Snakeskin Boots, Shogi and a Pagoda Tower

[unscratchedfoot]

I finally finished my story after a year of reworking it and countless hours. Hopefully it will be both interesting and educational for you to read. It's about a big issue America is facing these days although its significance is dwarfed by terrorism, Iraq and other problems. The intent of this story is to provide a likely prediction on how this situation may be handled by America. Please note that this piece was written from a neutral point of view with no political biases and the characters are modeled to behave exactly as they would in these situations were they to occur in reality.

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Snakeskin Boots, Shogi and a Pagoda Tower





The President Has Lunch


After throwing out United Nations inspectors years ago, North Korea has officially declared that it is developing nuclear weapons. It has ignored the United States' repeated requests for them to dismantle their nuclear program despite being offered the carrot promised in the form of security assurances, the normalization of relations and economic assistance.

Kim Jong-il's regime, notorious for imposing both poverty and famine upon its own people, is estimated to currently have 1 or 2 ready to fire missile-mounted nuclear warheads with medium intercontinental range. In addition, from their stock of 8000 nuclear fuel rods, they could make or may already possess from 6 to 8 more nuclear bombs from the extracted weapons-grade plutonium. Added to this is their ambitious missile technology development which may soon increase their current range over the area of southeast Asia to as far away as Los Angeles. The consequences of ignoring this grave potential could be catastrophic, especially if they decide to sell nukes to other rogue nations.

It seems that North Korea is intending to use the threat of nukes to ensure the survivability of its Stalinist regime as well as gain huge amounts of donated food aid as a form of appeasement from their neighbors. May God forbid that they ever actually use one of these terrible weapons of mass destruction on another nation.

President Bush's pen stopped here for a moment while he pondered the next thing to write. There was a brief knock at the door and Secretary of State Colin Powell came in.

"You coming for lunch? I'm thinking of going out today for a change from the usual cafeteria menu. I'm pretty hungry after a long meeting on economic development in Iraq." said Powell.

"Yeah, why not? I sure could use a break from writing this speech." replied Bush.

"What's that about?"

"It's for the U.N. about the North Korean nuclear situation. Say, what do you feel like having?"

"I'm thinking of going out for some geniune Chinese cuisine. You up for it?" asked Powell.

"Sounds good. How about Chenney?"

"Ah, he's hooked on those new beefsteaks the cafeteria's been cooking up lately. They're good, but everyday is a bit much. Let's go. The limousine's waiting."

They made their way outside to the front of the White House and got in the long dark limo with the 2 little American flags on each corner of the front hood. Inside it felt roomy with only the 2 of them and the driver. Normally a group of bodyguards would accompany the President and his aides along with an ambulance carrying matching blood types to be used in the case of an emergency such as an assassination attempt, but Bush and Powell were pretty lax about security, preferring to go it alone with just a driver. The White House security team had never had it so easy.

After explaining to the driver what they wanted he took them into the seedy Chinatown area of Washington where the drug addicts and pushers mixed in with throngs of unemployed filled the sidewalk, standing on cigarette butts and various types of bodily fluid covering most of the cracked cement walkway. Added to this were many lower class Chinese ex-patriots taking advantage of the cheap fresh produce sold in this part of town.

The limo took a right off a main drag into a narrow backstreet and the driver expertly guided the big car between rusty old vans, harleys and sometimes operational Japanese imports of decades before. It pulled up to a grundgy little Chinese joint with a flickering neon sign reading 'Fu King Palace'. It was in such a state of disrepair that it was hard to tell if they were looking at the front or back of the building.

"Thanks Rob. We'll call you when we're ready to be taken back." said Bush as they got out of the limo and made their way into the joint. Powell opened the door of the restaurant very gently because it looked ready to fall off its hinges.

Inside, all of the tables were taken with Chinese people having lunch so they sat on stools at the far right side of the counter next to the open kitchen. A sweaty, thin Asian man with a greasy face and a chef's uniform that was once white was slaving away in the kitchen. Next to him was a barrel-sized container of MSG from which he spooned copious amounts of the white crystals onto each dish he was frying. While waiting to be served, Colin and Bush watched a well-fed cockroach make his way across the counter with his antennaes bobbing up and down.

Then a door next to the kitchen opened to reveal a tiny toilet room with dark stained porcelain and out came a chef looking much like the first one in the kitchen except that this one was quite fat. Along with him came an exceedingly foul odor that spread all over the restaurant to make sure everyone knew for sure what kind of business he had been up to. The customers didn't seem to mind though, most probably because they were regulars of the Fu King restaurant and were used to it.

The fat chef clapped his hands together while walking into the kitchen. No need to wash one's hands when a simple clap will do, right? He spotted Bush and Powell and with a big smile said, "Hello, can I help you?"

Bush seemed quite relaxed with the atmosphere and said, "I'd like some lunch. I don't know... some chow mein or something."

"Okay, today special Miao Miao Mix - good taste!"

"Sure."

"Make that two." said Powell, not looking so hungry anymore.

While the chefs chopped, cooked and sweated away, Bush and Powell chatted about how they were going to spend their next days off. After a few minutes, two oval-shaped plates stockpiled with sizzling vegetables and meat in glistening black bean sauce were placed infront of them.

While this was going on, two Asian men in their 30's came in the restaurant, standing out badly with their pristine outfits which looked they'd just been bought off the shelf of a Gucci store moments before, along with gelled and meticulously styled hairdos. They were walking fast and businesslike and one was carrying a briefcase.

They came to the counter by the kitchen and gestured to the cooks to come over. "Hey!" said one who was wearing a black shirt, white pants and a black leather belt to match with a face flatter than the prairies. His eyes were so narrow that it was a wonder that he could see anything at all. The other was wearing a black fall jacket, casual grey shirt, matching black pants with black shades trying to look cool. He had a bulky nose which reminded Bush of an overripe papaya.

Both of the cooks stopped what they were doing and slowly walked over to the two fashionable gentlemen. By the unhappy looks on their faces, it was obvious that this was not the first time they had met.

"So Chu Dung, have you considered our proposal?" asked the man with the briefcase in a strict, cold voice.

The thinner cook answered, "We say you Mr. Choi, we no want your dog meat. Now go!"

Choi sighed and said, "We are trying to be reasonable with you Dung, why can't you just cooperate and avoid causing any... problems."

"Only problem is you! Now go! No dog meat here!"

"You do recall what happened to Sun Kwak's restaurant just a block away don't you? Coincidentally, he also had refused to buy our dog meat just days before the fire."

"You take threat and leave! Now!"

"What is wrong with you anyways? Dog meat is tasty and its healthy to feed to your loyal customers. Low fat and high protein."

Then came a voice from behind, "I'll feed you to the dogs if you don't mosey on outta here."

Mr. Choi and his partner spun around to see who had spoken the threat. They saw Bush busy scarfing down his meal, not even bothering to look back at them.

"Excuse me?" asked Mr. Choi.

In between mouthfuls, Bush answered while loading another spoonful, "You're barking up the wrong tree, pal. I suggest you move along and try selling your wares someplace else."

The two Asians walked with heads held high and an arrogant stride over to Bush and Powell. "Well well well, and look who we have here." It was just rhetoric considering the eyes of everyone in the restaurant were already glued to the developing situation.

Mr. Choi turned around and addressed the rest of the restaurant. "So tell me someone, what do crabs and Kim Jong-il have in common?"

Blank, curious stares were the only answer he got so he continued, "They both irritate bush."

The restaurant was stone cold quiet for just a moment and then gradually a nervous chuckle started and developed into full-fledged laughter among all the customers, including the dog meat salesmen.

Once the laughter had died down, Mr. Choi gestured towards Powell while looking around at everyone and said, "And what else do we have here? Look at that everyone. Ewww... it's the world's biggest bowell movement! BAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

The restaurant exploded with laughter. Even the cooks were doubled over crying with laughter. The only people not laughing were Bush and Powell themselves. The expression on Powell's face reminded Bush of how his favourite bull, named B-52, looked just before he charged fullbore on an enemy, be it an anti-war protester or a democratic supporter. Bush was particularly concerned with how Powell's eyes were going back and forth from the dog meat salesmen to the cooks. Powell was normally quite a patient man, so Bush knew that Mr. Choi had really hurt him with the insult, deep down inside.

Then all the laughter stopped with the suddenness of a bird flying into a window it didn't know existed. And for good reason. Mr. Choi had placed the briefcase on the counter, opened it and taken out a Mac-11 submachinegun. His partner, likewise, had produced a pistol from his jacket. "Ahhh, that was fun, but like they say... all good things must come to an end." Mr. Choi spoke in a tone much like a mother advising her pre-school child.

For the first time since the salesmen had come in, Bush had stopped eating and began to look at them with extreme wariness. Mouthing-off never had much effect on him but guns were serious business to a born and bred Texan. Pulling a gun before a Texan in public was no less serious than a samurai in ancient Japan drawing a katana before an enemy.

"I'll give you one and only one chance to put those guns away before you get yourselves into some very deep trouble." warned Bush.

"Heh, gonna talk tough now are you, Mr. President? Where are all your big strong body guards now, huh? We're ready when you are, Mr. Tough Guy."

"Tell you what. I'm gonna finish off my Meow Meow Mix and then I'll meet you out back.. or front and we can settle this business." Bush reflected for a moment on what he had just said and then added, "On second thoughts, let's head out right now and get things done."

"That's how I like to do business." Said Mr. Choi with a sadistic grin and motioned with the point of his machinegun for Bush to move along towards the door. Bush and Powell both got up but Bush put his hand on his friend's shoulder and guided him back down into his chair. "Colin, these chumps got guns and this could get messy. I don't want you getting hurt." Powells eyes were still going back and forth from the thugs to the cooks, lusting to inflict some serious hurt. But Bush reassured him, "Don't worry bud, in the end everything's gonna come out in the wash. I promise." That said, Powell knew there could be no doubt. Bush wouldn't talk like that if he didn't mean it and he wasn't one to break his promises, especially in matters of pugilism.

Bush walked out with Mr. Choi and his machinegun infront with the second pistol-packing thug behind him. They kept the business ends of their hardware pointed at the president at all times. Even dog meat salesmen knew better than to turn their backs on a Texan ruffneck. They didn't bother to close the door.

Once outside next to the cracked plaster wall of the Fu King restaurant, Mr. Choi still stood infront of Bush and his partner behind him both still with their guns pointed at him. This is not the kind of situation most presidents want to be in, but in spite of it all, Bush looked quite calm and confident. His eyes narrowed and never looked away from the Mac-11.

"You ready to die Mr. President?" asked Mr. Choi.

"Son, you really have no idea what you're getting yourself into."

Inside the restaurant, the fat cook said to Chu Dung, (*translated from Chinese*), "This is gonna be good. I'm gonna head on out and watch the fight."

Dung replied, "Yeah, me too."

While this was happening, a car had pulled into the parking lot and two Chinese businessmen were getting out. They were too busy talking to each other to notice the standoff occurring by the restaurant entrance.

And just a little ways down the narrow street, a taxi was approaching at high speed. Inside, the driver, a cheerful Sikh with a huge turban and a very heavy punjabi accent was chatting with a young woman who was nervous about the route being taken. "Oooo, don't worry at all. I know these streets so beddy beddy well. I take you there beddy fast and you not pay so much." He gave her a gleeful smile.

The taxi passed the Fu King Palace just in time to see the tense meeting going on. The taxi driver sang out, "Ah, it is my beddy beddy good friend Mr. Bush! And I see he is in a spot of trouble so I give him some help." Without slowing the car down a bit, he wrestled a revolver out of his pants and pointed it out the window. Unfortunately, a homeless bum pushing a supermarket buggy full of dirty bags was in the middle of the street and the taxi driver swerved around him just as he was firing 3 shots blindly over his left shoulder.

"I hope that can help him some."

"You are a friend of the president?" asked the woman, shaken by the firing.

"Yes, beddy good friend! I gave him a ride last Christmas and Mr. Bush strangled me with my own turban but he is so kind and friendly so now we are good friends!"

"He strangled you with your turban? Why?"

"Well, I did a baddy and overcharged him on the fare. You see it was Christmas Day and..."

Back at the restaurant the effects of the shots did not go unnoticed. The first two wild shots took out both the Chinese businessmen getting out of the car and the third shot just missed Bush's face by a hair and snapped into the wall next to him spraying powdered plaster into his eyes. Bush was temporarily blinded and held his eyes in pain.

