On Friday night, two bouncers worked after nine o’clock. One worked inside, the other worked the door. Tonight, Knuckle kept the peace inside the bar. He preferred working the door. Inside, there was too much going on, too many spinning plates to take care of, lights flashing on and off, music booming boisterously, waitresses coming and going and dancers in and out of the champagne room and the dressing room and the back closet where they snorted drugs with men. Men ain’t allowed to touch the dancers, but the dancers could touch the men and even put the men’s hands wherever they wanted. Men ain’t allowed to be drunk, but they was allowed to get drunk. Men ain’t allowed in the back unless a dancer was escorting them to the champagne room. Inside the bar was a night stuffed with inconsistencies and unpredictable decisions. Knuckle hated it. Not that any of that showed on his face. He was placid and firm, and his staggering stare stopped baddies from trying any tricks. Knuckle stood by the bar, arms across his chest, legs slightly spread. He ain’t put on a tough face like the other bouncers, like Chuy, who worked the door, and he ain’t put on his smiling-brah face like Davon or his burly-daddy face like Wayne. Conversation was subdued when Knuckle looked over the bar, and nobody sat at the tables nearest him. Sanders Clampett sat closest to him. He was a regular, a middle-aged black man who often chatted with Teddy. He liked a couple of the girls enough to stare mouth agape every time one came near, and the girl he fancied most was Lace Laceright. She was big, buxom, heavily tattooed. Tonight, she waitressed, so Sanders nursed his beer and flirted with her every time she passed him. “Hey, baby, love ya top,” Sanders said when she came to the bar with orders from a table. It was obvious he been brainstorming ways to start a conversation with her. He flashed a grin at her. “Thanks, sugah…” “Hey, baby, you busy tonight?” “Sure am, sugah…” “Hey baby, you look thirsty. Wanna drink?” “Hmm, I’d love a Sweetlips Sour,” she said. That was a mostly-water cocktail that the girls were encouraged to order. They got a bonus for it. Teddy made it for her, with the extra shot of tequila Lacey Laceright always requested. As she bent over the bar to take it, Sanders looked at the tattoos on her back. “You got a redhead whiteboy tattooed on you, sweetums. That ya boy?” It was on her left shoulder. Teddy had noticed it too, but he’d never asked after it. Lacey Laceright had a lot of tattoos. “That’s Skinny Malinky. He’s from a children’s book I like,” she said. She giggled and took a sip from her Sweetlips Sour. “Gotta take that table’s order, sugah.” She kissed Sanders on his cheek. “Thanks…” “Hmmm… Hmmm…” Sanders let out a little moan and licked his lips when she kissed him, but then she was gone. That night, hours later, Teddy was again closing down the bar. Arthur the bouncer at the door walked the girls to the parking lot, while Knuckle drank at the bar. Knuckle’s broad shoulders stretched his too-tight shirt. He gulped from the whiskey drink Teddy made him, so Teddy made him another one. When Lacey Laceright walked by, her purse in hand, Knuckle looked at her and said, “The War Between the Pitiful Teachers and the Splendid Kids.” Lacey Laceright and Teddy both looked at him with questioning eyes. Teddy stayed shocked — both by the bizareness of Knuckle’s words and the fact that he spoke without a direct question to respond to — but Lacey Laceright’s eyes lit up. “Yes, oh my god, you’ve read that, Knuckle?!” He nodded. “I read it a long time ago. I ai’t recognize the name when you said it, but I remember it…” He blushed and took a step towards her. “I like your tattoo a lot. Ma’am.” She patted him on the chest and said, “You’re like maybe the third person I’ve ever met who’s read that. Thanks, sugah, have a good night.” And she walked out. She didn’t wait for Knuckle to escort her to her car, and Knuckle’s knees were weak, his teeth nervous, so it didn’t occur to him to go. Teddy was impressed. That was the most personal thing Knuckle done ever said to anyone in Lipsweet, and it was the nicest any of the dancers done ever treat him. Knuckle hurried into the back — he was still living in the backroom next to the gym. But he didn’t go straight there. He went down the corridor behind the dance room, and he checked in the utility closets. He looked in the alley out back and behind the dumpster. He went to the champagne room and to the private spot where you could peep into the champagne room. He finally went into the “pantry” — that was what they called the room full of unopened liquor. And there was Ernie the janitor. He was sweeping, singing softly to himself. Ernie was in the pantry in hopes some shelf might be unlocked. He done tried them all — he did that every night because once, two years ago, he’d nabbed an entire shelf of fancy tequila that way. He’d been drunk for a month straight. But when he heard someone in the hall, he got to sweeping. He assumed it was Teddy the bartender, here to get a new bottle of something, and Ernie needed an excuse to be in here. So he swept the floor of the tiny closet.
