ENTER Millennium!

PART ONE

Right before Julian kissed the pretty woman with the flowing red hair whom he had just saved from a terrible house fire, the alarm clock on his bedside table abruptly smacked him back to morning's cold reality as his eyes slowly opened to a darkened room. And yes, he was quite the disappointed bachelor.

"Son of a gun, I hate when this happens," he lamented aloud through a long yawn.

He hit the snooze button and rolled over onto his back with a lazy grunt, as he did every morning before work. After slowly kicking off his covers, he began the usual stretches and leg lifts, as he was determined to get in shape by the time summer started. The lower-body workout was supposed to get his blood pumping, according to Muscular Magazine.

Frowning, he thought, Unreal. 40 years old, no wife, no girlfriend, out of shape, and without a lick of confidence. Dang, I may die alone.

Actually, he wasn't really out of shape. He stood 5' 10", and weighed just over 200 pounds.

The phone rang as he was doing his third and final set of bike pedals. Bewildered at the thought of someone calling him before 6:30 AM, he sat up and answered the call. "Hello?"

"Hey, Jules. It's Gerard. Sorry to call so early, but I figured you might want a heads up." Gerry's tone sounded rather tense, and that couldn't have been good, considering that he was usually the most easy-going guy around. He continued, "Loser boy grabbed me yesterday after work when I got to my truck and told me to warn you not to come in today, 'cause he's planning on hurting you, bad."

Loser boy was a co-worker of theirs at Dogwood Lumber, and he had been picking on both Julian and Gerard since he started working there through a temp agency. Apparently, someone forgot to mention to the six-foot bruiser that it was time to grow up. And unfortunately for Julian, he took it upon himself to be the first to do so. This happened around the first of the year, and as would be expected, loser boy was none too happy about it.

Through a long, stretching yawn, Julian asked, "If it's me he's so mad at, then why didn't he grab me instead of you?" The snooze alarm sounded, and he impatiently clicked it off.

"I guess you left before he got done cleaning up his sawdust. So, whaddaya gonna do, bro?" Gerard appeared to be talking through whatever breakfast he was stuffing in his mouth before work.

Ignoring that, Julian replied, "Um, how about I call the landlord and say, 'Yo Bob, can you please lemme skip next month's rent, cause I'm gonna hafta take a couple weeks off work so Nucc won't kick my ...'" Gerard cut him off with a snorting laugh. "Okay, wise guy. Point made. I was just asking an obvious question."

When the phone conversation was over, Julian went and relieved himself. As he was washing his hands, there sounded loud bangs at his door. His apartment was on the second floor, and the downstairs door should have been locked. Fortunately for him, his neighbor had most likely left for work by this time, so she wouldn't be bothered by the booming on his door. Unless that was her knocking.

Oh no. Please tell me I didn't block her car in again.

He fumbled to unlock his door and open it. Nope. It wasn't Dori from next door. It was Nucc, aka loser boy. And going by his facial expression, he hadn't quite gotten over whatever it was that ired him the previous day.

Barely above a whisper, Julian said, "Um, hey there, Nucc. Just in the neighborhood?" It was all he could think of to ask, considering the circumstances. He didn't think about it at the time, but it was probably a good thing he had already used the bathroom, else there might be an embarrassing puddle forming at his feet.

Nucc unfolded his bulging, tattooed arms, pointed a cigar-sized finger at Jules and replied, "I'm here to wreck you, sissy girl! So get dressed and meet me outside." He then turned around and hastily made his way back down the front stairwell.

Julian just stood there for a few seconds, dumbfounded at the sheer audacity of this dude. What're we, twelve? he thought while closing the door. Ten minutes later, he was dressed and on his way out the same downstairs door Nucc had walked in, hoping that the ox had thought better of this whole issue and headed up to the factory. As bad luck would have it, there the big ox was, standing beside his huge pickup truck about five feet from the porch stairs.

Well, to make a long story short, by the time the police arrived (a neighbor called them), Julian had been smacked, punched, kicked, and tossed around the front sidewalk enough to cause one officer to taser Nucc, and another officer to ram him a couple of times with his billy club in order to force him to halt his furious assault on poor Julian's rib cage. There was also a lot of blood spilled on the dirty ice and snow.

Needless to say, Nucc was hauled downtown to the police station while Julian was taken to Roger Williams hospital for treatment. And the intern who handled him advised that he take no less than two weeks out of work because of the extent of his injuries, and also because of the machinery he had to use for his job.

The good news was, he had enough money put away to hold him over for a while. The bad news was, he wanted to use that money to buy a Harley Sportster by late spring, and this dilemma would surely set him back a while. So there went his plans to muscle up and buy a cool motorcycle.

"Oh, the horror," his mother would later remark, while rolling her eyes.