Bush knew this was not a good development. Now he was blinded while hostile men were pointing guns at him with two innocent bystanders lying shot in the parking lot. But he also knew that the thugs would still be looking at the taxi from where the shots had just come. He lashed out with a good strong kick infront of him, hoping to neutralize Mr. Choi. But again, bad luck struck. For at that exact moment, the fat chef was just coming through the door and took the full impact of Bush's kick in his ribs. A crack could be heard and the chef was knocked over, bellowing in pain and surprise. He fell sideways into Mr. Choi who instinctively fired a burst from his machinegun. The chef's body first connected with the side of the gun, knocking its aim into the wall. The burst of lead ricocheted off the wall next to Bush and a scream could be heard from the second thug behind him.

Not wasting a moment of advantage, Bush decided a second kick just might finish off Mr. Choi so he lashed out again and connected beautifully with Chu Dung's ribcage this time as it was his turn to come through the door. There was a second crack and Dung hooted in agony. While clutching his bony torso, he fell on top of Choi and the two chefs formed a dogpile over the thug, unintentional of course. The fat chef's wounded middle rolled over the metal sights on the Mac-11 so he swung his elbow down to take his weight off it. Instead of meeting the ground, his elbow hammered Choi right between the eyes and knocked him out cold.

The fight was over. The chefs, still holding their sides and slightly bent over, grabbed the guns and then started to search the thugs for their wallets.

Bush had regained his eyesight and didn't approve of what he saw, "You just leave those wallets where they are for the police. They're gonna need to ID these two hooligans."

"We just want cash! We leave ID."

"No. Get inside. I smell something burning." So the 3 of them headed inside, leaving their victims unlooted. The food left cooking was burnt so bad that no amount of MSG could save it now.

Upon seeing Bush safe and sound, Powell breathed deeply with relief and he was even more happy when the chefs who had laughed at him came in bent over and moaning from the kicks they had received from Bush. Just as promised, everything had come out in the wash.

[unscratchedfoot]

The Mission

All the customers in the restaurant were chattering in Chinese with a few yells thrown in. Bush and Powell couldn't understand them but it was easy to tell that they were delighted that the bad guys had gotten their just desserts.

"Wow, you so tough guy!" Chu Dung was jubilant despite the kick he had taken. "You work out?" Chu moved his hands around mimicking boxing and pushing weights.

"Yeah, Arnold's got me on a program. Good stuff." answered Bush. "Anyways, we better leave before security overruns this place."

"No, no! You no go yet!" Chu ran between Bush and the door in a panic. "We need your help. Please!"

"Well, what can I do for my new friends?" They could hear the sounds of sirens coming screaming into the parking lot outside.

"The dogmeat salesmen keep coming, even you beat them up. I tell you dog meat base. There is big boss. You go kick butt! No?"

"Okay, but you better tell me before all those secret service agents come busting in here trying to protect me."

"You go Hong Kong. My friend there knows their secret hideout. I give you map to her store. She has kung fu equipment shop. Here take!" Chu held out a rolled up piece of paper complete with various yellow and brown stains on it. Bush snatched it from him and barely got it inside his jacket pocket before the security men came running in.

"Mr. President, are you okay? We heard there was gunfire. Do you require medical assitance?" The pack of stressing Armani clad, over eager men surrounded Bush and Powell in a flurry of flapping suit jackets wafting in cologne.

"Easy boys. Everyone here is okay. We just need a lift back to the White House."

More men came running in while colliding with each other trying to be first. This time it was a herd of Deomocrats, hoping to either see a bit of the action or to find some political dirt they could use to promote themselves through gossip and blackmail.

The Democrats were quick to pass judgement on the joint. "What a pig stye. So this is where Dubya likes to hang out... Hey check out the chefs. It looks like a dog puked all over them... You can't step in any direction without crushing a roach."

"Well well, if it isn't Dubya as usual resorting to fistcuffs instead of intelligent discussion to handle his problems." Democratic leader John Kerry sneered. "What kind of example are you setting for the public with this kind of barbaric activity? Violence solves everything? Of course you'll be making a televised public apology for this." John paused and looked at Bush like a hungry vulture. "Got nothing to say do you? Well, I guess if you're gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough, ain't that right Mr. President." The other senators guffawed and heehawed their approval of the insult.


Kerry jeers at Bush

"John..." said Bush in the same tone a school principle uses to address a misbehaving kid sent to his office for punishment.

"What?"

"You're gonna be looking pretty dumb walking into Congress on two broken legs."

"Pah! Whatever." Out the door he went with the other senators shuffling along behind him. Bush and Powell went outside to the waiting presidential limousine, passing droves of police who were processing the victims of the battle and rough handling the surviving dogmeat salesman into a paddy wagon.


Bush defends his actions at the Fu King Palace to Congress members



Two weeks later on Air Force One heading to Hong Kong...

Colin really wanted to come. It'd be nice having his friendship and support on this rather odd mission, but with the insecurity in Iraq, I need people like him and Chenney who I can trust to hold the fort while I'm gone. There's no way to know how long this trip'll take. Had to rearrange my whole itinerary to accomodate it, quite upsetting my staff and Congress. As for what's waiting for me in Hong Kong, it's exciting; I don't know if I'm going to win or not. I think I am. And if not, that's just the way it goes.

Bush was alone in his airborne office. There were many secret service agents on the plane as well as reporters hoping for an onboard interview, but Bush wanted to be alone to relax. He reclined back in his leather chair and clicked the remote to turn on the wide screen TV on the wall.

"Good evening everyone. This is CNN news with Lynne Russell. In the headlines tonight is the top secret mission of President Bush who is now heading to Hong Kong as I speak to go and, in his own words, 'put the boots to a bunch of yellow bellied dogmeat pushing chumps'. This is in follow-up to the heroic stand he took against two gun-toting thugs who were trying to force a local Chinese restaurant to buy their dog meat."

"Reactions to the President's outlandish one man mission to the capital of kung fu are mixed. Rallies both for and against it continue daily at the Washington Monument and infront of the White House. It's been reported that the President by himself is planning to take on a wealthy and elusive Hong Kong syndicate boss who surrounds himself with bodyguards who are all high ranking martial artists. Tonight in Washington D.C. a mass outdoor prayer meeting has been organized by the Catholic church in support of Bush's mission. They say all well-wishers are welcome to attend." Behind Lynne was a video of yelling protesters, one of whom was holding a cheesy sign which said 'In Hong Kong: Bush --> Mush'.

"In related news, North Korea issued a statement on the Fu King restaurant fight in which Kim Jong-il warned that Bush's 'viscious, unprovoked attack against innocent North Korean citizens living in America is another step the American government has taken towards intiating a full-scale invasion of the North Korean homeland. ' The Bush Administration shrugged it off as baseless rhetoric."

Lynne paused while a new picture came on the screen of the fat chef who had smelled up the restaurant. "One of the chefs involved in the fight has made a two million dollar contract with a publishing company to write a book titled 'Rumble at the Fu King Palace'..."

Bush's concentration was broken by his cell phone ringing. Unlike on normal airlines, Air Force One was designed to handle phone calls from within it without any electrical disturbances to the aircraft itself.

"Hi, Dubya here."

"Yo, my man, do I have the offer of a lifetime for you!" Bush recognized the hyper voice of Don King, the ex-manager of Mike Tyson who was famous for his spiked-up grey hair and shady deals. "Al Gore has put out a challenge for you: a Madison Square Gardens steel cage match! You'll make way more money from this one fight than you will from your whole term as president!"

"I appreciate the offer but I'm already booked..."

"This is it!" Don stepped up the pressure. "Your chance here and now to forever stamp out all those rumours that you stole the election. Prove them you got the goods to beat Gore and be done with it! Just give me a time and place so I can bring you the contract to sign. I can meet you in Hong Kong. Where're ya gonna be at?"

"Don, you're the one who belongs in a steel cage." Bush shut off the phone and then remembered an important call he had been meaning to make to his taxi driver friend and dialed.

"Geet is that you? Well, I just want to thank you for how you helped me out back there at that Chinese restaurant... Maybe next Christmas you can give me another ride.. and be careful what you charge me." Geet laughed in appreciation.

In the background, just before he hung up, brakes screeched, horns blared and someone yelled, "#%$@ing towelhead!! I'll teach you some manners!"

It sounds like Geet's up to his old tricks. Just gotta hope the detectives don't figure out who did that drive-by shooting or I'll have to use my right of presidential pardon to bail poor Geet out of jail. I doubt they will though; Chinatown crimes don't get much priority.

Back to watching the news, there were some commentators speculating about what Bush might be up against in Hong Kong and what his odds were. Losing interest fast in the low odds they were forecasting, he switched to watching a DVD of the Ultimate Fighting Championship to get into the right kind of mood for what was coming up.



Air Force One continued on towards a sumptuous swirl of orange, red and pink painted by the setting sun in the Asian sky. Towards what? Nobody really knew for sure. But rumours fly fast and CNN was watched worldwide so Bush's mission was hardly unknown to those he sought. The defenders had the advantage of numbers and roughly knew what was coming, while the attacker had nothing but snakeskin boots and attitude to boot. Across the ocean, a flurry of preparations were underway. Preparations designed to stop the lone crusader cold in his tracks and make sure the world would know the supreme himulation of his failure.

[unscratchedfoot]

The Tale of Wei Mai Shu



The taxi headed into the poor area of Hong Kong. At least according to the map that's where the martial arts shop was. The taxi driver let him off next to a narrow street or back alley, it was hard to tell which, saying that he would have to walk the rest of the way because it was too dangerous for him to drive down the narrow pathways.

Why dangerous? wondered Bush. He paid the driver and walked down the path between what seemed to be unending 2-story housing. Each residence seemed to be overpacked with people and their belongings and it was true that a bathroom would double as a dining room and a living room as a bedroom. The smell of cooking food filled the air, mostly from those who did their cooking on the flat rooftops which also served as one more floor to the buildings.

On the way, Bush passed a plump woman with braided hair and bright colored clothes sitting on the concrete with a small flock of 6 hens infront of her. "I can tell your fortune mister." she said.

"Ah why not?" agreed Bush and he paid her the fee.

The woman placed some small objects like a shell, a pebble, a dice and a bean on the ground. The hens kicked the objects around a bit, clucked a couple of times and then the woman said, "There will be fights ahead for you."

"No kidding, anyone could predict that about me. How about some details." said Bush.

The hens clucked again and the woman said, "You will be in a shop very soon and..." One of the hens made a kind of squawk. "... there will be a fight. You are one of the participants."

"But I'm just supposed to get information at the shop, not fight there."

"The hens have spoken." came the gypsy's blunt answer.

"So how do the fights go? Do I win or what happens?" asked Bush.

The woman took each hen by the neck and wiggled their heads around a little working the flock into a clucking and squawking frenzy. After listening to this 'noise' for a about minute she turned to Bush and said, "You will be attacked twice by people you consider to be good friends. And... dear me... before the coming of dawn you will be kicked many times, punched, thrown about like a second hand Raggedy Anne, knocked out, beaten with a big stick..."

"Alright I get the idea." interrupted Bush.

"But there's more..."

"No, its enough already. You have yourself a good day okay?" Bush started walking away.

"I will but you sure won't."

Not caring too much about what he had just been told, Bush headed on. He had to stop and ask for directions perhaps a dozen times before he finally came to an open square area, some kind of intersection between the narrow streets, and saw the walkway between some buildings which the map said lead to the shop. Some kids were playing in the square, and on the other side of the intersection, two rather fat, rolly polly round people, obviously a married couple, peered over the balcony of their rooftop with the same level of warmth they might have watching a dog pee on their futons hanging from the first floor windows. Smoke from their rooftop barbeque spiralled up from behind them.

"Well say hello to Mr. and Mrs. Humpty Dumpty." mused Bush. The comment did little to improve the moods of the round couple who responded with silence. "See ya around then." He nodded at them and then headed down the corridor towards the shop while the couple continued staring at him with deep suspicion.

Folks around here sure aren't too friendly.


The walkway with the shop at the end of it.

The outside of the building didn't look much like a shop, but once inside he had no doubt about what it was. Diplays of kung-fu and ninja weapons and vitamin supplements filled the small store. In the back there were racks of karate and kendo uniforms next to all types of punching and kicking bags. Bush was just looking around at the posters of Bruce Lee on the wall when a spunky Chinese girl in her 20's with a long black pony tail popped up from behind the front counter.