And he looked nonchalant at the sight of Knuckle. Ernie ain’t care about Knuckle — sure, he was ugly, even for a honky, and he was weird. But Ernie was a crackhead who done spent years behind bars. He done met more ugly, weird honkies than normal men. Knuckle was quiet, and he ain’t never told nobody nothing, so Ernie ain’t pay him no mind.
So Ernie shrugged and stopped pretending to sweep when he saw it was Knuckle. “Bottles is all locked up good,” he said. “Sometimes up at the bar there’s some rail liquor that-“ But Knuckle paid not a lick of attention to Ernie’s words. He strode into the tiny closet, shut the door behind himself and pulled down Ernie’s loose-fitting jeans. His other hand was in his pants, stroking his rock-hard dick. “Hey! Honky-ass bitch!” Ernie yelped. “Git-“ But then Knuckle ripped Ernie’s tight white briefs apart to bare his bony asscheeks. Ernie squirmed and dropped the broom, then tried to pick it up to use it to fend off the giant bouncer behind him. If it ain’t happen so fast, Ernie woulda realized bending over to pick up the broom was a bad idea. His yelp turned into a howl as Knuckle’s cock sank into his loose asshole. “Shit, honky! Quit it! You gotta use some damn lube!” Ernie panted and clawed at Knuckle’s powerful chest behind him. “Sssssh.” Knuckle ain’t get why Ernie was fighting him, but he ain’t care, he just sunk his dick in deeply. Ernie was a crackhead and a prison punk, and Mr. Gregarian was always making Knuckle cornhole him — any time he saw Knuckle (or any bouncer) with a stiffy, he told them to cornhole Ernie. Mr. Gregarian was worried a horny bouncer would get fresh with the dancers. Mr. Gregarian also found Knuckle just as creepy and offputting as everyone else, so he sometimes pretended to think Knuckle had a hardon to have an excuse to tell him to go away, to cornhole Ernie, so Mr. Gregarian wouldn’t have to endure Knuckle’s intense silence. “Why you gotta rip my drawers?” Ernie said through gritted teeth. He spread his legs the best he could, and he grabbed the bottle of lube he kept in here. He still wore his underwear, but Knuckle done ripped the back of it in half to bare his butthole. No answer was forthcoming. Knuckle grabbed Ernie by his knappy-ass hair, and he held on tight. That had the effect of making Ernie struggle with the lube — Knuckle ain’t trying to stop Ernie from lubing up, he done simply forgot that that was normal. By the time Ernie got his hand down to his backside to smear some lube on, Knuckle was already pumping him full of cum. Great creamy gobs of it jazzed into Ernie’s butthole with such sudden energy that Ernie jerked and twitched. His dick slid out. A couple cumwads sprayed over Ernie’s dark, gray-haired buttcheeks and dripped down his ropy thighs. Knuckle sighed and pulled his rod with one hand. He drained the last couple drops of jizz out and flung them onto Ernie’s legs. Ernie scowled and slipped away. “You a shit, honky,” he said. He wiped cum off his butt and ropy thighs. “Goddamn…” he pulled his pants up, torn briefs as well, and walked away muttering to himself. “Crazy-ass honky mothahfuckah…”
It was a quiet night at Lipsweet, but Teddy was terrified. That was because the peace was kept by the bouncer Knuckle, and Knuckle was terrifying. Teddy worked the bar at Lipsweet, a rough-edged strip club on the outskirts of Martinsburg, West Virginia. Knuckle was the bouncer there. Like all the bouncers at Lipsweet, Knuckle was big and strong and tough. Unlike the other bouncers at Lipsweet, Knuckle was also badly scarred, bizarre and scary. He was scary-looking enough that nobody tried anything while Knuckle was on duty. Nobody groped the dancers. Nobody tried to get free drinks. Nobody got loud or obnoxious. Nobody picked fights. So it was a quiet night at Lipsweet. It was hard to finger exactly what was scary about Knuckle. Part of it was obvious: his badly scarred face, with a thick cheek scar that gave him a permanent sinister smile visible from one angle, a burn scar that spilled like lava from his shoulder to the side of his face, a long beheading-type scar on his neck, a cut running from his sideburn to his forehead as though an eye was almost sliced open and a constellation of pinprick scars and marks all over his bare arms when he wore a sleeveless shirt. And aside from the scars, Knuckle glowered and stared with flatness, his face unreadable, his voice low and growling, without emotion, and a lot of what he said was just plain weird or incomprehensible. Nobody liked talking to him. One benefit of Knuckle working was that folks always left promptly at closing time. The other bouncers had to drag the drunks and the sticky-peepers away from the dancing ladies. There were usually a couple brawls — not serious, as anyone left by then was too drunk to fight effectively, but most nights, somebody refused to leave.
