To be honest, the risk you’re taking here is a small one. Fifteen dollars—the price of this book—has the unique distinction of being the exact amount of money you’ll never regret having spent. Ever. Fifteen dollars is never going to be the cost of that jacket, the amount you’re short on rent, or the price of the lifesaving medicine you take hourly. If you lose a hundred bucks, your day is ruined. If you misplace twenty dollars, it’s annoying and mildly unsettling. Not fifteen. Fifteen dollars is what you find crumpled in your jacket pocket the morning after a bender, too small of an amount to even bother filing into your wallet.

Why even spend the fifteen?
Well, for starters, this book will kick your other dumb books in the face.

You put this book in a locked steel box with
The Sun Also Rises, 1,001 Baby Names,
and some book with a sad vampire in it, then open the box a week later—those other three books will be dead.
What constitutes book death?
you ask. You’ll know soon enough, my friend.

One of those books will look okay at first, but when you open it up all the pages will be blank, and then you’ll notice that it’s resting on a pile of broken letters. Then you’ll check my book and it’ll have twice as many words in it, and a handy new section listing baby names: “Achilles, Archimedes, Aristotle, Billy…” Oh, and the extra letters my book took from the Hemingway novel will now spell out the cure for cancer.

This book is what you pull out of your shirt pocket the second after a
bang!
sounds and you’re picking yourself off the ground with no idea what’s happened. When you take the book out there will be a bullet embedded in it. When you pull the bullet out to inspect it, the hole in the book will heal itself. You’re welcome! Oh, and thanks for ruining the cover of my book. And why are people shooting at you?!?

—Kevin Seccia

November, 2010

Now remember, when things look bad, and it looks like you’re not gonna make it, then you gotta get mean. I mean plumb, mad-dog mean. ’Cause if you lose your head and you give up, then you neither live nor win. And that’s just the way it is.

—THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES

INTRODUCTION

Hi, I’m a Ruthless Engine of Destruction!

The world around you is a dangerous place. It’s teeming with vicious men and women, savages, thugs, dictators, unspeakable creatures, seafaring miscreants, syphilitic tyrants, and ex-cons in it for one last shot at the big time (who define “the big time” as beating you senseless and then taking your money and your lucky hat). Look around you. Every single interaction has the potential to go south in an instant: that guy browsing the magazines, that lady sipping a latte, that toddler pretending to skip carelessly about while his propeller hat spins in the wind—every one of them is secretly mulling a scenario that ends with them kicking you square in the junk.

Sure, the world also contains kittens, baby otters, and charming old men on porches who spin yarns, but how long before they, too, decide to turn on you? Are you THAT likable? Can you really afford to go through life assuming this will never happen? And that’s just the real stuff. What about fictional characters? Is magic real? I have no idea, but if it is that opens you up to a whole other group of potential attackers.

This book will help you navigate our treacherous modern-day world. The author is an orange belt in tae kwon do, a veteran of almost half-a-dozen jujitsu lessons, and possesses an underground boxing record of 0–1.

He’s suffered detached retinas, two herniated discs, and once broke his hand punching a wall. His high school fight record was 6–1–1.

Are you familiar with Bruce Lee? Well, so is the author of this book.

Punching Tom Hanks
is a guide for anyone who’s ever wanted to beat up someone or something. Simple, effective instructions for beating up aliens, bullies, robots, inanimate objects, even time-traveling future versions of yourself. Possibly even Steven Seagal. Godspeed.

You see them, you admire them, you deal with them every day. Chances are fairly good you actually
are one.
If that’s true, chances are even greater that you’ve angered one. When push comes to shove—as it always does—the following information will prove to be quite valuable to you.

Not, like, more valuable than gold or anything. I mean you won’t be able to barter with it, or turn it into jewelry, but valuable nonetheless. God! Stop comparing everything to gold already.

HOW TO BEAT UP A MAN HANDCUFFED TO A STAINLESS-STEEL BRIEFCASE

Here’s a random tactic you should try sometime. It actually works with most of the entries in this book. Climb up a tree not far from where you know your quarry will be walking. Then, when they walk by, unexpectedly jump out of the tree, landing on top of them.

Jumping out of a tree is not as easy as it sounds. People in movies seem to have the uncanny ability to predict where people will walk, so they pull this move off quite often. I suppose you could overhear your quarry talking in a cafe saying something like: “Oh, the maple tree? I walk by that maple tree all the time. I plan to today, in fact. When? Well, that’s a rather odd question. Eleven minutes from now, if you must know.”

If you do happen to have this information, it’s something to think about, but in this situation the man handcuffed to a stainless-steel briefcase will already be on high alert, so proceed with caution. I mean, you don’t handcuff a metal briefcase to your wrist because you’re expecting things to go smoothly.

The actual contents of the case will go a long way toward determining the fight’s course. If the case has a high-tech weapon inside it, he may go for it at the first sign of trouble. For instance, let’s say he’s carrying some sort of lightweight, death ray, laser gun, mini-torpedo device? I’m not a weapons expert, so it’s pointless for me to speculate much further … but if he had a hammer with a knife blade instead of a handle (you grip the head), or a hat that shoots tiny missiles containing knockout gas, or a catcher’s mitt that’s been dipped in iron, then had spikes glued to it, or a machete? Again, I’m not a professional armorer, so I’ll stop there … Okay, one more. Or a lasso that’s actually electrified wire? If he had any of these in the case, he’d take it out and use it.

If he attempts to shield the case from you using his own body, that means the case contains a valuable, not a weapon. Possibly bars of Nazi gold, or a diamond necklace. Or perhaps a single giant diamond, so large and lustrous that it would make the Hope Diamond weep with jealousy. If the Hope Diamond could see, and then somehow saw this … and also had a basic understanding of what diamonds were, and that it was one of them, and that this one was better … Man, would it weep. I bet you could sell its tears, too. But I’m getting sidetracked.

Or, he could be carrying a rare animal, or an unhatched dinosaur egg … Maybe the cure for polio? I mean, I know we already have one, but maybe this one is cherry flavored …

Hmm. This is getting annoying now. WTF do you think he has in that case? He’s too good for a backpack? He puts whatever is
soooooo
important into a backpack, no one would ever bother him. Are we not supposed to wonder? That case, all burnished metal and sharp lines, perfectly put together, catching the light just so … We need to find out what he has in that damn case.

The best way to handle this is to approach him, then tell him you already know what’s in the case, and ask him to hand it over. He won’t believe you. But you just play that game of insinuating that not only do you know, you know
he doesn’t know
. He’ll balk at that. When he does, ask him to prove it, by telling you what’s in the case. When he says, “No,” tell him you knew he was a liar.

Then start dropping vague hints referencing the possible contents:

“So … antimatter. It’s always so negative, right? Why do they even use it?”
Did his eyebrows rise?

“Ah, the corpse of the last Smurf to ever exist on Earth … wonder if they’ll be able to clone him?”
Did he nervously shift his weight?

“That’s so odd, that they’re making you carry around twelve tiny nesting briefcases that fit inside each other.”
Did he make a run for it?

If he reacted with any of the above, you’re on to something. Continue guessing until you get close, forcing him to attack you just to silence you. Grab the suitcase as soon as you can, then yank it, manipulating the man’s hand so that he punches himself in the face. If he gets free, look out, he might swing the case like a ball and chain. Most importantly, when you defeat him and open the case, contact the author of this book immediately and tell him what was in there. Was it a tiny, talking mouse that grants wishes? It was, wasn’t it?

HOW TO BEAT UP A MAN CARRYING A BAGUETTE

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