"Hello, can I help you with something?" she said, looking uneasy.

"Uh yeah, I'm kinduv looking for someone named..." Bush tried to wipe some dried black bean sauce off the name on the map. "Uxeeooy mayi?"

"Yes, I'm Xiu Mei. How did you know about my place?"

"A chap in Washington named Chu Dung told me to come here."

Xiu gasped and put her hands over her mouth. "You're the one he said he sent? No, no way! There must be some mistake!"

"What are you talking about?"

"He wants you to go fight the dog meat boss?"

"Yeah that's right. So what?"

"They so tough, I tell you! We need a champion like Bruce Lee to go fight. Not some... some..." Xiu looked down with incredulous eyes at Bush's leather jacket, jeans and snakeskin boots and said, "...cowboy."

"Hey now, I cleared out a restaurant full of dangerous, meat peddling gunmen just the other day." replied Bush.

"What did you do, pull the fire alarm switch? Or maybe you threatened them with an air strike." came a soft yet exceedingly confident voice from the shop entrance. Bush turned and saw the martial arts legend himself, Steven Seagal, filling the doorway with his 6 foot 4 inch (190cm) frame dressed in his customary long black leather jacket, black pants and black shirt. The ex-CIA aikido master known for his deadly submission holds and limb-busting techniques, founded a popular martial arts school in Japan and is famous for making scores of high body count action flicks.


Steven Seagal in a scene from his movie 'Fire Down Below'

"I'll switch you off pal." replied Bush.

"First you better make sure that air strike's ready to scramble." retorted Seagal with a smile and a nod. "So why is it I have the pleasure of being threatened by the President of the United States in this of all places?" Steven paused while Xiu finally realized who Bush was and gasped again. "While I'm glad to see you and all, I'm curious about how you managed to find this place since its not known to the public and only used by high-ranking martial artists and movie producers. CIA sniffers?"

"I dusted a couple of Korean gunmen in a Washington Chinese restaurant..."

"The Fu King Palace?" interrupted Seagal.

"Yeah, you know the place?"

"How could I ever forget a name like that? So Chu Dung, the only Asian restaurant owner I know of in Washington who's resisting the dog dealers, wants you to take out Kim Jong-il. I can't believe you agreed to that.'

"Huh? Wait a sec." Bush was astonished at hearing the name of the 'loathsome' North Korean leader.

"Dung's been having problems with the dog meat salesmen and he wanted me to help him out too but I turned him down." said Seagal. "It's just too dangerous going into that tower to fight Kim's henchmen. Let me guess, you didn't know Kim's in charge of the operation and that you gotta fight your way to the top of his pagoda tower to meet him? I bet you also didn't know that Kim owns dog farms in both China and North Korea to supply his canine cartel? Why do you think the people in North Korea are all starving? That's because most of the local produce is being turned into dog chow."

Bush was speechless for a moment while this stunning news finished registering on him. "I had a suspicion Kim might be in on this mangy business. What's the deal with the tower?"

"It's a reconstructed octagonal pagoda tower like the kinds you see in oriental site seeing places. Very exotic, very dangerous, it's about 7 floors high with an elite martial artist on each one except for the kitchen which is the second to top floor. You have to fight and beat each fighter one by one, floor by floor until you get to the top. You fight the last one there and if you win, then Kim will agree to speak with you. Usually he's having a party there every night with his cronies and plenty of babes to go around."

"How good are these guys guarding the floors?" asked Bush.

"Let me put it this way. I wouldn't make it even half-way up that tower and I don't even want to think about what would happen if I tried. Maybe the question you should be asking is, 'What happens to those who lose?'"

"There are no plans for losing in my agenda but go ahead anyways."

"Xiu can fill you in on that." Seagal folded his arms waiting for Xiu to take over.

"I should tell you The Tale of Wei Mai Shu." began Xiu.

"It sounds like he can't find his shoe." interrupted Bush.

"Yeah yeah, everyone says that. Now stop talking, let me finish. Wei was a talented kung-fu student and he loved a woman deeply. Her name is Hua and she is so stunningly beautiful that any man who looks at her will be smitten for life or so I heard. Wei was so lovestruck that he promised her he'd do anything if she'd agree to be his girlfriend. Hua then asked him to prove his love by taking the tower challenge and if he could arrange a meeting between Hua and Kim Jong-il then she would become Wei's lover. Wei agreed, not thinking about why she would want this. You see, Hua's heart was really set on Kim himself and her bedroom was decorated by many posters of the North Korean leader in various poses and she even had a nude poster of him."

Bush bent over looked like he was going to ralph. Xiu paused to let him recover himself. "Women actually like that creep?" asked Bush.

"Yes, he is fashionable, cultured, and has quite a masculine appeal enhanced by the way he stands up against western demands. Also he treats his women very well and doles out such luxuries they could never get in normal life. As for poor Wei, he only made it to the second floor before he was defeated and the rest of the story is quite sad." Xiu looked down at the countertop lost in the mood.

"And?"

"Kim had him sent immediately to a North Korean death camp. A defector from the camp's staff told about how Wei almost starved to death in the freezing camp and then one day he was part of a test group who were fed boiled cabbage with a bacterial agent applied to it. Everyone in the group died after eating it." Xiu's eyes became watery. "I hope someone will make Kim pay for this. Wei was a nice boy who often came to my store. He used to make me laugh with his silly stories."

"I'll make sure I stay away from the cabbage." said Bush.

Xiu looked up at him and almost shouted, "Please don't go! I beg you."

"I'm real glad you care about me so much but..."

"No, I don't care about you. I care about Putaro."

"Putaro? What is that?"

"Look, it's not 'what', okay?" answered Xiu and pointed behind her desk. Bush looked over the counter to see a cute, shy dog looking back up with fear in his eyes. "I'm afraid if you lose, they will torture you to find out where my shop is so they can make a stew out of Putaro. They tried to catch him several times already but he ran away. He's so scared now that he almost never goes outside anymore. And Kim is offering a reward to anyone who reports where he can be found." Xiu hugged the dog. "There's a bounty on my poor widdle Putaro. It's not his fault he was born delicious."

"Why is Kim so eager to eat your dog when his dog farms must be producing them by the hundreds?" asked Bush.

"It's all about power." answered Seagal since Xiu was getting upset by the topic. "Kim makes a practice of eating the pets of anyone who defies him, whether the pets be dogs, cats, canaries, snakes or goldfish. He even ate a tarantula once. Xiu has a good reputation in the Hong Kong martial arts movie industry, and therefore, her defiance makes Putaro a top target for Kim."

Just then, about a dozen people came in the shop. There were some shady looking Chinese men with sinewy physiques made hard from countless hours of training, along with an American woman and her young son who had blond hair and a pudgy happy face smeared with strawberry icecream. One of the men, who was more of a pear shape, had a pockmarked oily face, slicked back hair, dark sunglasses, wearing a jacket that fit like a tent and stank of cigarettes. They each hesitated in turn as they entered, surprised at the famous men talking with the cashier.

"Hey Mom, lookit lookit! Steven Seagal is here!" The excited boy pointed at Steven.

"Yes, and President Bush too." said the woman. "Mommy has to help get supplies so be a good boy and come along okay? Seagal is a very busy man and doesn't like fans bothering him all the time."

Seagal looked at them with an appreciative smile and wink. He turned back to Bush, the smile gone and said, "You know if you're really so intent on going and getting yourself messed up in that tower, at least do me the honor of letting me help you out."

"No! The rules say the challenger must go alone." said Xiu. "If you break the rules so will they."

"Trust me Xiu, I have no desire at all of helping Bush fight in that tower." assured Seagal. "Unlike him, I don't fancy being sent to a death camp to have biowarfare experiments done on me."

"Then what kind of help are you offering me?" asked Bush.

"I'm going to fight you right here and now."

"What!?!" Both Bush and Xiu looked like they'd just been diagnosed with HIV.

"That's right, and I want you to fight using only one arm, your weaker left one. I figure that if you can put me down using only your weak arm and still walk out of here then you just might have a slight chance of beating what's waiting for you in that tower. Otherwise, the three of us'll just go sample the local cuisine, take in some evening entertainment and you can go back to running your country tomorrow. Now, will you let me help you?"

Bush stood up straight and said, "That's not what I'd normally call help, but I think I can go with it."

"No! Have you two gone crazy? Don't be so stupid!" protested Xiu. She glared at Bush and said, "And how do you think you can beat Steven, especially using only your left arm?"

"Everything's gonna be alright and we'll help you clean up your store after we mess it up." said Seagal and gave Xiu a little tug on her pony tail.

Xiu tried to slap Seagal's hand away, but his hand was already gone. "Don't do that! I hate it when people do that!"

"Mommy! Seagal and President Bush are about to scrap it out! I wanna watch!" shouted the little boy from between the display cases. Hearing that, the whole movie entourage stampeded to the entrance of the shop to see the battle of the titans. They shuffled around each other to get a better view of the expected carnage. The man with the round, oily face was in a panic trying to wrestle a palm sized digital video camera from his jacket pocket.

Seagal had leaned back on the cashier counter, supporting himself with his elbow in a very relaxed pose. Bush was all ready to rumble and looked at the carefree Seagal. "You gonna get yourself together or are you trying to make it easy for me?"

Seagal smiled back in that usual confident way of his and replied, "Nothing's gonna be easy. Now you just do what you gotta do."

"You think I'm a pushover don't ya? I'm gonna teach you a lesson both in fighting and in humility." promised Bush. Some of the audience snickered at this.

"You go right ahead and do that." replied Seagal.

Using only his left hand as promised, Bush grabbed one of the ninja weapons which looked like a black metre-long stick with a knifelike axehead on one end. He swung the weapon up high and down towards the relaxing Seagal who with a simple flick of his hand, deflected the axehead to sink into the top of the countertop.

"Stop! You are wrecking my shop!" screamed Xiu but Bush didn't seem to notice as he struggled to free the stuck weapon using only one arm. Seagal watched in amusement for a moment and then grabbed Bush's exposed left arm and swung him around in a graceful twirl, helping to calm Xiu's nerves with the sheer beauty of the movement. Bush involuntarily ran around Seagal, and plowed into one of the displays knocking it over with an earsplitting crash. Bush rolled around on the sides of the upturned shelves and managed to get his feet under himself to stand up again.

"Kick his ass!" shouted the boy, loving the fight.

Bush looked around at the boy and asked, "Who should kick who's ass?"

Seagal was as sharp as ever and never let such a distraction go to waste. He held out his hand infront of the unprepared Bush who just as he looked back made the cardinal error of instinctively grasping Seagal's hand to shake it. The result was another graceful twirl, another display case, and another big crash. The floor was now a mess of scattered equipment, vitamin bottles and ninja paraphernalia. Xiu watched with a pouty look on her face, her emotions caught somewhere in the void between anger and awe.

"Yeah! More! More!" yelled the boy. His mother leaned down and whispered something to him, but had no luck at all in calming down the excited youngster.

Bush struggled to his feet again. Seagal stood there malignant and impregnable with a slight frown, waiting to see if his opponent wanted to continue or not. To his astonishment, Bush stepped forward and took a big swing at Seagal.

Seagal began his well-practiced, instinctive sidestep and grabbing move to counter the coming left roundhouse. It was hard to tell what happened next, but to the audience, all they could see for sure was Bush's fist connecting with the side of Seagal's face. Seagal fell backwards from the blow and cracked the back of his head on a shelf of a fallen display. The audience never saw how the master of aikido had stepped on the coated 4-point ninja spikedarts scattered about the floor, injecting a sleeping solution into his bloodstream, while his other foot attempted to take the weight off his injured one, only to slip on a pile of fallen nunchucks. He went down hard and was knocked out by the combination of violence and chemical.

For a moment there was silence in the shop except for the tinkle of items settling on the floor. Then the audience responded with surprise and bewilderment.

"Nice flukey win there Bush." said the oily faced guy.

"The only thing flukey here is that a yo-yo like you became a movie director. I had those boxes of spikedarts lined up before the fight even started." responded Bush. "He threw me into the wrong display case the first time but got it right the second time. That's the difference between Steven and I. He's a skillful fighter while I'm a tactical fighter. Tactics will always win out in the end so I knew I had him from the start. To tell you the truth, I could take on the whole works of you right now and you wouldn't have a chance no matter how many one finger push-ups you can do."