Not when Knuckle worked the door. He gave one glowery look at the last couple drunks, and they hightailed it outta there. The bar was empty before Teddy even put the pre-sliced limes away.
After that, the dancers and waitresses left one by one. Knuckle escorted each of them to their cars in the parking lot. In between that, he sat silently at the bar and downed a drink Teddy poured for him, while Teddy added up the day’s receipts and shut the register down for the night. He was always nervous on a Knuckle night, so Teddy was glad when Knuckle disappeared. Teddy finished with the receipts, totaled up the cash register and locked the booze cabinet. Then he poured himself a cheap drink of whiskey, soda water and the last of the apple juice — the only juice in an opened bottle besides cranberry juice, which Teddy didn’t drink this late because it would keep him up peeing. He was past the point in his life where he could drink cranberry juice late at night. Before leaving though, Teddy went in the back to do a final check — to make sure the dancers were all gone, that none of them had been attacked by a “boyfriend” in their dressing room, that no drunks were passed out in the bathroom, etc. Plus he was curious where Knuckle went. Lipsweet had a large back area, including dressing rooms, champagne rooms, a locker room and gym for the bouncers, a couple offices and storage spaces for the Gregarian family (who owned Lipsweet) and a locked warehouse that Teddy was pretty sure was full of guns. He didn’t ask about that door though. “Hello? Knuckle?” Teddy called out before the flickering hall light turned on. The bathroom was deserted. The dressing room was empty — the dancers had left it a pigsty, with clothes and makeup detritus strewn about — Mr. Gregarian was gonna get het up about that if he saw it, Teddy thought. But there were no signs of Knuckle. So Teddy ought to just go home. He was only supposed to check for drunks passed out by the toilets, and he’d done that. Now he could go home. Yet the more he thought about it, the more Teddy wondered about Knuckle. Why was he so weird? Why did he act like that? Where did he go? Knuckle had come in after escorting Caitlin Smiles to her car — she’d called him an “ugly ape”, and Teddy distinctly remembered Knuckle coming back in after that; he’d finished his drink at the bar, and then he’d come into the back as though to escort another dancer to the parking lot. But Caitlin was last to leave, so there were no more dancers. Knuckle was in the gym. Teddy scampered to hide next to the door into the gym so Knuckle wouldn’t see him. He didn’t know why; Teddy was allowed to be here. Knuckle was just off-putting and odd, and Teddy’s first reaction was to avoid talking to him. Teddy stayed beside the doorway into the tiny gym. Mystery solved, he thought. Knuckle was working out. That wasn’t so strange. Mr. Gregarian put the gym behind Lipsweet so the bouncers would use it. Knuckle was doing bicep curls. It was a little weird to work out at four o’clock in the morning, but that was hardly the weirdest thing about Knuckle. The “gym” was a glorified closet with a couple weight machines and a treadmill in it, and he was on the bowflex in the center of the room. His big fleshy arms were sturdy, dotted with sweat. On his left bicep was that burn scar whose edges stretched up onto his neck and cheek, and since he had taken off his button-down shirt to reveal a raggedy wifebeater, Teddy could see now how big it was. He had been very badly burned at some point, it seemed. There was a bandage on his side, near his back. It looked fresh — from tonight? — because it was still pale white and clean around the edges but soaked in crimson right above the wound. He must have struggled to put the bandage on, because it only partially covered the wound. Where it stretched onto his back, the bandage didn’t quite cover it. That made sense, because Knuckle was so muscular and thick-chested that he probably couldn’t reach that section of his lower back. “The dancers is all gone,” Knuckle said. His voice was grim, flat, emotionless, like a deflated balloon, but scratchy like his lungs were made from sandpaper. It sounded painful for him to speak, and his voice made Teddy’s hair stand on end. Why did he say that? Nobody else was in the room. It