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KENTUCKY · (07-12-2026)

“Excuse me, is that you? The man in the Beaverlick Bugle?”

A man with a London accent, wearing a kit for the Three Lions, says as he walks into the saloon.

Kentucky ‘Tuck’ Taggart turns on his bar stool and nods, crushing the last bit of a Marlboro Red into an ash tray and popping a pickled egg from a nearby jar into his mouth as he sets down his paper.

“Thashright. Do ya for?”

He says with a mouthful of egg.

“Wow. First day in town and right away I meet the front page celebrity of town! Sir, I would like to buy you a drink!”

“Well hell. I don’t turn down no drink. Proceed.”

“Bartender!”

The interloper slaps the bartop.

“I’d like to buy this man a glass of your finest whisky! Bring some Jack Daniel’s!”

The sounds of many chairs scooting back from their tables can be heard, and the jukebox stops dead in the middle of a Travis Tritt song.

“Mister…”

Tuck says, standing.

“You won’t find that Tennessee Tinkerbell Tea in any bar in Beaverlick. We drink GOD’S whisky. Kentucky Bourbon.”

“I-i-i meant no offense, my good man…”

“Too late. You done did it. Plus you got one of them Men In Tights accents… boy you got some nerve showin’ up over here in the States during America’s 250th. What, you wanna go another round like it was 1776?”

“Well I think that happened in 1812…”

“ARE YOU GIVING ME LIP, YOU POWDERED WIG PUSSY?”

“I have no idea what’s going on here…”

“SEEEEE-LAP!!!!”

Tuck actually shouts this out loud as he swings his hand, the size of a gallon of milk, and slams it into the side of the Englishman's cranium, sending him over the bar. The man is audibly snoring before his body even fully settles. Tuck just sits back down as if nothing happened.

“It was my paw, what learnt me to slap.”

“See, that carpetbaggin’ sonsabitch weren’t even from Kentucky. He was a truck drivin’ SOB with families in a dozen states. He ain’t gave me my name, that was ma, but what he did give me was a genetic predisposition to havin’ a real bad attitude and bein’ quick to throw hands. My ma? I seen her catch backhands over cold dinners, warm beers, and even walkin’ in front of the TV during a big play. My paw had the same answer to every question - a hand across the cheek.”

“Yep. That man used to reach down like he was tryin’ to pull the devil hisself up outta Hell, then smack my mama so hard she’d be wearin’ sunglasses for week. And every time he threw one o’ them haymakers into my mama’s face, I was right there to soak it all in. The form. The angle. The follow through. I weren’t never one to get good grades at school but I’ve always been a quick study when it came to throwin’ skin.”

“I wanted the old man to see what I’d learnt off him. So one of them times mama didn’t get the can open fast enough or what have you, and that SOB decided it was time to step into the batter’s box, I stepped in front of my mama and sent one straight over home plate at him. I thought he’d be tougher to drop, but his head bounced off the floor quick like a bunny. He couldn’t drive no trucks after that, on account’a spending the rest of his life cockeyed. He’s dead now. Ma’s just fine.”

Kentucky Taggart stands at home plate of some run down ball field. The kind they use whatever’s laying around for bases. The old No Parking sign at his feet serving as home plate is a prime example.

The couple dozen or so of locals in the cheap metal bleachers have their cells out, knowing they might be in store for yet another one of Tuck’s newsworthy feats. Tuck’s daughter Lexi stands on the pitcher’s mound with a bright yellow softball in her hand.

Tuck is not holding a bat.

“Now… Mister Lenny Pussyfarting. I ain’t one to mince no words. I came down here to the local diamond to give you a little glimpse of what’s fixin’ to happen to your temporomandibular joint when we stand across from each other at Bad Medicine. That’s the fancy medical term for the thing that holds that waggin’ chin of yours attached to the rest of your soft skull. Let’s just say I learned it off a few court appearances."

“I respect the fact that you signed up for this, but that’s where the respect stops. You probably think I’m just some dumb hickerbilly that can’t read. Well, mister, I ain’t one of your Oxford educated Shakespeare butt-buddies, but I got a certain way with words all my own. Matter of fact, at Bad Medicine I plan on rearranging the letters in OBE to make ‘em read DOA. YOU READY, LEX?”

Lexi nods and starts rotating her shoulder.

“My baby girl was startin’ pitcher on the UK softball team. Show ‘em a sample, Lex!”

Lexi swoops her arm in a rapid circle and flings the softball into the mitt of a previously unseen catcher with the sound of a car backfiring.

“Nice.”

Tuck grins as the ball is returned to Lexi. She throws another fast pitch and this time Tuck slaps it! It sounds like a thunderclap as the ball sails out over the outfield and disappears.

Tuck smiles as he turns to the camera.

“Lenny… I don’t reckon you got a chin tougher’n a 90 mph fastball. I doubt you got taught how to handle it when I roll these bones across your face at Mrs. Periwinkle’s Performing Arts School for Sissies. I imagine you don’t think violence is the answer… and amigo, you’re right.”

Tuck spits into the dirt.

“Violence ain’t the answer. It’s the question.”

He gives a Robert Redford nod.

“The answer… is yes.”

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