"Born down in a dead man's town
The first kick I took was when I hit the ground
You end up like a dog that's been beat too much
‘Til you spend half your life just covering up
Born in the U S A!
Born in the U S A!
Born in the U S A!"
"Hell yeah, Bruce, sing it!"
An 18-wheeler rolled down a Vermont highway on a warm spring day, belting out the most patriotic songs you ever did hear from over twenty loudspeakers bolted onto the top. Noise violations be damned. The whole trailer was painted to look like a million American flags. It hauled dental hygiene products. For America.
"Booooorrrrrrnnnn in the U S A!!!!!"
A lone figure was observable in the cab. A man. A great man. A man of morals. A man of dignity. A man of questionable blood alcohol levels. A man…named Chuck.
"You crazy sonabitch! You ain't gonna blow up no more of our towers! You messin' round in Chuck's territory! Prepare to die!" "BOOOOORRRRNNNN IN THE U S A!!!!! FUCK YEAH!!! BOOORRRRNNNN IN THE U S A!!!!"
The truck careened down the road, just shy of the speed limit, because going over the limit would be against the law, and the law is there to protect America.
Chuck's single-handed grip on the wheel tightened as he used his free hand to polish off another Miller Tall Boy. This was America after all.
He dropped the empty can on the floor of his cab with all of the others before cracking open a new one.
Chuck was making good time on this gloriously sunny day; his shipment of hygienic patriotism was only a couple of short hours from reaching its drop-off point.
He finished his beer and then grabbed his shotgun and began to polish it with one hand, the other hand holding another beer. He steered with his feet. He wore red white and blue work boots.
"BOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRNNNNNNNNN IN THE U S A!!!!!"
He was getting his finely crafted piece of American steel (and other assorted parts and materials) ready for his customary on-time delivery blasts of joy when he saw several odd-looking cars driving along the right side of his truck.
He wedged his shotgun to hold the wheel in place and crawled to the passenger side of his cab, slowly peering out of the window to get a better look.
It was a line of four white, unmarked vans, each one loaded with people. Every one of them wore a black army-style uniform, although no weapons were visible. But they didn't fly an American flag, which made them—
"Terrorists!" Chuck hissed under his breath.
He watched closer to see if they did anything terrorist-y but was unable to tell for sure. One of the guys in the second van scratched his arm in a very un-patriotic manner. Chuck was pretty sure they were here for nothing less than the complete and utter destruction of everything America holds dear. The man scratched again. That anti-American motherfucker!
Chuck watched, and then they suddenly veered off to the right.
"Sheiiit! They took the exit! Just like Al-Qaeda would do!" Chuck shouted to himself.
He slammed on the brakes and cranked the wheel as far as it would go, spinning the truck wildly in the middle of a busy four lane highway. Cars crashed. People died. Chuck didn't give a shit.
The truck did a full 180 (this wasn't the first time Chuck had pulled this maneuver. Last time it was because he missed a McDonald's) and he began speeding off towards the exit the terrorists took. He set his shotgun down, grabbed his phone, and punched in speed dial number four.
"Come on, pick up, pick up, pick up…"
"Hello, you have reached Governor Strickland's office, this is Kathy, how may I help you today?"
"This is Chuck! Put me on the line with Strickland! Terror is happening!"
"This is who?" Kathy asked, still maintaining a professional demeanor.
Chuck slammed on the brakes and turned off at the exit (going backwards on a highway obviously causes a lot of accidents; plenty of people crashed).
"Dammit woman I don't have time for your shenanigans! America is going to explode if I don't speak with Governor Strickland! Now put him on the line!" Chuck yelled, although his yelling may have been muffled by all of the drinking he was doing.
"The Governor is a very busy man—"
"Just tell ‘em it's his good ‘ol buddy Chuck! He's bound to pick up."
Chuck swerved through traffic, trying desperately to catch up to the enemies of America. Turns out he went onto another freeway. Lotta traffic on this one too.
"…are you sure he knows you?" Kathy said, sounding reasonably skeptical.
"Ma'am, me and he are good buddies, and more importantly, restricting my access to talkin' with him means you are obviously a deranged terrorist commando, attempting to rape capitalism! Do you want to rape capitalism, ma'am?" Chuck said, simultaneously loading his shotgun and swigging a beer.
"…one second, let me ask someone something."
Holding music. It was soothing.
Chucks Semi-Truck of Flaming Patriotism (But Not Flaming in a Gay Way) screamed down the road, pushing any small cars out if its way. He actively swerved to hit anyone in a hybrid. Because fuck those guys.