took Teddy a few seconds to realize Knuckle said that to him. Knuckle knew he was there. “The dancers is all gone,” Knuckle said again with stopping his bicep curls. “I made sure they left okay.” Teddy went into the gym-room then, since apparently hiding hadn’t worked. Teddy was just a bartender — he wasn’t in charge of ensuring Knuckle escorted the dancers to their cars, boyfriends or johns, but Knuckle had said that as though proving to Teddy he had done his job. It wasn’t even Knuckle’s job — Mr. Gregarian never said the bouncers had to do it. The other bouncers generally only did it if the girls said they were worried about a stalker. Teddy said, “Oh. Okay. Cool. Thanks, Knuckle. I just wanted to make sure no one was in the backrooms. I gotta lock up.” “Yes.” Knuckle kept doing bicep curls. The bandage came unstuck from his bare side, which was slick with sweat. He didn’t seem to clock it. The bandage dangled from his muscular back. What on earth did “yes” mean? Teddy hadn’t asked a question. See, this is why, Knuckle, everyone thinks you’re creepy. Teddy couldn’t tear his eyes away from the thick scar bisecting his neck. Did Knuckle survive getting his throat slit? “I, uh… Okay. You have your key, right? So you can leave-“ “Yes.” There was a long pause. Teddy normally liked the bouncers and their muscles. He often rubbed their shoulders when they were done with their shift. But not Knuckle. Not that Knuckle didn’t have nice muscles. Mr. Gregarian only hired large men with powerful bodies as bouncers. Knuckle was a muscle-hound and tough enough to have done years in prison. His shoulders were as thick as volleyballs. A weak sigh came from Teddy’s chest. “Let me help you with that bandage. What happened?” Teddy said. He felt bad about Knuckle apparently unable to take care of his own injury. Teddy inhaled the gloriously zesty scent of Knuckle’s workout sweat. “A knife.” What about the knife, Knuckle? Did it come alive and stab you? Did you fall on it? Did Freddie Krueger attack you in your dreams last night? But Teddy didn’t ask those questions. He went back to the bar to get a first aid kit. When he returned to the gym, Knuckle was still weight-lifting, like he didn’t think Teddy was going to come back to help. “Who stabbed you? When?” Teddy asked as he disinfected the cut. It didn’t look like Knuckle had cleaned it. He had just slapped a bandage halfway on the wound. Why? What on earth was the point of that? Dried blood had trickled down the side of his back and stained his workout shorts, which looked to be decades old — the kind of basketball shorts they wore when professional basketball players were mostly white. The shorts were too short by modern standards. Knuckle looked ridiculous in them. And now, they were blood-stained. Knuckle had cleaned off the blood on his skin, so he knew the shorts were bloody. Why hadn’t he changed them? And this is why the dancers think you’re a creep, Teddy thought but didn’t say. You’ve been working this whole shift, presumably, wearing blood-stained shorts. He had to admit the scent of Knuckle’s sweat made his dick twitch. He didn’t mind the extensive burn scar on his shoulder, neck and cheek either. It wasn’t classically handsome, of course, but it gave him a certain simmering intensity that Teddy found arousing. “The man with the whiskey stabbed me,” Knuckle said, his voice rugged with rasps. “That man who wanted Jim Beam tonight was… Wait, tonight? You got stabbed tonight?” Teddy’s hands stopped when they gripped his shoulder, which was firm like rock. His skin thrummed and buzzed beneath Teddy’s touch. “Yes.” “Why didn’t you say? Why didn’t you call the police? That man — wait, you mean the man in the suit? The one who raised a fuss about me being out of Jim Beam and-“ “Yes.” “And then came back to the bar and settled on vodka?” “I dunno what he drank after.” “Knuckle…” Teddy sighed. That man had been drinking at the bar right in front of Teddy. Teddy had no idea he had just stabbed the bouncer. He simply filled the man’s orders. The man went into the champagne room with Caitlyn Smiles! “That man could have been waiting in the parking lot with the knife for you to get off work! That’s dangerous, Knuckle-“ “I’s stayin’ here. In the backroom. Not leaving through the parking lot.” That flat murder-hobo