BRAWN VS. BRAINS (excerpt from "BEACH BUM BRETT")

Here's a brief excerpt from "BEACH BUM BRETT" (Brett Cornell Mystery #8), relating what happens when Norman Irons decides to confront Sandra Graham upon learning that she has just replaced him with BRETT as her stepdaughter's new swim instructor, without even telling him beforehand about the dismissal of his services. He's just finished voicing his displeasure over the situation, when the following exchange takes place:

“Ever get the feeling you’re making yourself look like nothing but a damned fool?” I said to that Norman character with my usual degree of grace and charm. “The lady just got through telling you you’re canned, so why do you gotta stand here carrying on like you got a fifty-foot pole stuck up your rectum?”

Then the Norman character threw his head back briefly and laughed unpleasantly as he cocked his head over in Sandra’s direction and said to her,

  

 “Where’d you find him? Among the rejects that auditioned for a part in Muscle Beach Party back in the Sixties?”

And while I’m not in the habit of letting pretty-boys like this Norman character get me all steamed up – and while I’ve never in all my life been compared to Frankie Babylon, or whoever that guy was who was married to Annette Funiculi-Funicula -- I was just looking for any excuse at all to get into it with this guy -- So, in the very next moment, I stepped in, grabbed his head in both my hands, and sent my forehead crashing into his face.

The guy yelled out,” Christ!” and then fell backwards, knocking over a couple of beach chairs and then hitting the deck with a tremendous thud.

“Wow, that felt good,” I remarked, casually taking out a cigarette and lighting it up.

 Stupid Sandra screamed, “Brett!” forgetting, of course, that she was supposed to use my surname around these pathetic creatures, and then when I glanced over at Rita, I saw that the not-so-little tadpole was positively relishing the spectacle of her former swim instructor landing on his butt, practically right in front of her.

“That wasn’t too smart of you!” Sandra yelled at me as she ran over to help the poor, stunned Norman character to his feet. “Norman happens to know jiu jitsu and taekwondo.”

“I don’t give a damn how many Jewish guys he happens to know,” I informed her. And then I ignored the stupefied look she put on her face which was soon replaced by an expression of deep concern as she attempted to help the poor pretty-boy to his feet.



And so, once again the supreme unscrupulous bastard of them all is compelled to put another man in his place, proving that brawn often wins out over brains !!!