Batman & the Superbowl

I don't remember what year it was because I don't know how to read Roman numerals, and I guess I could Google it, but when Klecko blogs....he likes it to flow like it would from a conversation does from a bar stool or a church pew. All I remember is that the only time that the Superbowl was held in my city was the year that the Redskins beat the Bills.
That was a fun week, the city was buzzing, I was young. I took my fashionable girlfriend to all the "hot spots" that a non V.I.P. could attend.
The bakery ran around the clock. Peeps partying at a Tundra Superbowl had to swap out there beach time for something else, something like eating.
Anyways, on my work crew was a guy named Carcass. Carcass was a Mexican / American guy that stood 5' 4" tall and weighed easily 280.
Carcass was straight as far as most of us knew, but he totally had a man crush on Minnesota Native and Tour De France winner Greg Lamond. So Carcass tucked away money each month and one day his thrift paid off as he pulled into the shop on a real life "I'm a professional bike racer" kinda bike. I'm not kidding you, I'd be wiling to bet you a dollar to a monkey that bike cost more than most of the cars he had - had.
So I asked him why he rode it in January, and he replied that the streets were in good shape, so he might as well start his training so he would be bad a** by summer.
I don't want to sound mean, but Carcass looked like a hippo on a trike. Have you ever met "that guy"? You know...the guy who has never done anything mean, but yet you feel compelled to pick on him? Being as fat as Carcass was he ALWAYS carried around a container of baby powder. Carcass worked the ovens a lot, and I guess there is no way of saying this tactfully, but when you are an oven man.......your groin junk gets sweaty and needs to be powdered down there often throughout an oven shift. In a bakery, this is common knowledge so even the savages you work with don't even use this as a humor platform.
However.....often times guys would steal Carcasse's baby powder container, remove the contents and replace it with corn starch. LOL, dude, this is so unkind. basically the result is equivilent to chewing 4 packs of Trident gum and pressing it against your goodies, even a hot shower won't remedy this assault.
But, all and all Carcass was loved.
So a day before the Superbowl, Carcass doesn't show up. Nobody has heard from him, there are no voice messages, this basically is unprecedented.
After a couple hours, just when we were so worried we were about to send a runner to his house, the task was aborted, because the bakery door opened and we saw Carcass's 2 million dollar bike slide into the building. The front rim was pretzel bent, and our tubby little friend seemed disoriented.
Everybody who was in a position to help stopped what they were doing and ran to assist him. After securing the bike, and sitting Carcass down we stood in a semi circle and asked what happened.
For the first and only time in the many years I would know Carcass, he became mad. I mean really pissed.
"I was coming down West 7th and I was making good time, but a car pulled up behind me and a guy leaned out the window and hit me in the back of the head with a Louisville slugger. It knocked me off my bike and I hit the curb real hard. As I laid on the ground, I felt like I might be passing out, and I wanted revenge, but there was like 4 guys in the car, so even if I didn't experience the head shot, I'm not sure what I could have accomplished,. But, I was pissed, and the "F"ers drove to the end of the block, far enough that they were out of reach, but close enough that they could yell at me. Just as I started to get up, the prick with the Louisville slugger got out of the car and screamed out Na-Na-Na-Na Na-Na-Na-Na BATMAN!!!!! Like from the TV show. I could have killed him, but I passed out. I must of laid on the curb for, oh I don't know, like a 1/2 hour, and nobody pulled over or helped me."
Most of us were terrified, but at the same time, in a weird way, in a morbid way, we couldn't help but start to laugh. The laughter started as a spark, and Carcass sensing this became agitated, but when the levy broke and everyone in the shop sang the Batman theme in unison, even Carcass joined in, he was a swell guy.
In 9 days the Steelers line up against the Packers. being a Vikings fan, all rooting interests go to Pittsburgh! but while the rest of the world spends this next week reliving highluights of Joe Nameth, the Dallas Cowboys or Refridgerator Perry, Danny Klecko will recall the one winter he got to bake for the greatest event on Earth.....and how Carcass took a shot to the head. Go Steelers!