"What?" came the collective response from the audience. The martial artists among them were a bit edgy at Bush's last remark but elected not to confront the apparently dangerous cowboy. Xiu then explained to them about the darts since she had seen what had really happened.


Some time later...

When Seagal woke up, Bush and all the others were gone. Xiu had taken off his shoe and applied first aid to his injured foot. The spikes hadn't done much damage and he could still walk okay on his bandaged foot. He got up, opened the door to outside and looked down the empty corridor which led up to the shop entrance. The sun was setting over Hong Kong.

I did my best to help him. I guess I can only hope that today will be a dog's day.

[unscratchedfoot]

Enter the Ruffneck



The pagoda tower


According to Xiu's directions, the pagoda tower was only a few blocks from her shop. The hustle bustle of so many people hurrying about their daily chores everywhere made it a bit hard to concentrate but it wasn't long before the octagon shaped pagoda tower rose above the treeline of a park.

It must be that weird looking building. Seven stories it is. Before I left the shop, Xiu told me the first fighter is much weaker than the others so it'll make a good warm-up fight.

At the top of the stone steps leading up to the thick wooden door to the tower sat a scrawny little old man next to a shogi set. Shogi is an Asian board game made of ivory pieces, similar to chess with the major difference being that players may use the pieces they capture from their opponent by placing one per turn on the board. Bush walked up the stairs and the old fellow got up and with a warm smile offered a handshake, but Bush remembered what Seagal had done just earlier with the same move so he declined.

"Hung sung chang hau sao." It was hard to hear what he was saying with the rancorous sounds of a kung-fu class in progress just inside the first floor.

"Yeah, good evening to you too. So I guess we might as well start the fight then." replied Bush.

The man just stood there without going into a fighting stance yet. "Haimaya kun chop sup ting man chow?"

"You're going to give me a chop? I'd like to see you try."

The old man just stood there smiling. Bush felt ridiculed by the way he almost seemed to be laughing at him and responded with a slug in the gut. "Ooof!" The old man bent over and Bush used the new move he had just learned from Seagal and grabbed the man's arm to swing him around. The twirl was anything but elegant but it effectively propelled the old man face first into the stone wall with a big clunk. Bush followed up with a kick to his ribs and when his opponent turned around clutching his side and grimacing in pain, Bush clobbered him with a smashing right handed haymaker across the face which dropped him out cold.

Well that was good warm-up alright and easy just like Xiu said. On to the next victim. Let's see what all that noise is about. Bush flexed his hand and rubbed his knuckles before knocking on the front door.

The door opened and there was a short, stalky man in baggy clothes with his hair tied back around his almost perfectly round head in a short pony-tail. Behind him was what seemed to be some sort of kung-fu class. The instructor barked something and all 8 students who sported streamlined, rockhard muscles stopped their practicing and assumed a stiff pose. The unusual thing about this class was that none of them had on traditional karate gi's, the white uniforms worn by most kinds of martial arts practitioners; instead, they all wore baggy types of casual clothing and gave an image like something out of a streetfighter video game.

The sensei, 'teacher' in Japanese, smiled and bowed to Bush but there was not a hint of friendliness or respect at all in the move, just cold arrogance. "Welcome to the Black Pagoda, Mr. President and would you mind closing the door beind you?" The tone of his voice was honeyed yet fake and Bush felt ridiculed again, excellent motivation to deliver another good hard beating. "Are you here for the tower challenge? I am the first one you must fight."

First??? Bush closed the door and nodded. "Yeah."

"Sensei, be careful. Like we heard, he defeated Seagal just earlier today." cautioned a student.

"How do you know about it?" asked Bush. The memory of the oily movie director taking the camera out of his pocket answered his own question.

"It's breaking news." answered Sensei. "All T.V. programming was interrupted with it and we found out just before on CNN. You must be quite a good fighter Mr. President."

"I can hold my own."

"There's no way he could have beaten Seagal!" yelled out a beefy, heathen westerner, with a potato-shaped head, a gotee, muscle shirt, and camouflage pants tucked into army boots, who Bush figured was an ex-patriot American. "I could kick his ass myself!" he screamed with such vehemence that spittle flew from his mouth.

"Sorry Bob, but I want to demonstrate my superb drop kick on him. Just so you know Mr. President, I am the top kempo master from Japan having designed my own style of it and you shall soon experience its bone crushing power." Sensei winked and then pointed to a bookcase filled with trophies. "Here are all the trophies my students have won. We have a very unique point about us: aftering winning a fight one must break at least one bone in his opponent or be expelled from my class with dishonor. Very classy wouldn't you say? We are the most feared club in international tournaments thanks to our tradition. You should know that I intend to uphold this tradition in our duel here today. Enough talk then. To start with I will kick you in the face with this foot." Sensei pointed down at his right foot.

"Try it and see what happens."

"Achaa!" One moment Bush was standing and the next instant he was bouncing off the wall, his face feeling like an elephant had done a waltz on it. He lay on the floor nursing his flattened mug.

"You couldn't see my kick coming could you? Hahaha! Na, Mr. Size 9 Rebok? Na?" The class burst out laughing at the sight of the footprint on Bush's face. Bob was particularly enjoying it, slapping his knee, shaking his head back and forth, and bellowing out his joy.

That gaijin could use a little tuning up as well.

"Let's see if you can do that again." Bush got to his feet and got into a boxing stance. "I wasn't ready."

"Very well, but this time I'm going to use my left foot to doublekick you in the thigh and floating rib. Trust me, it will hurt a lot." Sensei had a big sarcastic smile on his face the whole time.

"Bok bok!" Wap! Thump! Bush keeled over to his hurt side after the blur that was his opponent connected in the exact places promised. He staggered backwards trying to block out the paralysing pain in his thigh and possibly cracked rib, but ended up falling when his hurt leg refused to take any weight on it.

Lying on the floor, rage began to fill Bush, especially at the sight of Bob again guffawing with pleasure and pointing at him. Bush glared at his gloating enemy and said, "Alright, its time to put the boots to you pal." He got partially up and promptly fell down again.

"Ha! Give me a break!"

The door opened behind Sensei and a voice said, "I'll take that order."

Sensei jumped up, did a perfect 180 degree turn in the air and landed to face the direction of the voice. Now infront of him stood the immense form of Seagal himself. But Seagal was not his usual self: he was possessed of a rage like Bush had never seen in him before, in life or on stage. Seagal stepped up and the cocky sensei unleashed a flurry of short punches to be blocked by Seagal in a symphony of slaps and waps. All Bush could see from behind was Sensei wriggling with the attack and a couple of times Seagal's head and torso jerked from a couple hits being scored on him as he was steadily forced backwards out the door. Just when it seemed Seagal would was going to end up outside, Sensei rose up on his tiptoes with his arm held up in an unnatural arc by Seagal.

"Ite te te te te te!" screamed Sensei in agony. Snap! Crack! Pop!

Seagal dropped the mangled arm and landed a brutal front kick into Sensei's solar plexus knocking the self-aggrandizing brute into the bookcase of trophies. The whole lot clattered to the floor in a heap.

Ignoring Bush and the moaning sensei, both lying on the floor, Seagal took a deep breath and looked around at the class who were suddenly so quiet and had a distinct atmosphere of terror about them. Trashing Sensei had done nothing to relieve Seagal's rage and he frowned upon the students while a slight bruise developed on his cheek from one of Sensei's punches. "Now who thought it would be fun to beat the crap out of an innocent old man?"

The class was dead silence for awhile before a student with a quivering voice worked up the courage to ask, "Sir, which innocent old man was that?"

Seagal looked at the questioner with the will to kill. "The man downstairs who was waiting to play shogi with me. He just so happens to be a very longtime friend of mine and we always meet once a week on the stairs of this tower to go play shogi on a park table. He's never hurt anyone in his life. So who did it? I promise to make it fast and painful."

"He did it." Bush pointed at Bob who froze in abject terror.

"I... I... I didn't do noth... AAAAGH!!" "Sure punk."... Crunch! Wham! Snap! "Ungh! I can't take the pain!!" "Bite on wood. It helps."... Thump! Pop!... "Noooo please stop! I beg you!" "Don't be such a wuss. You didn't give the old feller any mercy did you?" Crack! Kathump! Stomp!

Seagal left Bob lying unconscious on the floor with countless injuries. The class had retreated to the back wall during the cruel beating like a flock of chickens avoiding the axeman coming for his dinner.

"Does anyone else think its fun to beat up old people? No? Didn't think so." Seagal took a couple of long strides towards the door before turning to add, "And someone might want to call an ambulance to pick up that bully because I'm sure not." And at that he left.

Bush barely managed to stand up and use the wall as a crutch to try and catch up to Seagal. When they got outside an ambulance had just finished loading up the shogi man and were taking him away.

The two of them walked slowly back in the direction of the shop, Seagal was shaking his head and muttering while Bush limped along. After awhile the paralyzed, painful feeling in his leg died down and he could walk normally again.

"Thanks for your help, but you know I had him on the ropes." Bush finally broke the ice.

"Help? What help? I went there to meet my shogi friend and saw him all beat up. So I called an ambulance for him and then went inside to deliver some justice. That's all. Don't expect me to help you win that tower challenge." retorted Seagal, still miffed. "That sensei enjoys hurting people. It's his fault that his students now think its cool to bully old, helpless people. Today that sensei reaped what he's been sowing. And he's the weakest fighter in the tower by the way."

"I thought... uh, yeah I heard, but I will win. I got a plan."

"Listen ole pal, I'm tellin ya not to go back in there. They'll mess you up real bad and then send you to some hellhole of a prison camp. And I ain't gonna be there for you the next time. You understand that don't you? I doubt I could even handle those guys up there. In fact, I know that I would not be walking out of that tower after it. They're the best there are, training for hours everyday to dish out the hurt."

"Anyone that stands between me and Kim Jong-il is gonna know what a snakeskin boot in the balls feels like."

Seagal sighed. "You know, if you must go back in there, at least I can give you a hint of what to expect. I know the third fighter. His name is Tong Po, one of the best mutai fighters ever to come out of Thailand. He starred as the bad guy in the movie called Kickboxer with Jean Claude Van Damme. After watching that movie, Kim Jong-il was so impressed with him that he hired Tong to work full-time as his bodyguard. He's never done anything else since. He's turned the third floor into a nest of booby traps. You touch anything in the room and something bad happens. Just remember that. And Tong has trained for years in that room so forget about him falling victim to his own traps."

"Thanks for the heads up. You know any of the other fighters?"

"No, they change all the time, depending on who's in Hong Kong at the time. The tower's a kind of social hang-out for kung-fu experts. After 11 pm, the bottom door's locked and everyone joins the party on the top floor. And uh... one more thing. You probably want to wait a little before going back. That footprint on your face'll get you some laughs, okay Mr. Size 9 Reebok?"

Bush rubbed his face, not liking the nickname much.

"Anyways, I got some other business to take care of, so I'll see you on the news tonight." said Seagal.

Bush made his way back to the shop alone. On his way into the courtyard, three kids were passing a frisbee around. One missed a catch and the disk landed on the ground near Bush. Always happy to help out children, he picked it up and threw it back to them. At first the frisbee seemed to be going straight for one of the kids when suddenly it veered up high and went soaring in a semi-circle pattern to finally disappeared over one of the flat rooftops.

A moment later Mr. Humpty Dumpty looked over the edge of the rooftop with the frisbee sitting on his head like a hat. It was unlikely that he had put it there and his expression signified irritation at his new apparel. His equally fuming wife showed up beside him and together they glared at Bush seeming to hope their evil looks would teleport him back to America and out of their lives.

"Hey goofus!" yelled the boy who had tried to catch the frisbee. "You can't do anything right can you? Go away you moron!" The other 2 kids joined in to heckle the president.

Then Mr. Humpty Dumpty actually started laughing, a most unusual thing for someone of his disposition. His wife was confused until Humpty pointed first to his own face and then at Bush where upon she unloaded a most terrible bawling laugh causing all those within range to cringe.

"You should listen to the children." suggested Humpty. "Go back to America. You are not welcome here and will only get yourself more hurt. The footprint on your face is only a taste of what you can expect, or maybe I should say, a feel of what to expect. What did you do? Try putting your foot in your mouth again?" Upon hearing the last line, his wife went into another most horrible peel of laughter which gave Bush more than enough incentive to leave.