After a couple minutes he caught sight of the caravan of terror again, driving just like it hated America.
"Hello?" came Kathy's voice through the phone.
"Yes ma'am?"
"I told him to trace the call and have you arrested, but against all logic and reason, Governor Strickland will speak with you… let me patch him through."
"Thank ye' Kathy! Your actions won't go unnoticed on this day!"
More waiting music. Still quite soothing.
"Hello Chuck? This is Strickland. I thought I told you to stop calling me." A man's voice came through the line, very official-sounding but still noticeably stressed.
"Now calm down sir, I know you all told me to stop calling after that time…with…with the explosions and all."
"That is so not specific it's not even funny," Strickland said, obviously losing patience quickly.
"Regardless!" Chuck spat. No really, beer went all over the cab. "This time real terror is afoot! In all of its terror-y ways!"
A small sedan crumpled under Chuck's truck. The Truck of Justice.
"What's happening this time?"
"A whole mess o' white vans is rolling down the highway. Loads of guys in black commando outfits! It's the real deal this time sir! I'm requesting permission to fire upon them!" he said, already holding his shotgun in one hand.
"…are you sure?"
"Sure as I feed my pet bald eagle only the finest bits of America's enemies."
"It's, it's actually illegal to own a bald…nevermind, listen Chuck, I'm actually going to check into this. Do not, I repeat do not, do anything until you get a call back from me."
"Yes sir! I won't disappoint you!"
The line went dead.
"So what can I do until I get a call back from— oh my God they saw me!" Chuck yelled, ducking down on the floor of his truck. He heard horns honking and tires skidding. Must be the skidding of patriotic motorists gallantly moving out of his way so he could better pursue those who wished to live in dry countries and not be in America.
He had looked out his window and seen one of the commandos giving his brilliantly American truck a passing glance, so he dropped down. When he got back up they where no longer paying attention to him, but he shut off the red, white and the blue spotlights just in case.
But then it occurred to him that they might find it odd that his lights went out all of a sudden, so he turned them back on. But then he thought maybe he should turn them off again because they were a little conspicuous.
And then it dawned on him that flipping over a dozen massive spotlights on and off over and over again was more likely to draw attention than not. So he did the next logical thing.
He rolled down the passenger seat window and locked eyes with one of the deranged fanatics, and shouted, "You crazy sonabitch! You ain't gonna blow up no more of our towers! You messin' round in Chuck's territory! Prepare to die!"
The van's window rolled down.
"What?"
"Oh, I said! YOU CRAZY SON OF A BITCH! YOU…YOU AIN'T…YOU…YOU AIN'T GONNA…OUR TOWERS…FUCK…FUCKIN…FUCK YOU OSAMA!" he shouted, leveling his shotgun at the van and pulling the trigger.
The man's eyes widened right before Chuck let a round off, directly at him. Fortunately, Chuck may have been drinking a bit, so his aim was off by a little, and he actually hit a tire.
There was a great popping sound as the rubber burst and the van started veering dangerously back and forth before it took a 90-degree turn and flipped off the road and down the embankment.
"FUCK YEAH! I LOVE AMERICA!"
The other three vans scattered, the rear one slamming the brakes and falling out of sight. The other two trying to speed ahead of Chuck's truck. Little did they know that he had installed a propulsion system that ran on the fear of America's enemies. And there may have also been a small chance that he had installed a small, slightly illegal, rocket thruster on the underside of his truck. For America!
He punched the button on his dash labeled "Only a good idea twelve beers in" and gripped his Miller and his shotgun, bracing for the massive speed boost.
Unfortunately he had tried to install enormous amounts of food coloring into the rocket's primary and secondary thrusters, in order to make the resulting flames scream him along in the colors of the flag. And even more unfortunately, this caused a chemical reaction that made the entire rocket explode like a motherfucker.
Chuck's trailer was immediately engulfed in flames (normal-colored ones) and the entire thing lifted off the ground several feet, detaching itself from the cab. It flew off the road and promptly murdered three lonely sad rabbits. And then lit a field on fire.
Chuck looked back for only a second, and then refocused his attention on the task at hand. Which was now speeding away from him at a hundred miles an hour.
Fortunately, freed from its load of teeth whitening patriotism, Chucks cab was quickly catching up.
