I'm Y.Z. Newell and I'm here to tell you about proper safety techniques when it comes restraining a madman. No, I don't mean the patients at our hospital, who are all pretty nice and not a really crazy one among them, except maybe a few, but not really that bad, no, not at all. I mean restrain Dusty, who has got Fourleg Fever, meaning he never did fully recover from life in the burrow. Me, I'm not like Dusty, despite my own years in the wild. Maybe it was all that solitude, as Ki wasn't real sociable and my family was, for coyotes, that is. I chalk it up to Ki's artistic talents, her poet side, and maybe being a little off. I don't know. I'm basically a cop with a fancy job title, Director of Security and Community Relations, and I act more than I think, if you know what I mean. You don't? I'd sooner taser your ass than dialogue with you. That help you understand? Does it?
I thought so.
But we are a hospital, of a kind, so we don't want to hurt anybody, except maybe that idiot, Durwood. Why we keep that methdog hanging around I'll never get it, other than Whiski Rae's his sister, and a finer woman I'd never want to meet in my life. Dusty's crazy in love with her, as she is with him, I envy them both that kind of closeness. Sure, Miz Thibodeaux and I have our moments together and I admire the boudin out of her, swamp raised as she was, by the worst pack of slobbering halfwits, whacked-out inbreds and damnable polecats in all of Dixie, and that's saying plenty. But Miz Thibodeaux isn't the settling down kind, and I'm all jangled inside from my days as a member of the Coast Guard Special Forces, or the Zodiacs, as we're better known, after the inflatable boats we favor on missions. I spent time in Grenada during and after the invasion, and it wasn't very pretty down there, except for the beaches, the nude ones especially, where wealthy young Brazilian women tended to vacation, Yowza! But I mean those dunderheaded medical students, the ones we rescued, some went out by chopper, but we Zodiacs took a dozen out of the anatomy lab, where they were hiding out pretending to be cadavers, they were so scared, some even partially dissecting themselves to further their disguises. I guess they feared retribution by the Marxist overlords who wished to redistribute the island's wealth, all $37 of it, not that we ever found a true Red, worst goddamned excuse for a war I ever seen. I got a helluva sunburn and they wanted to give me a Purple Heart for that, I shit you not! I turned it down and left the Coast Guard as soon as my tour was up, after 16 years, my plan was to be a lifer but hell, not if the next war took me to Little Diomede Island or some other goddamned place.
See, I'd left the Sourdough County sheriff's department back in 1974, shortly after I met Dusty and took him to Dr. Ken's clinic in North Dakota. I'll let Dr. Balzac tell you that story, if he chooses to, which I'm sure that lovable blowhard will. I think of him as my kid brother—I'm ten years older than him. I realized on the long drive being a county mountie wasn't for me, and after I dropped Dusty off at Dr. Ken's place, I drove back to Sourdough, resigned my post, and drove back to the Great Plains in my jeep, where I hung around on the prairie for a month or so. Yes, yes, I stripped down for a while and ran with the coyotes, but unlike Dusty I lost my edge, maybe my desire as well, I wasn't feral anymore. Plus I was sick of all the land. Water preoccupied me, and not just the Missouri River, though that wasn't bad, the big reservoirs in particular I liked. I bought a row boat and paddled around Lake Sakakawea, trailing a line in the water. Sometimes I'd catch perch or walleyes and if nobody else was around to see me, I'd eat them raw. Nummers, as Whiski Rae likes to say.
Anyhow, I got the idea one day to join the Coast Guard, and once there, to try out for the Zodiacs. I was a few years older than the average recruit, but that was no disadvantage, my past ferality giving me extra strength, speed and endurance—so much so, in fact, that I had to dial these attributes down considerably so as to call less attention to myself. And until we went to war with Grenada, being a Zodiac wasn't a bad gig. Broadly speaking, my specialty was busting drug runners, though I also spent time at both poles aboard an icebreaker as a marine mammal wrangler (memo to all: never flirt with a female leopard seal), and was a special observer for the U.S. government during the Falklands War, concealing myself as a sheep. Which was a hoot: me, a coyote in sheep's clothing! The Deenkera clan still gets a laugh out of that.
Well, here I am telling you a shaggy-dog story, though when you think about it, what other kind is there? Nah, don't worry, I won't get all existential on you. I have read Sartre and Camus in French, and can smell the amphetamines in the former's writings. Camus I like, especially "The Plague," as I've lived through epidemics on the prairie, including, most dramatically, the terrible virus that wiped out 99% of all black-footed ferrets.
So suppose a madman, somebody like Dusty, charges you with serious hurt on his mind. Hurting you, I mean. What would you do? Most people would try to land a punch, which is the single dumbest thing you can try, as people generally aren't used to punching anything, another person in particular. Basically what usually happens is a person swings hard, doesn't connect, falls off balance, and is stomped or crushed or shot or stabbed by their attacker. None of these outcomes is especially desireable, you'd have to agree, and if you don't, God help you because I sure won't.
So again, a madman charges. Today's madman is unweaponized, beyond his limbs, his head and his teeth. With weapons present you've got yourself a whole new deal. This madman has none, but he's madder than mad, his face is red and the steam's billowing out from his ears like in the cartoons, and he's grinding his teeth. Simply do this—if he charges you from at least two body lengths away. Closer than that and I can't help you right now because I'm talking about the first situation. So, you're charged. All you need to do is to wait until he's about six feet away (if he's running), drop to the ground and roll towards him. You'll almost surely trip him up, as we won't have time to react. Then you scramble over to him and sit down on his head, hard, facing away from him. And stay there. And stay there longer. You could suffocate a man this way if you wanted but that isn't the goal. The goal is to settle him down.
And he'll settle. You tell him he's got to settle if you're going to let him up. Once he's quiet, lift a cheek a little to make sure he can breathe. He starts to rile up, you sit back down. Call for help however you can.
I didn't learn this technique, I'm proud to say, I invented it when I was a Zodiac. I used it to quiet a cow leopard seal, a creature much stronger than your average man, and even stronger than me, a badass fourleg Special Forces operative. And while that story didn't end very well (the cow's bull came by and blindsided me), I'm still here and the only part of them you could still find would be my sealskin long johns, which are very warm and indestructable. Kind of like me, once you know me better.
Yours in self-defense,
Y.Z.
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