Sounds like its time to fire up the washing machine again. My to do list is getting longer than just Kim and those foolish enough to protect him. Now the Humpty Dumpties and those brats are due for some reckoning as well.

Bush certainly had his work set out for him. But the ridicule was not over yet.

"You lost didn't you?" asked Xiu, the moment Bush stepped in the door.

"What makes you think that?"

"Hmmm... size 9 Reebok? Tee hee hee!" She had a good giggle.

"You know, the next person who says that to me is gonna have 'Vintage 100% snakeskin' imprinted on his or her face."

With that, she stifled her laugh but still emitted a couple of squeaks and had to hold her nose to keep from laughing out loud.

"I need some equipment." said Bush.

Xiu turned all serious and answered, "No! That's against the rules. You must only use the weapons available in the tower. They will team up on you if you cheat."

"I don't need any weapons. I just need a nice long climbing rope, a grappling hook, a rock climber's belt, and the best stink bombs you have available."

"That is crazy! If you climb up the outside of the tower they will not let you meet Kim. You must beat each fighter one by one to be admitted. That is the only way. Stinking them out with bombs is cheating and they will only come back to fight you at the top."

"Trust me. I'm going to properly put down all of those scalliwags. I just need an edge."

Xiu rolled her eyes and sighed in resignation. "Alright whatever. I tried to warn you, yeah?"

"Fork over the goods. Here's my plastic." He tossed a Visa card on the counter.

Xiu went about collecting the items and finally held up what looked like a dark grey golfball. "This is called 'Raunch Out', the latest in combat effective stink bombs. It works like a frag grenade; just pull the pin and it will go off after a few seconds, releasing what looks like a neon green spout of steam. There's a little arrow on it which shows which direction the vapor will go in. It does no physical harm but my english is not good enough to describe the smell."

"Raunch Out? So how bad does it smell?" asked Bush.

"Oh! So stinky! I tell you! I felt like tossing my cookies when my supplier demonstrated one once. And I was a few metres away from it too."

"Give me 5 of those will ya?"

Xiu put everything into a brown paper bag and rang up the purchase. She was against him going on the almost certainly suicidal mission because it put her dog in danger but she still wished Bush luck on his way out of the shop.

[unscratchedfoot]

Second Assault on the Tower



The tower on the right gives a good up close look at what a pagoda looks like lit up at night time.

It was dark as Bush approached the exotic octagon shaped pagoda. Joyful shouts, music and all kinds of rowdy yelling echoed through the park from the brilliantly lit up top floor of the tower. There were a few young couples in the park enjoying a romantic evening under the half moon. Bush walked up the steps to the stone floored base area of the tower. Around the back of the tower was a big smelly garbage bin right up against the wall of the pagado which certainly didn't fit in with the cultural atmosphere, but the metal bin heaped with garbage bags made a perfect starting point for the climb and doubled as a cushion in case he fell. Bush stood by the fence surrounding the first floor which was as far back as he could get to try and throw the grappling hook onto the roof.

Bush took the rope and grappling hook out of the brown paper bag and hooked it up. Then holding the rope in one hand and swinging the hook round and round with the other, he could feel his lasoo skills kicking in. Bush threw the hook up at the roof but it didn't quite make it. Instead, it clanged off one of the walkway edges on the way down making quite a big ding but fortunately the party on top was loud enough to dampen the effect. All the lovers in the park were looking at him now and most of them were snickering. In the dark they couldn't have known he was the President of the United States, and if they had, it probably would've been even more funny for them. After 2 more throws, the hook finally snagged something on the lattice roof well enough to support his weight.



Before climbing up, he had a look through a window of the first floor and saw the kung fu students were lounging about chatting and had a portable stereo blasting out hip hop music.

Time to test out one of these stink bombs. While making sure he wasn't noticed, Bush pulled the pin and placed the bomb on the window sill with the arrow pointing inside. After a few seconds the grey ball hissed and released a some kind of neon green vapor, and although it was being directed into the room, even to Bush the stench was absolutely unforgiving. Keeping ducked down under the window sill, he could hear the effects of the bomb.

"Oh!!! What is that stink!?!" "Bob again?" "Bob's not here you moron!" "I can't breathe!" "God have mercy!" "I'm dying." "Evacuate before it's too late!"

All the students ran out the front door and left the park. By now the couples in the park were killing themselves laughing at Bush's antics.

The goods work like they should. Now onto business. I just wish those all those lovers watching me would get back to kissing and star gazing and stop making me feel like the host of a goofy show. Let's see who the clown on second floor is.

He snapped the climber's belt gizmo thingy onto the rope and he was on his way clambering up the side of the building. He'd been rock climbing only a few times in his life and his lack of skill was telling; however, slowly but surely he made his way up. Constantly sinching the rope through the belt, Bush made his way over the walkway and to the window of the second floor with moderate difficulty. He peeked over the sill and saw a chinese guy sleeping on a futon.

Bush took out another bomb and almost pulled the pin before stopping himself. That's not cool, attacking a guy with a stink bomb in his sleep. I should beat him up instead. So he sat on the window sill and unhitched himself from the rope. Then he got in the room and walked up to the sleeping guy.

"Howdy. You ready to fight or what? Wake up or something."

The figure on the futon stirred, yawned and finally looked around. The room was dark but just enough light came in from the moon to see it was Jet Li! Bush had just woken up the idolized action hero who went from making Shaolin monk kung fu movies to blockbuster action flics like Lethal Weapon 4. It was a move Bush would live to regret. At least he hoped he would 'live' to be able to regret it.

Jet Li hopped out off the futon and shook his head to finish waking up. The 2 fighters stood there for a moment, sizing each other up and thinking about their attack options. Bush started to walk towards Jet to get within punching range. Jet responded by jumping up high and lashing out with a double scissors kick walking it up his victim. Thud! Schwack! Bush was knocked backwards, bounced off the wall and collapsed onto the floor. The first kick had impacted with his chest knocking the wind out of him and the second one a split second later nailed him right in the face.

Jet Li flicked on a light switch and then laughed, pointed and said, "President Bush? Wow. You know what? Your face says 'size 8 Adidas'. You ever had a footprint on your face before? It looks so stupid! Ha ha ha!"

Alright you joker, that's it. Bush reached inside his jacket pocket and flicked the pin while taking out the bomb. Jet reckoned he might be reaching inside his jacket for a gun so he lifted one foot up until it was pointing at the ceiling and just before he brought it crashing down on Bush's back, Jet saw what he thought was a frag grenade in his opponent's hand. Jet backed up and then ran downstairs. He wasn't about to risk being blown up for a night's salary and a party.

It stinks down there too. Upstairs is the ticket. Bush took a deep breath and then tossed the bomb near the stairwell entrance so it would be there when Jet came back up which he did right away. Jet stopped, gagged, and then continued on up to the third floor. The floor of Tong Po, the booby trap artist.

Whack!! Flop! The spring-loaded mallet set by Tong hammered the idol in the forehead knocking him out cold. The mallet had a pad attached to it since several accidents involving dog meat salesmen had sent several of Kim's staff to the hospital with concussions or worse. Now it just knocked people out for awhile. A long while.

Bush staggered to the window, still dazed from the kicks he had taken. Once hitched up outside, he noticed there was now a small crowd gathered down below to see the contest. A video camera tripod was set up and several other spectators had handheld digital cameras recording the affair. Hoots and whistling cheered him on and every now and then a firecracker went off.

He hurried up to fourth floor to hopefully catch Tong distracted by Jet Li's downfall. Sure enough, Bush arrived a bit out of breath from the climb, to see Tong looking closely at Jet who was lying at the entrance to the stairwell. Tong had his back to Bush who remembered the deadly fighting ability of the mutai kickboxer in the movie so he took no chances. Tong had his feet far apart on 2 safe floor tiles avoiding the booby trapped ones so Bush aimed the bomb onto a tile right between his legs.

"Oh no!" Tong watched helplessly as the bomb landed beneath him for he was in no position to do any big dodging moves with his feet so far apart. Click! A metal net came out from between the edges of all the tiles from around Tong and scooped him up into a metallic net bag hanging from the roof. Tong was hog-tied and started to cough and sputter from the sickening stench pouring out from the bomb beneath him on the floor.

"You might want to have considered setting up voice command booby trap releases to avoid this type of problem." suggested Bush. "Have a nice evening."

"You #%@& #$@% &%@#!!"

Easy as pie. This tower is certainly learning what it's like to be bushwhacked. On to the next victim. Each floor tired Bush out a bit more but he was getting the hang of climbing over the walkways each time since each floor was of the same design.

One of the boys watching from the park below yelled out, "Keep on going monkey man! We love you!"

From fourth floor came a loud rushing water sound, maybe a waterfall or babbling creek.

As per usual he peeked over the window sill to check out who the next opponent was. This time it was a caucasion male with a quite well-defined medium build who had his feet outstretched on 2 chairs in a splitz position. The waterfall sound was coming from speakers along the edge of the ceiling and it became obvious that the fighter was in a state of deep meditation while doing the stretch.

Bush figured the best attack would be to enter the room as quietly as possible and then pull out one of the chairs to surprise the fighter and throw him off balance. The waterfall sound was plenty loud enough to block out the sounds of his movement.

So through the window he went and sure enough, the meditating martial artist did not notice him. At least it seemed that way.

Smack! In a quick, cleancut combo, the fighter had pulled himself off the chairs and nailed Bush across the face with a stinging backhand while turning around to face the intruder. Then came a beautifully performed spinning jump kick like Bush had never seen before in real life. Actually he didn't see it because he was still reeling from the preparatory punch. "Weeeeeeiiiyaaaaaaaaaa!!" Babump! Bush took the kick on the side of the head knocking him into twirl and he finally collapsed on the floor. He was down and out, no countdown necessary.

......


"C'mon! Wake-up!!" Someone was holding him by the shoulders and giving him a vigorous shaking. Bush opened his eyes to see Jean-Claude Van Damme looking most distraught. "Ah, good you're awake. I'm sorry Dubya, I didn't know it was you."

"You sure kicked the hell outta me that's for sure." Bush replied weakly while rubbing the side of his head where he felt a bump.

"Hey now, how was I supposed to know the President of the United States was sneaking in through the window behind me? Like where are all those CIA guys who protect you?"

"The Secret Service? Nah, they never let me have any fun. Dang, I thought I had this tower all figured out until this happened. I guess I lost the challenge didn't I?"

"No way man, you ain't done yet." said Van Damme.

"Huh? But I'm supposed to beat you up to be able to continue."

"Look at this." Van Damme held up a kit containing many colors of paints and powders. "I'm an action star remember? I can just dress up my face with some bruises and blood. There's even a fake swelling preparation. Then I show up later on top holding myself painfully and everyone'll think I got trashed."

"You'd do that for me?" asked Bush.

"Sure why not? I'd like to see you put the boots to Kim. It'll be funny. Say, what's that ranchy smell coming up onto my floor? Did my buddy Tong die or something?"

"Just about. So why are you and the others working for that reptile Kim anyways?"

"Hey I'm just here for the food. And I don't mean the dogfood either. They put on a good spread for us. Plus the perks are great. I'm only here for a couple of days cause that's how long Kim wanted me for. And whoa, does he ever pay well. I thought commies were supposed to be poor and starving."

"Well some commies are more equal than others." replied Bush.

"Yeah, I guess you got some equation balancing to do. Okay, I'm gonna put on my make up. You get yourself sorted out and ready to finish these jokers off okay? And next time you should try doing a spinning jump kick like I did on you." Van Damme stood infront of a little dressor with a mirror on it and took out some black puddy to begin forming a bruise around one eye while Bush dragged himself onto his feet.

After a few minutes of facial artwork, Van Damme turned around and asked, "How do I look?" He looked like he had been worked over by Dolf Lundgren again like in his movie "Universal Soldier".

"Don't you think that's overdoing it a bit? I'm not that merciless. You even got blood running down the side of you."

"It'll be good for a laugh. You'd better get going before the tower closes for the party on top. You got a couple more fights to go." said Van Damme.

Bush always loved a good rumble, but he was seriously worn out by now with all the strain and punishment he'd taken. He hesistated by the window. "I don't know, I'm feeling pretty bushed."