The vans made no attempt to return fire as Chuck sped up from behind, blindly firing a shotgun out of the driver's side window with his left hand, pumping a new shell and swigging his Jack Daniels every other couple of seconds, like clockwork.
Since you can't accurately one hand an eight gauge, all of his shots missed hilariously, usually in a way that is only hilarious if you think hitting passing drivers is hilarious.
Kenny Chesney was filling the cab with his dulcet tones, giving Chuck courage, adrenaline, and the will to polish off a half-full bottle of Jack one-handed while cranking the volume with the other.
Chuck closed in behind them, setting his shotgun on the seat next to him; having run out of ammo, he sadly retired the weapon. And then he pulled his extra one out from under the seat and let a few rounds out.
The vans and truck flew down the highway well past the speed their makers intended, and indeed, they had caught the attention of several state troopers.
"Alright! Backup!" Chuck smiled, looking in the rearview mirror, seeing the flashing lights of fuckterrorists coming up behind him.
"It's ok fellas!" Chuck yelled, leaning out of his window, "I ‘preciate the effort and all, but ‘ol Chucks got this under control!" He paused for a minute before saying, "Any of you guys got any extra shotgun shells?"
He lurched forward as his truck hit something. Reaffixing his eyes on the road in front of him, Chuck saw that he had just tapped the bumper of one of the vans. An idea dawned on him.
Time for some face to face patriotism.
Chuck dropped a case of Jack Daniels on the gas pedal, confident that at no point would he have to slow down at all, for any reason.
He set aside his second empty shotgun, and climbed out onto the hood of his truck.
"I saw this in a movie once!" Chuck yelled to no one in particular as he struggled to keep his cap on in the whistling wind. "I think it was that one where Sylvester Stallone climbs on the hood of a truck cab. Yeah, that's it." And after all, seeing something in a movie means it has to work.
The van tried to pull a fast one on him by switching lanes, but Chuck was ready for such a pansy, Al-Qaeda-ish move, and leapt from his Screaming Truck of Flaming Patriotism (But Not Flaming in a Gay Way) onto the back of the van, clinging desperately to the handles on the door.
"Fuckin'… shit," he muttered, flexing every last ounce of muscle he had attempting to pull himself up. Through immense suffering he managed to pull himself level with the window on the back and looked inside.
The back seats in this one were out, but that didn't stop them from cramming in as many fanatic tower topplers as they could in there.
One was shouting frantically into a phone while two looked very surprised at the face of Chuck appearing like a stirring image of American freedom in their back window, regardless of the fact that his truck was one lane and thirty feet away.
Chuck climbed onto the roof, when his foot caught the latch of the door, opening it.
He fell as the door swung open, his boots scraping on the ground, flecks of the paintjob he himself had given them flying everywhere.
Sweating now, Chuck scrambled up, slipped down again (he was pretty chubby and not very strong) and then managed to pull himself up again.
One of the commandos reached a hand out to help, which Chuck took… then used to throw the man out of the van as he climbed into the back.
He hit the ground hard and rolled for quite a ways, police cars skidding desperately out of the way.
"Sorry!" Chuck called out.
He turned back to the van and was instantaneously punched right in his fucking face.
"What the hell is wrong with you, man?!" the face-crushing avenger of evil spat.
"What the? You look like yer white! What form of magic is this! Where you damn brownies can look like honest to God real life people who don't want to kill everything that's good and happy? For this. You must die."
"What the fuck are you talking about you crazy— OWW!"
Chuck uppercut the man and leapt on top of him, kicking feet knocking some bags out of the open back door.
He punched his quarry twice in the face before the third man attacked, trying to pull him off.
One kidney punch later and he flew out of the back door, leaving only the driver, Chuck, and the poor bastard that Chuck was pummeling.
"This is for 9/11!"
PUNCH!
"This is for Afghanistan!"
SMACK!
"This is for Korea!"
NUT PUNCH!!!
He was out cold.
Chuck took out his pocket knife and another beer. He drank the beer and then stabbed the driver a dozen times with the knife.
He threw the body into the passenger seat and then slipped behind the wheel.
"Pull your vehicle over now!"
"Hmm?"
Chuck looked out of the passenger's side window to see a police cruiser with the windows rolled down. In the front was a man driving and yelling through a bullhorn, and in the back was a man leveling an assault rifle at the van.
"No, guys! Dontche worry! I killed them sonsabitches and I'm about to get the rest!"
Chuck floored it and sped off towards the last van, eyes narrowing as beads of sweat dripped from his brow. This was so fucking exciting!