On one shimmering, glorious summer night not long ago, this unworthy soul made the request of a lifetime, hoping against hope for an unlikely acquiescence. To my shock and ecstasy, I was informed that, indeed, Rodd Badman, Puget Sound’s Director of Security Services, would allow me to spend a day as his shadow. The following is the account of my time spent with Puget Sound’s Badman-est man.
I was told to meet him at dawn, in the parking lot outside the Student Union Building. Heart aflutter, I made my way down in the gentle morning light, its rays illuminating the sparkling dew-drops on the grass from the sprinklers we leave on all night. Squinting to find him, I got my first shock of the day: he sat astride a massive, phallic, motorcycle. Who knew, right?
His piercing blue eyes assessing me as a non-threat to Puget Sound security, he motions me to join him on the back of his throbbing beast. We take a short jaunt over to the Badman Estate, where we begin our day in earnest. His loving family waits outside for the all clear, as part of their daily emergency preparedness test. Next, we’re off to the Security Services office. A few freshmen come in to report their room keys lost. In accordance with general policy, the poor bastards are immediately dropped through a trapdoor in the floor, off to have their throats cut and their flesh processed into S.U.B. food. A few hours pass, with only an occasional freshman sacrifice to break the monotony. Badman apologies for the relative boredom: “most days are more interesting” his voice soothes like velvet.
We leave to go on campus patrol. Badman’s eagle eyes quickly spot a group of ne’er-do-wells smoking marijuana plants, playing rambunctious rapping music and otherwise fouling up a peaceful day on campus. His justice is swift and terrible. In the blink of an eye, three go down, two of them losing limbs. The last stands before him, trembling, a baggie of the foul plant in hand. Badman whips a vicious roundhouse kick at his head, and off it comes in a spray of blood and brains. He takes the pot from the hippie’s dead, blood-soaked hands and shoves it in the gore-filled hole where the head was, declaring him to be a “pothead” now and forevermore, his one-liner causing doves to explode in the sky, mid-flight. Never say Rodd Badman doesn’t have a sense of humor.
What very few people know about our Fearless Director is that he is 25 percent werewolf, on his mother’s side. The full moon doesn’t trouble him, nor is he hairy, but he does possess super speed, super strength and a moral compass firmer than that 50-year-old mother of three in the Bowflex commercials. Near the close of the day, he demonstrates his skills. From Wyatt Hall he spots a cluster of bikes, foolishly locked to the Library handrails. With a fingernail he cuts the U-bolt locks, grabs the bikes, and compacts them into scrap metal with his bare hands. “Don’t these people understand? They are blocking pedestrian traffic! SOMEONE COULD FALL!” he bellows with such force that the cry is heard through time. I am to learn later that Bethesda Softworks based a game mechanic in their popular Elder Scrolls: Skyrim off of this very yell.
At the close of business, we finish the day with a joy-ride on his Harley across the Puget Sound. He notices my amazement at how the bike skates across the surface of the water. “This guy I knew, back east, long time ago, Yeshua, his name was,” Badman begins. “Used to go around doing magic tricks and telling people to be good to each other. Ended up pissing off the local establishment something bad, so they put him to death. Left me his sandals in his will. Had ‘em turned into motorcylce tires.”
They say Rodd Badman is more than a man. They don’t know the half of it.