"Hey let's go! There are millions of people who need you to win this fight!" cheered Van Damme. It seemed odd that one of the tower guards would be the one to talk him into keep going when he was on the verge of collapse.

Bush sighed and got hitched up on the rope again. When he was about to go Van Damme had this advice for him, "And remember. You were just knocked out so try to avoid getting hit in the head anymore. You got that?"

"Uh yeah, I'll remember that."

Whump!! "Ungh!"

The big heavy bag of garbage sat on top of Bush for a moment before slipping off and falling into the bin down below. The president hung limp from the rope for a moment while the crowd below exploded with laughter. Van Damme reached out and gave him another good shaking, "C'mon Dubya, don't pass out again! It's just garbage. You're climbing up underneath the kitchen disposal window so what did you expect? And you people shut up down there!! Go back to smooching in the park!!"

Bush shook his head and got ready to start climbing again. "Okay, I'm gonna do it. All this abuse is just pissing me off." Van Damme gave him a big whooping cheer and off he went.

After barely making it to the window on fifth floor, Bush remember he had forgotten to ask Van Damme who the next fighters were. Oh well, the result'll be the same anyways. He looked in to see someone he'd rather not: Jackie Chan. The popular action comedy star was doing one of his usual kung fu dance katas and had no idea of what was coming. Bush knew that going in to fight him toe to toe might not be wise considering his present condition and the skill level of his opponent so he took out a bomb and pulled the pin.

No sooner had he pulled the pin when with incredible speed the bomb was snatched from his hand and rammed into his mouth before he had a chance to throw it. Jackie backed off while Bush went into spasms trying to dislodge it before it released it's potent contents. No such luck. Unfortunately, the bomb had just barely fit into his mouth and could not quite fit back out again. Then the stink came. Bush jerked about on the rope panicking to pull the bomb from his mouth while Jackie bent over and laughed until he cried. He couldn't even talk he was laughing so hard.

The outlet for the vapor was pouring the stinky smoke straight down his throat eliminating breathing as an option. Bush knew he only had moments to resolve this situation before either he would barf, die of asphyxiation or his lungs would rot beyond any hope of healing.

While this was all going on, Bush saw out of the corner of his eye a head pop out over the walkway above and then disappear again. He had been made.

[unscratchedfoot]

"Comrade Kim, President Bush of the United States has been seen climbing up the side of the tower. Shall we cut the rope?" The North Korean elite palace guard soldier was talking fast because he was nervous. For one does not normally approach the ruthless communist regime leader unless personally invited to do so. Any mistake at all could have one sent immediately to a death camp of Kim's choosing. And the only hope one can have in those camps is for an early death.

"Good, just as we expected that coward to do. Do not touch the rope. We must allow him to enter here to ensure his capture and humiliation before the world. Launch the counter we prepared." Kim sputtered when he spoke but the guard did not dare to wipe the spittle off his face while still facing the feared leader.

"Yes sir." The guard hurried off to relay the order.


Meanwhile Bush continued trying to pull the bomb out of his mouth. It was so close but it just would not quite pop out. Then he sensed something big on the ledge of the walkway above him so he looked up. Two cooks were heaving up a trash can onto the balcony edge and were starting to pour its contents down onto the president. Then Bush really panicked. There was no way to avoid the tidal wave of all kinds of guts coming at him. Intestines, various animal body parts, rotting biological juice, and worst of all, bones from pigs, dogs, cows, fish, chickens, rodents and who knows what came cascading down onto Bush's head and shoulders. Too make matters worse, the mixture had been specially prepared by being left out in the sun to fester for a couple of days. Again Bush came close being knocked out not only by the smell but also by all the stomachs and bones hitting him. He held on just barely.

Now, the combined stench of the bomb coupled with the rotting animal parts was beyond the current ability of the English language to describe. Simply put, it was very very bad.

Between squeals and giggles, Jackie managed to say, "I thought you didn't have the guts to come in here to fight me but I can see I was wrong." With that, Jackie doubled over in another fit of such intense laughter than he almost started to choke like Bush was doing. Needless to say, the audience down below was also more than a little delighted by the events.

Just when things seemed to be as bad as they possibly could be, they got worse. Through the entrance of the stairwell on the other side of the room, Bush could see a string people coming up the stairs. First came a dogmeat salesman carrying a cage with Putaro inside followed by Xiu, the 3 bratty kids who had been playing frisbee, the Humpty Dumpties, and several more dogmeat salesmen. Apparently the salesmen had arrested and handcuffed all of them, and both the captors and the captives had many cuts and bruises all over them, evidence of a hard fought stuggle. A couple of the salesmen also had bite marks on their hands and torn trousers.

This was all too much for Bush to handle. No!!! Not Putaro! They will pay for this! So Kim is even more insidious than I reckoned. He had me followed back to the shop and waited until I attacked the tower before he captured them all.

Enough was enough and he was gonna shut down both Jackie and the jeering scalliwags below. Also, if he didn't move fast, Putaro was going to become Kim's dinner. He rapelled himself off the window ledge and then while swinging back in through the window pendulum-style, he brought his right knee up to his chest and then lashed out with probably the most devastating kick he'd ever done in his life. Jackie was too lost in his delirious happiness to notice what was coming. The sole of the snakeskin boot clocked Jackie Chan right in the face, snapping his head back and instantly dropping him out cold. The jolt of the kick also helped Bush to finally dislodge the bomb from his mouth and he let the foul little device drop onto the crowd below which did a good job of disrupting their hee-hawing and sent them running for fresh air.

Bush gasped for air. He had come very close to dying of lack of oxygen and so he took his time replenishing his tortured lungs and wiping the guts of his clothes. When he was ready again, he climbed up to the next floor. The climb was getting harder each time as he was getting more and more tired, and having his lungs gassed out didn't help much. At least he knew he didn't have to fight on the sixth floor. Bush looked in the window of the kitchen to see a team of korean chefs all happily chopping and cooking while yipping away in their native language. Under the chopping table was Putaro in the cage. He looked out at Bush with innocent little eyes which said, "Please help me, won't you? I don't want to be eaten, especially by Kim Jong-Il."

Seeing Bush at their window, the chefs all smiled, waved and said something that sounded like "onion" to him. Bush started to take out his last bomb but stopped because he knew Putaro's extra keen sense of smell would make it unendurable for him. Also, the chefs were all well armed with butcher's axes and long sharp kitchen knives while Bush was on the verge of collapse so jumping in onto the hot grill to fight them would not be such a good tactic. Putaro would have to wait.




The Final Battle




When two tigers fight, one is certain to be maimed, and one to die. - Master Funakoshi


Bush was actually relieved to make it to the seventh floor. At least being at the top meant he wouldn't have to do any more climbing. He looked in the window and was astonished at the sight. The room was filled with skimpily clad, very shapely young Asian women who were swooning over a small number of North Korean ministers. The noise of them all socializing was loud enough that one had to almost shout to talk to someone nearby. Amongst the indulging ministers and their escorts, was Kim Jong-il himself lying on top of a row of women while being massaged. Standing around the periphery of the room were a dozen palace guards looking dangerous with their submachineguns, special uniforms and hardened faces. The room itself was dazzling with bright orange and yellow lanterns hanging from the ceiling along with torches on each segment of the wall. For decoration and there was every kind of martial art weapon available attached all over the walls and ceiling, a hardwood floor, and instead of the usual dragon one would expect in a place of countless kung fu fights, there was a bronze statue of a nude woman hanging from the ceiling on 2 thin chains.

Then Bush saw something which enraged him even more than when antiwar protesters had egged his ranch house and spray painted peace signs on his cows. On the other side of the room, the 3 kids and Xiu were being tortured! The kids were handcuffed by their ankles to a steel pole and just out of reach of them was a pile of very interesting looking kung fu comic books and a bag of candy. No matter how hard they strained themselves to reach the goods, their fingers could not quite touch them. As for Xiu, she was hanging by her ponytail which was tied by a rope to the ceiling. Bush remembered how angry she had been when Seagal gave her ponytail a gentle tug. How much more angry she must be to have her full weight hanging from it! However, the Humpty Dumpties were only standing handcuffed and were otherwise unharmed. The unfairness of it puzzled Bush.

People near the window backed off holding their noses as Bush came in through the window. As soon as he got in, he was approached by a very articulate and gentlemanlike Asian man, certainly not what he was expecting. He also didn't seem to mind either the smell of Bush or the length of pig intestine he still had over one shoulder. "Good evening President Bush. We are delighted to have you join us tonight and congratulations on you making it this far."

"Nice little party you got going on here. There are more sides of beef here than in a butchers shop."

The host laughed in appreciation. "Yes, we koreans take pride in our exquisite taste you know. Can we get you anything to eat or drink?"

"Yeah sure, I'll have 2 egg rolls, some chow mein and a glass of milk." The bush relayed Bush's order to a passing waiter.

"What I want to know is why aren't Mr. and Mrs. Humpty Dumpty being tortured like the rest? You know, the two round people over there." Bush pointed at them to make sure the host knew who he was talking about.

"Ah yes, don't worry Mr. President. We have special arrangements for them too. The gentleman you referred to as Mr. Humpty Dumpty will volunteer to help this floor's fighter demonstrate his incredible kicking power. Humpty Dumpty will be kicked from the window and will have a great fall. As for Mrs. Humpty Dumpty, she will happily play the role of 'cow' in a little of game of Pin the Tail on the Cow." The host pointed to a real cow's tail tethered to the wall behind Mrs. Humpty with something more like a small spike going through it rather than the usual pin.

"Well that's a relief to know."

Just then, a waiter ran up to Bush with the food and milk he had ordered. "Here you are sir." Off he ran again, taking orders from other partyers.

Bush took a bite of an eggroll. "Wow good, and its not even poisoned."

The host said, "You're a funny guy Mr. President. That's why we are going to let you have dinner before we beat you to death."

"Hmmm very thoughtful, but you do have those pronouns mixed up. By the way, who is this floor's..."

"Let me introduce you to some people. We've all been expecting you." said the host and indicated for Bush to follow him. He took him to an African man in traditional robes and said, "Please meet King Walatombe from Nigeria. He has been invited here as the guest of honor for tonight's party."

With a big smile, Walatombe shook Bush's hand and said, "Hello President Bush. I've heard many things about you. I can't say they were very good."

Bush didn't dig that opening remark too much and replied, "Hi, its a pleasure to meet you. Say... didn't we bomb you a couple of years ago?"

With that, the short unpleasant exchange ended and Walatombe wandered off in search of more enjoyable company.

"I get it. Kim's wooing his faction to become a medium range missile customer." speculated Bush.

"No, to sell him dog meat. They cannot afford missiles until the IMF approves their loan." answered the host. "Now I am sure you are eager to learn of who the fighter of this floor is." The host led Bush through a group giggling girls surrounding a short, crusty old korean minister with big buck teeth and a lewd smile.

Another minister with another gaggle of gals was eating dog sashimi (slices of raw dog meat) with chopsticks from a black stone plate and when Bush saw this he commented, "This gives a new meaning to the term, 'a dog eat dog business'."

The host took Bush to a brute of an Asian man in a martial arts uniform. When Bush saw who his last opponent was he froze. The host went on with the introduction, "I'd like you to meet Bolo Yeung, the Beast from the East. I'm sure you have seen him in movies such as Bruce Lee's 'Enter the Dragon' or in the movie 'Bloodsport'?"

"Yeah, I've seen him alright." answered Bush. The famous Chinese martial artist, feared for his bodybuilder physique and cruel treatment of opponents, looked even bigger in real life than on the screen. He had bulging muscles and a pudgy face that bespoke sadism and power.


Bolo Yeung

Bolo shook hands with Bush and gave him a smile that was more threatening than any gunpoint. Bolo said in a quiet deep voice, "I've been looking forward to this. It'll be good for the women to see you broken."

"Are you sure you want to beaten like a rented mule infront of these ladies?" asked Bush. Bolo responded with a snort.

"Let's give a good show now shall we?" interrupted the host. Then he called out in a loud voice. "Ladies and gentlemen, I must ask that you make a space in the middle of the room. Attendants are bringing out cushions for you to sit on if you like. And as always, the chefs await your orders and no dish or beverage is considered too exotic for them to handle. We have an excellent show for you tonight."

The people shuffled back to make room for the host. He also ensured that the area around the window through which Bush had climbed was also open. It looked like Mr. Humpty Dumpty was due for that fall.