voice made Teddy’s spine quake. Knuckle was still doing bicep curls, having not missed a beat. Knuckle’s claim didn’t solve the problem Teddy had pointed out. At all. The man still had a knife in the bar all night. He could have been waiting for Knuckle in the parking lot. If Knuckle didn’t come, he could have stabbed one of the girls. Or Teddy. He could have been too drunk to know who he was stabbing. He could have had a gun as well. He could have raped Caitlyn in the champagne room. Somebody else could have taken the knife off him when he got drunk. He could have gotten furious when Teddy cut him off for being too drunk. He could have stabbed another customer for looking at Caitlyn. He hadn’t been banned from Lipsweet! He could be back tomorrow with a bigger knife! But Knuckle had apparently not told anyone he was stabbed. He just half-bandaged-up and resumed bouncering. He hadn’t even taken a break tonight — had he bandaged himself standing at the door? He must have guessed what Teddy was thinking because Knuckle said, “Mistuh Gregarian don’t like it when the cops come.” “He doesn’t like it — that doesn’t apply if you’ve been stabbed, Knuckle,” Teddy said. “You could at least kick the guy out.” Teddy’s hand lingered on Knuckle’s belly, next to the stab-wound from tonight. There was an old puckering circular scar there. “Is that an old stab-wound?” “That’s a gunshot.” “You poor baby…” Teddy said, more out of a desire to suck up to the scarfaced weirdo than because he really pitied him. Knuckle was too intimidating to arouse much sympathy. He patted Knuckle on the biceps in lieu of hugging him — Teddy didn’t know if he avoided hugging Knuckle because Knuckle seemed like he might not like it or if Teddy was too intimidated by him. Knuckle was still doing bicep curls too, so it would be awkward to hug him. But the dancers did treat him badly. They treated all the bouncers like shit — the dancers mostly had high-class boyfriends who were bankers, coke dealers, heirs, etc. The bouncers were a bunch of ex-cons, boxers and freaks like Knuckle. The dancers treated the bouncers like insolent ponies. And Knuckle wasn’t a jerk like some of the bouncers, like Davon, a prettyboy who seemed nice but never wanted to get his face mussed up and had a side-hustle as a pimp. Teddy didn’t like him. “Who’s Emma?” Teddy asked as he washed dried blood off Knuckle’s back. EMMA was tattooed on his nape in small Gothic lettering. “She was a girl. I loved her. That was a long time ago,” he said, and for the first time since Teddy had known him, there was a trace of emotion in his voice. “That was before I looked like this.” “Oh, Knuckle… Knuckle, I’m sorry — did she…?-“ “She married someone else,” he said. Teddy hadn’t meant to start rubbing Knuckle’s shoulders and chest like he did with the other bouncers, but as Knuckle talked, that was what he did. Knuckle was tall and thick-bodied, and Teddy had to strain to reach around his thick barrel chest. His pecs flexed, and Teddy found himself hugging Knuckle’s sweat-dappled chest from behind. “I worked for a traveling carnival when I met her,” Knuckle said. “She had a nice boyfriend even then.” “You were a carnie?” Knuckle nodded. “I ran the strength-meter, the one with the hammer.” He paused. “I miss her.” He sounded like he was getting drunk now, his words a little sloshy, and he swayed even though he simply sat on the edge of the bowflex. His dick twitched in his shorts, and Teddy was glad to see it was huge. He stroked it through the fabric. He was about to ask if Knuckle wanted to be jacked off, but before he could, Knuckle said, “Yes.” There was no need to ask which question he was answering. In moments, Teddy had Knuckle’s hot, foot-long cock in hand and stroked it slowly. It was even bigger than the other bouncers, he thought. He spat on his hand, then Knuckle grabbed him by the wrist, hocked up a thick loogey of snot and put it back. Well, that was weird, Teddy thought, but slimy and soft and warm, and he nuzzled the sweaty meat of Knuckle’s scarred shoulder as his hand wrapped around Knuckle’s dick again. The burn-scar was partially orange down the back, and then green towards the spine, the shape distended because it used to be a tattoo — maybe a dragon breathing fire? Teddy didn’t ask because Knuckle leaned his