Bobby Collinson & The Bruiser · Shanghai, China

Every town has a courthouse and a coffee pot; Shanghai is no different. These days, Shanghai travelers stop at the Quick Stop when the highway brings them through, and Come by the lore pages; Shanghai always has a seat.

Know the man before the machine: Bobby Collinson — blonde, built like the kickboxer he was, a grin that owns whatever bar he's talking in. He fought under Dale 'Apollo' Cook and carries the discipline like a wallet. He graduated. He makes real money now. He talks at a lot of bars, and every story is better because he was actually there. These days he rides a Harley — but the town knows what sleeps in his garage.

Every town has one car that the whole town hears before it sees, and in McSkunkville that car is The Bruiser — a 1970 split-bumper Chevy Super Sport Camaro, candy red with two white stripes laid over the top, black interior deep as a courtroom robe. She has motor. She has lights. She has sound that rolls down Main Street like a verdict. And when Bobby lights the rear tires, those are REAL burnouts — white smoke to the second story, the whole street testifying.

The record tells his story straight, because McSkunkville keeps a history of crime, not a crime rate: Bobby sold marijuana all through junior college and college. Then he walked right into the world and the rules of knowledge, the way McSkunkians do — the old hustle traded for the education, the ledger gone clean, the nerve kept. The nerve is why the Bruiser obeys him, and why the ring under Apollo Cook never scared him.

Today she sits in the collector's case under museum glass, polished so shiny, so fancy, so perfect that even Bobby wants one all over again. The case opens for exactly one price and not a penny under: twenty-five hundred dollars minimum just to think about her. That is not a price tag; that is a character reference.

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