The host announced, "First of all we must verify that our tower contestent, President Bush of the United States of America, is qualified to be here. Apparently, instead of taking the usual stairway route up the tower, he chose to climb up the outside of the tower. We have checked each floor and he did in fact, subdue all the fighters, but cheated by bringing along forbidden weapons which we believe were stink bombs." The host held up one of the bombs and Bush checked his pocket and realized his last bomb was missing. The host continued, "However, in a spirit of chivalry, Comrade Kim in all his generosity has decided to give Bush a second chance at fighting here if he can pass a qualification test."

The crowd murmured and gossiped about the news. The host continued, "So President Bush, we would be pleased if you could demonstrate your fighting prowess by performing a kata for us or perhaps some other proof of your martial arts skills." The host smiled and motioned for Bush to move to the middle of the room.

Bush walked stiffly out infront of everyone, not sure how he was gonna get through this. Figuring he had no choice, he got into a ninja stance and began a catlike wail while moving his hands about in his idea of a kung fu manner. "Waaaaaaaaa". The crowd started to snicker and the atmosphere was heavy with disappointment. A chef ran across the floor bringing a wooden plate with a steaming hot noodle, meat and veggie mix on it and handed it to a woman next to a korean minister in the front row. She began to feed the minister like a baby but he waved his hands and fanned his mouth. Not far behind him was Bolo watching Bush closely, wondering how good a fighter the politician actually was.

Bush knew he had to provide a little quality in his demonstration so he remembered a move from the movie 'Karate Kid' called the crane kick. Hoping to imitate it, Bush held both arms straight out from his sides and brought one knee up to his chest while he stood on the other. The idea was to jump off the floor and somehow use the inertia of bringing the coiled leg down while the other one kicks out or something like that. So Bush jumped and once he was more or less airborne he got confused about which leg was supposed to do the kick. Unfortunately his weak jump didn't give him much time for thinking so he ended up falling on his arse and kicked the plateful of piping hot food into the face of the korean minister and some of it also splattered on Bolo's neck. This resulted in a great outburst of noise with the minister screaming in pain and holding his cooked face, Bolo yelled out some threats while everyone else whooped with laughter. Even Kim himself had a chortle.

With that done, there was much talk among the audience and after a few minutes the host announced, "We have seen Bush demonstrate his fighting skills or lack of, and it has been decided that thanks to the good laugh he provided us, he qualifies to fight Bolo. Next it is Bolo's turn to demonstrate his unbelievable kicking power."

Bolo got up and flexed his big muscles to wow the crowd while guards pushed Mr. Humpty Dumpty towards the window. Once he was standing there, two guards kept the barrels of their guns stuck in his sides to prevent him from dodging Bolo's big kick.

Humpty looks like he's about to cry. Serves him right though. I'd like to put a fist into that big fat pouty face of his. Bush was happy that Humpty was gonna get his just desserts, even if they were to be dished out by his chief opponent.

Then in desperation, Humpty played his last card, "Wait! Please wait! Let me fight Bush and I'll show you how useless he is!" Hearing this bold outcry, the crowd went silent, waiting for a decision from Kim.

The host ran to Kim who whispered something to him and then the host announced, "Very well, Comrade Kim has granted your request. You will fight Bush, and if you win, you will be spared Bolo's kick. Guards, you may let him stand free."

Humpty approached one of the korean ministers in the crowd and whispered something in his ear. The minister thought for a moment and then in a most rough manner, he grabbed a nearby woman by her arm and thrust her out into the open area. Then he barked something at her in what Bush was pretty sure was Japanese language and she got down on all fours and braced herself.

So this is where the women the North Korean agents kidnapped from Japan end up. That crusty geezer thinks he's pretty tough pushing her around. I'll have to provide an education to him on exactly what it means for a man to be tough. Bush realized there was more than just dogmeat on the table here.

The host then explained the rules of the fight to them. "As you can see for yourself, there are many types of weapons on the wall from various styles of martial arts. The ones lower down and most easily accessible are the hardest to use, especially for people unskilled in the arts like yourselves. Up high on the ceiling are the best weapons and the easiest to wield such as katanas and other types of swords, but only most acrobatic athlete could possible jump high enough to reach them. The coveted Chinese Hunwei Dao broadsword in the centre of the ceiling requires both a jump and a back flip to be taken from its rack and then a landing without disemboweling oneself. But this sword's frightening cutting ability will surely ensure victory to anyone lucky enough to wield it. Anyways, the only rule we have here is try to not spray blood onto the audience or you will lose their favor. I wish you both good luck and may the less incompetent man win." The host swooped his arm down indicating the opening of hostilities.

Bush looked up at the dozens of weapons and sure enough, there in the centre was a wicked broad bladed sword sparkling with malignancy with a red piece of cloth attached to its handle. He had a little fantasy about it. If I could get my hands on that sweet piece of hardware I'd make chop suey out the whole lot of these goons just now.

Bolo clapped his hands together with the volume of a gunshot to signal he was impatient for the rumble to start. Humpty selected for himself a long wooden bo staff from the wall nearest him while Bush opted for a police tonfa baton which was the only weapon he could reach which he was fairly sure wouldn't take his own head off in a second.

[unscratchedfoot]

Bush waited in the centre of the room for his egg-shaped opponent to come over and get it on. Between them was the Japanese girl still on all fours waiting for who knows what. Then Humpty let out a sound usually made by a hippopotamus giving birth and ran at the girl, his big jelly belly blobbing up and down with each step. Using her as a springboard he stepped once on her back and jumped superhero style into the air hoping to flatten the president into the shape of a hotcake. In an instant, Bush calculated where the fat man would land and placed one end of the tonfa on the floor with the other pointing straight up. Humpty came down on the end of the tonfa belly first. The result of the reverse piledriver was reasonable: Humpty rolled sideways off the tonfa moaning in extreme agony while holding his massacred midsection. The crowd applauded Bush on his excellent defensive maneouvre.

The host looked at the stricken fatso and nodded to the guards who ran up and dragged Humpty to the window. It took 6 guards to barely hoist the fat man up to a standing position while Bolo came out to do his work. Once in place, Bolo took 2 quick steps towards Humpty and sunk a devastating sidekick into his midsection launching the fat man back first out the window. Had he not been so fat, he surely would have touched his toes on the way out from that brutal kick. As it was, his weight advantage ensured he didn't overshoot the garbage bin waiting far below to cushion Humpty Dumpty's great fall. Bush could feel the impact of Bolo's powerful kick resonate through the floor beneath him.

Bolo walked slowly around the room pumping his big arms up and down while the crowd chanted, "Bolo! Bolo! Bolo!..." Even Bush couldn't resist the urge to join in honoring the Beast from the East. "Bolo! Bolo!..."

The host took control of the show again. "Wasn't that a beautiful display of power? And that's just an appetizer folks because now we get to see Bolo demonstrate that invincible might again to take apart the President of the United States!!" Upon hearing this, the crowd went so wild with their celebrating that Bush also let out a few whoops.

Then Kim Jong-il stood up and while walking into the open area declared, "I will not be outdone! I will not be outdone by this chimpanzee of a world leader!"

The host trotted up to him and asked quietly, "Your highness, may I ask what this is about? Surely you don't mean that you are going to fight Bush instead of letting Bolo have the honor?"

"No. I will only display my martial arts ability. I have trained for months in secret for this chance to demonstrate my superiority to the American chimp. When I am done, Bolo will do the dirty work of bludgeoning the buffoon."

The host was visibly relieved at hearing Kim would not risk fighting the president himself. Kim went to the wall and took down a pair of nunchakus. Seeing this, most people watching were certain that the slug-like, out of shape Korean would knock himself out.

While walking around looking at the audience, Kim started swinging the nunchakus about himself, the swishing of the handles was the only sound in the room and the atmosphere was intense. Astonishingly, Kim turned out to be fairly proficient and never once hit himself. He took the opportunity to gloat, "You see everyone? I am like Bruce Lee. I would love to see Bush try to do this. Yeah? C'mon Bush, let's see you try using a pair of nunchakus. I dare you."

Bush knew better than to take the bait. Instead he had an idea. It was obvious that although Kim could use the nunchakus without any problem, he was also being quite conservative and repetitive in his moves, unlike the dazzling combos Bruce Lee was known for. So Bush taunted, "Hey Kim, you're doing pretty good with those beginner moves. How about something a little more advanced before we fall asleep?"

"Certainly." Kim started whipping the nunchakus around his torso and and up and down his back in a much more complex pattern.

Crack! "Iiiyarrrggh! You fool!!" roared Bolo holding his injured head. Kim had been concentrating hard on the pattern and wandered too close to the audience.

Kim let the nunchakus drop to the floor and he stood there glaring at Bolo for a icy moment. Then came his judgement, "Guards, 2 of you escort Bolo to Kyo-hwa-so Number 1 where he can work off his crime against the honorable state of North Korea. Quickly, get this scum out of here before his presence makes me sick!"

The Kyo-hwa-so are a system of penitentiary-like institutions in North Korea whose prisoners are virtually doomed to die in the starving, repressive conditions. And for one with a huge appetite like Bolo, the misery would be compounded.

Bolo stood up and a guard took hold of his left arm. With blinding speed, Bolo wrapped his arm around his captor's, locking it under his underarm, and with a violent little jerk to the side, snapped the guard's elbow joint backwards. Then he clubbed the guard under his chin with a murderous upperhand lifting him off the floor and landing him on top of a group of terrified, squealing women. All who witnessed the smashing blow flinched at the sight and sound of it.

The rest of the guards formed a semi-circle around Bolo all pointing their machineguns at him. The host looked at Bolo and shook his head with a very sad expression. The proud warrior had no choice but to relent. One of the guards handcuffed Bolo and along with one more, led him at gunpoint to the stairwell to begin his march to the death camp.

The crowd murmered, frightened both at how Bolo had so brutally dispatched the guard and at how Kim had just sentenced one of his most favored bodyguards to a lingering death. Bolo was gone. To the astonishment of everyone present, it was Bush himself who spoke up against the heartless act. "It takes a real man like you to send one who's trained all his life to better himself to such a miserable death." Bush stood up and walked out into the open space to confront Kim.

"Heh, it takes a real man like you to declare war on a third world country while you have the biggest military in the world backing you up along with your ally in bullying Blair. Don't talk to me about being heartless or cruel, Mr. Bush." Kim was finally letting out his pent-up bitterness he'd built up through his decades of decadence while America had prospered.

Bush understood now without the host saying anything more that it had come time for him to face Kim in hand to hand combat. Kim knew it too and made no move to exit the fighting area. "You know Kim, it didn't surprise me in the least to see your toadface at the top of this tower. Only a cold-hearted tyrant like you would stoop so low as to market a household pet as steak just to make a buck."

Kim replied, "My dogmeat business? How else do you think I'm supposed to fund my nuclear weapons development program?"

"I don't know." said Bush.

"Thanks to my ingenious sales technique which is used by all the staff, my business is really taking off. It seems dogmeat is quite popular everywhere, including in America. Surprised? You should be. Even the catering company supplying the White House cafeteria has been persuaded to replace all its beef products with dogmeat. I've heard Chenney is particularly fond of the dogsteaks. Thanks for your business Mr. President. You've been an excellent customer of mine. Neh he he he."

Bush clenched his fists in anger. Even he had eaten some of the dogsteaks but stopped because they seemed kind of strange compared to the fresh beefsteaks he had at home on his ranch. Probably all of Congress had partaken in the canine cuisine. Too disgusted to want to think about it anymore, Bush decided to change the topic back to the prefight taunting that made his style of scrapping so stylish, "Aren't you getting a little old for streetfights, Kim Jong-Il, son of the Kim Il-Sung the most notoriously sadistic national leader the world has known since the days of Stalin?"

"I'm too old? Look at yourself." sputtered Kim. "You're so old that you can still remember when the Dead Sea was only sick." The crowd had a chuckle at this.

"Oh boy, that's a new one. That last time I heard that I fell off my dinosaur." Bush showed his skill in trading insults, a rare virtue he credits to his extensive experience in bitter confrontations. Again the crowd chuckled their approval of this retort.

Kim turned to the audience with his arms held high in a victorious pose. "Well you all heard that. The man admits he's prehistoric. Ha!" The crowd didn't seem too impressed with this last shot so the master dogeater had to think hard for some better material.