head back, then chugged the last of the liquor in the drink Teddy gave him. He took his flask out from the pocket of the shorts he had pulled down to bare his cock. He guzzled the rest of that liquor too, as both of Teddy’s hands brought him to orgasm. A huge wad of cum sprayed over Knuckle’s chest. He moaned — a creaky, flat moan like a malfunctioning grandfather clock — and Teddy licked a few drops up where they landed on his shoulders. Knuckle groaned like he was either sleepy or drunk or both. He grunted and burped, the sound cavernous to Teddy because he was still behind him on the bowflex. Knuckle pushed back to signal Teddy to leave. His jizz dripped over his chest muscles. Some had gotten all the way up to his chin and lower lip, but Knuckle ignored it. “I’ll pass out here,” Knuckle said. He glanced up at Teddy, his soulful eyes peering into him. His words lumbered out like a distant volcano. “Thank you, Teddy. For being nice.” “You’re welcome,” Teddy said. Knuckle was already half-asleep, it seemed. He wasn’t going to wipe the jizz up off his chest or put his dick away. Teddy found a towel in one corner of the gym. “You can nut on me. Hump my dick, or my chest if you want. Or my mouth when I pass out,” Knuckle said. He shrugged and closed his eyes. “Not when I’m awake.” “Really?” Teddy furrowed his brow. He often jacked off with the bouncers. They sometimes let him frot their dicks or hump their muscles, as they worked out or drank their post-shift liquor. But not when they were passed out. And not their mouths. “Knuckle?” Teddy said softly, his hands rubbing Knuckle’s shoulders lightly. He said it a few more times, then poked Knuckle’s scarred cheek to see if he was awake. He was out cold. Teddy giggled and touched his scarred face again, gasping like he was getting away with something. Knuckle’s jizz clung to his chin. Teddy leaned in and sucked it up. The taste was salty and bracing, and when Knuckle didn’t react, Teddy did it again. Then he kissed a trail up Knuckle’s face. Teddy took out his own dick and frotted it with Knuckle’s giant limp member for a few minutes, until he was sure that Knuckle was fully unconscious. Knuckle snored as Teddy mounted the bench and rubbed his dick on Knuckle’s chest. He had massive pecs the kind only men in movies had, Teddy thought with a grin. He leaked precum all over those pecs. He found that, when his balls dragged over a nipple, both pecs twitched. He did it again and again, massaging Knuckle’s scarred shoulders. Then he slipped his dick in Knuckle’s mouth. A hoarse choke came from his throat, but if he was awake, he gave no sign. His mouth was warm and wet, and the sensation sent a shiver up Teddy’s spine. He moved his dick in and out, rubbing it over Knuckle’s tongue. He twitched a couple times but otherwise didn’t respond. Teddy pushed all the way in, until his balls slapped against Knuckle’s chin. An intense orgasm overwhelmed Teddy, who moaned out loud and gripped Knuckle’s head. Cum sprayed all over Knuckle’s chin, mouth and neck, but Teddy stuck it back in his mouth, in time to fill it up to overflowing. A retch and a shake came from Knuckle’s body, but he spat up all that cum, as Teddy’s dick still jizzed, and moistly sputtered, but he didn’t wake up. His big square face was coated in creamy white cum. “Thanks, Knuckle,” Teddy said softly, still not wanting to wake him up. Teddy dismounted him and pulled up his pants. He was about to leave, but he saw Knuckle sitting there with his pants down, dick out, face and chest dripping with cum. It seemed undignified, Teddy thought. He wiped off Knuckle’s dick, face and chest, then put his dick away and did his fly back up. He couldn’t put a shirt back on without lifting Knuckle’s giant chest up — an unrealistic proposition — so Teddy left him like that, snoring soundly. “Have a good night, Knuckle,” was all he said before walking out.
Knuckle is a badly scarred and bizarre bouncer at a rough and tumble nightclub, so everyone treats him like a freak. But when the bartender Teddy treats him nicely for once, Teddy’s in for the ride of a lifetime!
That’s because Knuckle has a knack for setting up Teddy in man-on-man encounters that Teddy could never manage on his own.
But can Teddy handle all the throbbing manhood Knuckle’s ready to throw at him?
