Badasses of Songdom: SUSPENDED This Week, Until Triangle Man Posts Bail

PHUTATORIUS
I'm sorry to say that the rumors in the blogosphere are true: there will be no Badasses of Songdom fight this week. We thought long and hard about going ahead without Triangle Man: we have a pretty thick reserve of worthy combatants, after all. Mithridates proposed that I pluck two names out of my Badasses Rolodex, call up the lucky lottery winners and put 'em in a ring together. But I just didn't feel right moving forward on that. Our undefeated champion is in the lock-up, the hoosegow — he's "indisposed" — and it seems a bit cheap, a bit fraudulent, to schedule a title bout without him. I mean, we don't even have the frickin' title belt: the cops locked it away with T-Man's personal effects at the booking.

No, I've decided. We're not gonna budge on the Badasses series until (1) Triangle Man posts bail, or (2) somebody springs him.

All I can do today is tell you how we got here.
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Now I know some of you saw the big mess of cop cars and ambulances in the parking lot after the Rigby fight. We've had emails about it, and folks have been anxious to find out what transpired there. Well, it shouldn't surprise anyone to learn that this darned holding pattern we're in right now has everything to do with the events that took place outside the Shriners Auditorium last Thursday night.

I'll say right off the bat that one of the ambulances was, of course, taking Eleanor Rigby "to hospital" (as they say in her neck of the woods). We're legally required to keep a crew of paramedics on hand to cart off one or more fallen combatants, as necessary. That's standard operating procedure, and nothing fishy about it.

The rest of the sirens, lights, and hullabaloo had to do with some "extracurricular" business involving Triangle Man (who else?) as he went out to his car after the fight. Now I was not a firsthand eyewitness to any of this, and I'm still piecing the story together from the police reports and court transcripts from the arraignment. But as best I can figure it, some guy who calls himself the Taxman approached Triangle Man just outside the doors of the Auditorium. He flashed some kind of documentation and demanded to know what T-Man's fight purse was.

"What's it to ya?" Triangle Man said. (I'm paraphrasing.)

The Taxman said he was entitled to a 95% cut of Triangle Man's BoS earnings to date. As you can imagine, that didn't go over well. Onlookers reported that in his sudden fury Triangle Man actually hit himself in the face, Woody Hayes-style, before proceeding to deal a flurry of blows to Taxman, taking him down to the asphalt.

"THAT'S ONE FOR ME, AND NINETEEN FOR YOU," Triangle Man shouted. Some libertarians in the crowd egged him on, and it took a dozen other people to pull him off the Taxman.

Folks had cell phones: they called the police. Someone shouted for medical assistance, but the paramedics had already blown the joint with Rigby.

"IS THERE A DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE?" At which point a guy named Robert answered the call — who knew, with this audience demographic, that there would actually be a doctor handy? He went over to the Taxman, who was still down, and picked him up. "HE'S DYING THERE!" somebody shouted.

"I'll do everything I can," he said, calmly. He pulled out a flask from one jacket pocket, and a cup from another. The Taxman took a drink from the cup, swallowed, cleared his throat, and spat.

"YOU MOTHER FUC —" Taxman sprang to his feet and charged Triangle Man, who was still restrained (but barely).

"Well, well, well — YOU'RE feeling fine," Doctor Robert said. Something special was in that cup. The police would later have it swabbed for testing in their forensic lab. They're thinking PCP.

Depending on the witness, Taxman actually landed between one and five blows on Triangle Man, before the latter broke free from the crowd and beat the tar out of him. In the ensuing melee Doctor Robert broke his collarbone, and about a dozen other onlookers were injured. I recognized one of them from the police file: a guy from the town where I was born. He'd spent some time at sea and was always telling stories about submarines. Hadn't seen him in years, but I'm glad he's following the blog.

Four squad cars reported to the scene, and it took six cops and four Taser discharges to subdue Triangle Man. He had totally lost it and was screaming "SURRENDER TO THE VOID! IT IS SHINING!" over and over as they dragged him to the car.

At his arraignment the next morning, the court ruled that Triangle Man was a flight risk. Apparently he had escaped from his cell several times by turning himself sideways and slipping between the bars, only to find his bid for freedom thwarted by the solid locked door to the cell block. Bail is set at $5 million. They have him in solitary, in a bricked-up cell. It didn't help that the judge owned up to be a Beatles fan. The guy nearly killed everybody on the Revolver album.

Redneck, M'dates and I are pooling our resources, calling the few influential people we know. We should know by early next week whether we can get Triangle Man out of prison and back into action (pending trial on these aggravated assault charges, of course). We'll keep you posted.