Bush was getting antsy to start the fight and exact some revenge for Kim tricking him into eating Fido and making money off it in the process. "So are you about done with the immature trash talk? It's getting time we took the gloves off to see who's really the better man here."

Kim turned to him and said, "You know your predecessor Clinton, the feable-minded fool he was, at least knew how to molest decent women, while your girlfriends consider it normal to pee on fire hydrants. You ever tried making a nice tasty stew out of them?" Kim ended with a freakish grin of triumph, confident his opponent would never make a better comeback.

"Well I ya... yeah... um... uh huh... okay I uh..."

Kim shook his head despairing at Bush's weak comeback. Then he picked up the bo staff that Humpty had left on the floor. Bush doubted Kim would repeat the flying flop attack so he looked at the wall for a good weapon to counter the long reach of the staff. The weapons were all certainly difficult to wield except one: the spikey ball and chain.

Bush took the chain off the wall and held it in one hand and the ball in the other. The principal behind it's use was just like that of a lasoo so he'd have no trouble putting it to good use on the bragging North Korean. He started to swing the ball round and round with his torso waving back and forth in a hoola hoop fashion, building up inertia while walking up to Kim who awaited the attack.

Bush released the ball and it flew straight and sure. Unfortunately it was not the most high velocity weapon available and Kim sidestepped out of the way just in time. The heavy metal ball continued on and struck the unlucky, or lucky depending on how you look at it, Mrs. Humpty Dumpty square in the gut inflicting a similar fate upon her as her grouchy husband before her.

Thump! "Ooof!"

She keeled over nursing her squashed tummy and the guards wasted no time in throwing her out the window to join her husband in the bin below. Actually, she fell right on top of him. There were those in the room who were thinking that perhaps it was better for her now that she wouldn't have to play the role of cow.

Back to the wall went Bush and this time he selected a faster moving weapon: a razor-edged boomerang. He turned around and flung it at Kim as hard as he could and the dictator froze in terror as the swooping weapon came straight at him. Fortunately for Kim, he was unwittingly doing exactly what one should do when a boomerang is thrown at him by someone totally unpractised in doing so - don't move at all.

Like the frisbee earlier that day, the boomerang veered up and around, slicing through the rope holding Xiu up by her hair. As soon as she hit the floor, she wiggled her tied up body to knock the comic book pile to within reach of the kids.

"Hey let us have the candy too." whined the greedy kids.

"No, there will be a big feast later if Bush wins the fight and you don't want to lose your appetite." scolded Xiu.

"Awww c'mon."

The boomerang continued one and cut off a torch on the wall which fell onto a guard standing underneath and set his uniform on fire. The people nearby respectfully backed up to give him space to run around burning and screaming. Then the boomerang snapped off one of the chains holding up the nude woman statue and one end of it clonked down on top of a minister's head giving him a nice concussion. The thin metal chain knocked the boomerang into a downward angle to finally come to a full stop in the soft side of another minister.

Shluckt! "Urk!"

The crowd let out a big "Oh!" with each accident and Kim was all pouty now that his cronies were getting hurt one after another. Once the boomerang was done its business, Kim charged at Bush with the bo staff held sideways infront. "Hyaaaaaaaah! Die American scum!!"

Bush had seen a lot of kung fu movies and reckoned the best response to this frontal attack would be to grasp the oncoming staff with 2 hands and use the momentum of his opponent to allow himself to fall into a backwards summersault. Once on the ground Bush would place both feet on Kim's chest and while rolling over backwards, kick off launching Kim high into the air to come down someplace hard.

Again bad luck struck and halfway through the maneouvre, Bush lost both his momentum and his balance. He tipped over and Kim thudded onto the floor just like a sack of potatoes falling out the back of a delivery truck. The dogpusher was filled with the rage of battle and jumped to his feet and starting hammering Bush with both ends of the bo staff in a rapid motion.

Whack! Pak! Thup! Bop! Fwap! Still on the floor, Bush could do little more than put up his arms and legs to try and protect himself from the rain of blows. He got in a kick or two at Kim's kneecaps but it didn't help. Apparently Kim was also fairly proficient in using a bo staff as well as nunchakus.

Bush's bruised limbs were becoming quite painful, especially after several hits to his leg in the same spot where Sensei had kicked him earlier. He was clearly losing the fight and there were no objects within reach to grab. Thinking about tactics was also pretty much impossible while being beaten down. Some people in the audience were already discussing what Kim would decide to do with Bush once the beating was over. Ship him off to a death camp? Torture him and send the video to CNN? Or maybe collect a cozy ransom plus some juicy goods like nuclear technology and weapons grade plutonium.

When a waiter rushed by carrying a plateful of teriyaki chicken to someone, Kim called out, "Food man! Go tell the chefs to start cooking up Putaro. I'll be hungry after the fight." The waiter ran downstairs with the order and then a terrified yapping could be heard. Putaro was going in the stewpot.

Bush knew it was now or never. If Putaro was eaten, it would mean certain death for the president at the hands of Xiu if not Kim. It was then that his old cowboy skills came back to him. Bush put his pinky fingers in the sides of his mouth and whistled very loud, just as he used to do to call the dogs up to him while herding cattle. It was the high pitched whistle which never failed to command a dog's absolute attention. The desperate yapping downstairs changed to ferocious barks and snarls. Screams came from the chefs and the sound of a struggle. Seconds later, Putaro, all bright eyed and bushy tailed came bounding onto eighth floor and straight to Bush. The medium-small furry fellow stood there panting and wagging his tail.

"Sic 'em!" Bush didn't even need to indicate who 'em' was. Putaro knew full well who the big bad dognapper was, and after dodging a swipe from the bo staff, he started off with a big chomp right on Kim's groin area. Kim yelped and dropped the bo staff, and while he groaned and held his wounded part, Putaro continued to snap and claw away wearing him down to keep him distracted while Bush sorted himself out.

It was not easy for Bush to stand up but he managed it and then prepared the punch. Using a technique similar to a pro-baseball pitcher, he put one hand on Kim's shoulder, lifted up his left leg like a dog peeing on a tree and then wound up as far back as he could reach with his right arm to finally drive his fist into the commie's face.

In the days following the fight, people living up to 2 blocks away from the pagoda tower park described in interviews of how they heard a very loud smack come echoing through the neighborhood. Some of them imagined it was a guest having fallen out of the tower onto the stone base while some middle aged men drinking whiskey and playing mahjong even admitted they thought it was an asteroid hitting the ocean.

Now that the turn of the tide had come, Kim made a run for it with Putaro still snarling and nipping away at him. Bush knew he was too hurt to keep up so instead he picked up the bo staff and lifted it up high to push the delicious looking Hanwei Dao broadsword from its holder on the ceiling. He could just barely reach it with the staff and managed to dislodge it. The sword came down and thunked into the floor sticking straight up. Bush took hold of the handle and grunted with the strain of trying to wrestle it from the hole it had made in the wooden floor.

The sword finally jerked free and Bush ran after Kim. The latter had already started making his way down to the sixth floor using the rope Bush had left hanging outside the window. Kim looked about to climb onto the sixth floor walkway so Bush slashed the rope using the Hanwei Dao, sending Kim down to the garbage bin.


While all this was happening, a drama of a different nature had been taking place at the bottom of the tower. A boy by the name of Dingbang and his girlfriend Candy were carrying a big old wooden TV set to the same garbage bin Kim was headed for.

"I think those superfat people are gone now. It's weird how they were both holding their tummies like that. They must have eaten too much MSG." said Dingbang.

"About time they left. People sure go to weird places these days just to be alone with their lovers." said Candy.

"Um, you're the one who wanted to go hang out in my neighbor's doghouse at nightime."

"Just shut-up okay? Let's get rid of this piece of junk and get out of here before they see us. I can't believe we are going through all this just so you can avoid paying a piddly garbage collection fee."

They lifted up the broken old television and slid it over the edge of the bin.

"Look out! Kim Jong-Il is coming!" yelled Dingbang.

"Already? Run! Fast!"

Karunch!! Splinter! Crack! Pop!


On top of the tower there was jubilation. To everyone's amazement the guards went about handcuffing the surviving North Korean ministers and then admitted that they only wanted to go live in 'the unbelievable luxury' of South Korea. The women all went nuts celebrating their liberation from their North Korean captors and the Japanese ones were reduced to tears at the realization that they could return to their homeland to be with their families and friends again. This was followed by a lively game of spike the cowtail on the ministers using the old blindfold and turn around 3 times rules. The guards also threatened the chefs on sixth floor at gunpoint to cook up a nice big feed without any household pets used as ingredients. As for the host, he remained the host.

Once everyone gathered on seventh floor to begin the party, Seagal and Van Damme also came to join the fun and congratulate Bush on his win. Bush told everyone about all the fights he'd been through and they had a good laugh over it. Then something amazing happened. One of the guards took off his cap to reveal his shaved head. Upon seeing this, Xiu shrieked, "Wei! It's you! I heard you died from the cabbage! How could this be?"

[unscratchedfoot]

Wei smiled at her and answered, "I did indeed get sent in with the test group to eat the germ treated cabbage but when I saw the poor guy next to me was on the verge of starving to death, I gave him my cabbage too. I honestly thought I was doing him a big favor. After everyone died, I faked that I was really sick and the test team were surprised that I had survived the poisoning. Taking advantage of this, I begged them to let me join the military and they actually got approval from Kim himself because he was the one who had sentenced me there. Kim thought that since I proved to be so strong he wanted me to be part of his personal bodyguard unit. The truth is, I just wanted a chance to escape and come back to Hong Kong and see you again." Xiu and Wei embraced each other so so happily.

"Awww that's so sweet." chimed in all the women listening. Some of them were even moved to tears by the end of the romantic tale.

However, the mood was short-lived. The warm and fuzzy atmosphere was shattered by the noise of metal being slammed down with a vengence. Everyone turned to see who it was and there was Bolo at the entrance to the stairwell. The broken remains of handcuffs hung from his wrists and on the floor next to him were 2 bent up machineguns.

"You!!" Bolo pointed a finger at Bush and started walking straight towards him. The people around Bush backed up, not to be polite, but because they were petrified of the oncoming beast who was back from the dead. Bush got into a wobbly fighting stance, his legs like rubber after the previous fight. He regretted having left the Hanwei Dao by the window after cutting the rope. When Bolo arrived, Bush took a swing which Bolo bashed out of the way and then Bolo grabbed him in a bearhug around the lower back. Suspended off the ground, Bush could only wonder whether his spine would snap, his internal organs would be squished beyond use, or perhaps a combo of the two.

"You have helped millions of people and dogs by what you did here today. You have our gratitude." Bolo let Bush down from the friendly hug and then gave him a pat on the back which almost knocked him off his feet. "I brought some friends."

In came the Humpty Dumpties, looking like they'd just been trashed. In fact they had been trashed but good and it gave Bush a warm tingly feeling to see the terrible condition of his former enemies. But the animosity between them was gone and Bush happily accepted a rooftop barbeque invitation from Mrs. Humpty Dumpty for lunch the next day before flying back to Washington.

That done, the party went into full gear and a good time was had by all, except for the ministers.


The End



************************************


These are the websites I used in researching this story.
death camps
north korean nuke program
asian pictures
pagoda
more pictures
example of a Hanwei Dao broadsword

For those who like real kung fu movies with no strings attached check out Ong Bak. Its a very nice action flic about a mutai fighter in Thailand.

Hope you enjoyed the story. Leave a comment if you like and please keep it too nonpolitical thoughts. Thanks for your cooperation.

[ChrisiusMaximus]

AWESOME STUFF!!!

I have been crying with laughter all day

Fantastic!!

[unscratchedfoot]

sicko?
You mean because of the picture on the end? Should I delete it? I got it from a Bush photo gallery I think is a fansite for him: bush photos

[ChrisiusMaximus]

NOOOO dont delete the pic, its the whole thing thats sick, just the way I like it

[ChrisiusMaximus]

That Bush pic at the end is one of the funniest things Ive ever seen, its busted me ribs Ive been laughing so hard.

Scratch your a genius, and I think you know it

[Paddy]

Well Sir, I printed some stories out for enjoyment between trips and out on my balconey

This is great. Thank you,,, you do have an interesting thought pattern.

and please keep the pic of Miss Bushie...

[forgorin]

Har Har. Once again to funny for words.

[vovan]

Great stuff, scratch. I almost fell off the chair laughing a few times.