations of Ganja’s dome start churning as he grins and flaunts the bone like a ring girl does a scorecard. Madd Kourage faces off with his unspoken desires. Ganja throws the bone and their beastly OPP roadworks along with it. The reunited Grin’N Dork and R&D jet out of the pit as the scruff around them continued. The Grin Unit roadi-five-thousand to the Kross’d Up Kontraption and back to T-Raw’s Krib.
“Ding, wait till I tell T-Raw all that happened and whoever that kat was, he just cooked himself a whole platter of BEF with the underground pugilism world,” Q quips on the ride home. “L-Seven you owe me a Chicken GLUV by the way.”
Bonita is in the back seat along with Ganja and R&D. “I’m just glad we got Bunbun back.” R&D nestled soundly in her nurturing arms.
“Whatever punk. I’m just glad whoever that kat was, he just saved this odd pup from getting Bit In Peace,” Ganja grins at the very corniness of his own pun.