Disclaimer: I don't claim Tristan, Duke, Cadillac, or anything else in this story. It was written for pure entertainment value, and I'm receiving no profit.

WARNING: This is not WAFF. This is WAFF's angry, bitter cousin.

---

In the overhanging shadows of the alley, Tristan fingered the grip of his baseball bat. The long, curved Louisville Slugger was made of ash, fine-grained and solid and chewed up with scars.

A few more wouldn’t make much of a difference, either way.

Tristan’s shoulder and bicep rolled with the fine motion of rotating the naked end of the bat as it dangled down his hip. If anyone spotted him in that overwhelming darkness, they might believe his arm was as busy with thinking as his brain, for every emotion and decision worked down into the clench of his fist on the ash grip. Beyond Tristan, the city nightlife hummed noisy and bright, wet from a recent rain so the pavement shone with gasoline-rainbows of reflected color. Music, smoke and clammy hot air exhaled from the exhaust vents overhead.

Tristan continued to wait in the shadows, noticing none of it. His eyes were narrowed, body wary and loose, propped up against warm summer brick just inside the shielding angles of shadows.

He hadn’t really thought about bringing the baseball bat with him to college. It wasn’t like he had time to play baseball with the guys. Maybe premonition then, he knew some time he’d want to use it, so without thinking about it he made sure to have it on hand. A few hours ago, he wouldn’t have believed it, but after serendipity brought him to this bar, at this time of night, and let him witness what he’d witnessed, maybe things like precognition and ESP actually did exist. Maybe, like his friends back home in Domino City, Tristan was just good at smelling trouble.

You can take the punk outta the city, but you can’t take the city outta the punk.

Anger and hurt welled up in Tristan’s gut again, hazing over red what had previously been perfectly rational, logical thought. He was fucking tired of getting messed with. This would be the last time some dirty whoreson bastard played him. Nobody was ever gonna do this to him again. It was about damned time somebody got what was fucking coming to them. About time he got some justice. His grip on the Slugger screwed another notch tighter, and the bare shoulders poking out of his tank top scraped against the wall.

Things were quiet outside of the bar; the rest of the street was dark. Tristan squeezed back against the brick a little tighter, stilled his breath and listened for every small sound. All clear.

He started walking.

The mint green Cadillac’s tailfins loomed up out of the wet-hot parking garage like the starboard side of a fancy yacht. Duke left the top down, arrogant bastard, banking on the fact that nobody would ever dare steal his car. Tristan almost felt a little sorry for the convertible, but…not really enough to stop. He leaned the bat against the rear fender of the car, the small sound lost in the muffle of concrete and the overall roar of the city, and knelt by the back tire as he drew his Leatherman out of his hip pocket. The blade flipped out of the handle, smooth and efficient. It slid into the rubber of the tire wall with a satisfying shove, and quick but silent, the tire deflated. Tristan repeated the process on the other four with the same deadly efficiency.

Let him try to take another fuck home in that.

He almost stopped there, before he thought again of what was going on down on ground level. Thought about the fact that it wasn’t the first time. Tristan pocketed his Leatherman and dug for his keys.

Keying the pristine paint felt and sounded a lot like nails on a chalkboard. The end result was a wild rush, because never before in his life had he keyed a car. I keyed a car. Tristan dug in a little more around the driver’s side door, made sure to ding up the chrome Duke was so damned proud of. He knew trim like that didn’t grow on trees, he’d helped Duke find it. Wouldn’t be around this time for the restoration. Tristan smiled deeply, manic in the shadows. Wouldn’t be around ever again.

Finally, he reached for the bat left waiting against the fender. Again, the indecision, muscles thinking and rolling around his grip, deciding, pulling up courage to go another step further and put the foundered Cadillac out of its misery.

The first swing reached back somewhere into freshman year, and swung forward with the fury of six long on-again, off-again years behind it. The Cadillac’s windshield spiderwebbed right across the board. Tristan used the rebound off the plexiglass for momentum and swung again, slamming down onto the ridged hood. WHAM-bounce, WHACK-bounce-bounce-CRASH, a headlight splintered and exploded beneath the chewed-up ash bat like all of Tristan’s unspent rage flowed down his arms and the haft of the Slugger to pile up in the car. The grille missed teeth like an old man’s empty gums. Both fin taillights made empty dark sockets; one had the chrome collar half popped off. Tristan pounded on the car until it trembled and rolled on its shocks away from every strike. It was an old Cadillac. There was no car alarm, just the constant percussion of wood striking metal and the occasional high tinkle of more breaking glass. Sweat sheened Tristan’s skin, dripped down his arms, chest and back, until finally he sucked the last drop of hate into his carburetor and swung off to the side, staring at his handiwork with a heaving chest and shoulders like rubber.

The Cadillac was lame, blind, and scarred; nothing that couldn’t be replaced, repainted, or fixed. Duke was lucky, Tristan hadn’t taken a piece out of the convertible top or the leather upholstery.

Satisfied, Tristan walked off into the dark.

He’d leave those for the next poor fuck.