A-Team: The Bad Guys (PG-13), Gen.
You know something's wrong when the only way to get the bad guys is by catching them red-handed in the middle of a good deed.
You know something's wrong when the only way to get the bad guys is by catching them red-handed in the middle of a good deed.
You hate the aftermath you find, those tearful women and broken men, speaking like those fallen soldiers were their saviors--these men didn't leave trails of bodies behind, even the criminals left in their wake were still standing, if humiliated, and you know it shouldn't be this way. You know they're not what you've been told.
You remember the legends about them and you remember meeting them first-hand too. They were the rock stars of Vietnam, the A-Team, and everyone knew them. They were all of them misfits except for maybe Peck, who'd been the Army's golden boy and almost well-behaved before Hannibal'd set his sights on him, and tailored those talents of his to better use.
Murdock hadn't been talking to things that weren't there back then, he'd barely talked at all. He'd stand there sullen and staring straight ahead and he'd been a lot a crazier then than he was now, no one would fly with him but Hannibal and Peck, and if anything, those two only seemed wary when it came to flying with anyone else.
Baracus had a hair-trigger temper and no one knew what to do with him. He was a mechanical genius but none of his commanders knew it because none of them had thought to ask until Smith, who'd glanced at him once, cigar between his lips, and asked cheerfully, "well, what can you do? Aside from the obvious?"
You remember that time you saw them in Peck's DMZ Tennis Resort just a couple weeks after they escaped from the POW camp, sitting at the bar. Peck was cross-legged on the countertop dealing cards with a purple and blue bruise spread out under his left eye and Baracus was up against the wall without a mark left on him, glaring at anyone stupid enough to approach. Smith was on a barstool, laughing like it was football Sunday and not the middle of the war. Murdock had been laying flat out on the bar on his back, head just almost touching Peck's foot, staring at the ceiling in silence.
They weren't even talking but you could see it, like there was something invisible tying them all together, holding them stuck there just the four of them. They didn't notice the rest of the people that were there, they didn't even notice you. They were in their own world then and they're still there now. They were untouchable because they were not single human beings, alone they may have done well but eventually they would have been caught.
Together they were something greater, something almost transcendent, and you wonder at how they all ended up together like they had, and stayed that way.
You know, of course, that Murdock is still with them. A man can only donate so many kidneys before it starts to raise red flags, and Peck has been checking him out of that hospital for holidays using every alias under the sun. You can't help but admire his boldness, and wonder when the time will come that he'll slip up and try and run the same scam on the same nurse. Peck doesn't exactly have a forgettable face, so how he's able to scam people the way he does and then do it to them again with a slightly different hat and accent and name is a mystery you know you won't ever solve.
He just flashes that grin and you suppose you forget you can't believe a word he says, and you can almost forget that he was Smith's best sniper in Vietnam too, that he once shot a man through the heart from five hundred yards using a broken scope.
You've thought, more than once, that Peck was the most dangerous in the group, if only because he never seems dangerous at all until it's too late. He can get himself out of those situations he gets himself in because no one ever thinks he can, because everyone underestimates him time and again including you. He's the gentleman of the group, the one with the blinding smile and the arsenal in the trunk of his Corvette.
He doesn't wear his strength for everyone to see the way Baracus and Smith do, but he's just as strong. Murdock's a whole other story, but that's Murdock, and you're not even going to try and get in his head because it's crowded enough in there already.
It's been a few years now since you started this hunt and you're finally convinced they didn't decide to rob that bank on their own. If they'd done it then they probably would have kept on doing it, because you have no doubts that they could. Instead they help the helpless and only occasionally charge a fee, hardly more than it costs to do the job. Men don't change that much, so you've reached the conclusion they really were ordered to do the Hanoi bank job.
You know they didn't murder anyone in cold blood, either. You still do your duty on the stand. You admit they're capable of anything because for the most part that's true, and that they're dangerous has never been in doubt. They're vigilantes and they live completely outside the law, it doesn't matter if they were forced to, it's where they are.
You hate that you feel guilty not speaking for them, anyway. You remember all those people they saved, that you never save, that you almost ignored just to get them in chains. The small business owners and the ranch cowboys and the pretty girls in distress. The countless arrests you've made since you started following their path, the small town criminals and the big time mob bosses left tied in rope and ribbon with a little love note pinned to their shirts from Smith or Peck, with a 'please arrest me' maybe or 'I'm a bad guy, put me in jail.'
The stories rise up behind them like the legends you know they're starting to become.
You were there the day they lined them up against that wall, and you were the only one not surprised when the bodies disappeared, when the doctors said the blood splatter on the concrete was colored corn syrup, and the master of arms reported that not a single live round had been fired from even one of those guns.
You're probably the only one that isn't bothered by it, too. You've gotten used to their disappearing acts. You would have been disappointed by anything else.
And you just continue on searching for them to bring them home again, because that's your job, and you know that if anyone would understand that, it's them.
You know something's wrong when the only way to get the bad guys is by catching them red-handed in the middle of a good deed.
You hate the aftermath you find, those tearful women and broken men, speaking like those fallen soldiers were their saviors--these men didn't leave trails of bodies behind, even the criminals left in their wake were still standing, if humiliated, and you know it shouldn't be this way. You know they're not what you've been told.
You remember the legends about them and you remember meeting them first-hand too. They were the rock stars of Vietnam, the A-Team, and everyone knew them. They were all of them misfits except for maybe Peck, who'd been the Army's golden boy and almost well-behaved before Hannibal'd set his sights on him, and tailored those talents of his to better use.
Murdock hadn't been talking to things that weren't there back then, he'd barely talked at all. He'd stand there sullen and staring straight ahead and he'd been a lot a crazier then than he was now, no one would fly with him but Hannibal and Peck, and if anything, those two only seemed wary when it came to flying with anyone else.
Baracus had a hair-trigger temper and no one knew what to do with him. He was a mechanical genius but none of his commanders knew it because none of them had thought to ask until Smith, who'd glanced at him once, cigar between his lips, and asked cheerfully, "well, what can you do? Aside from the obvious?"
You remember that time you saw them in Peck's DMZ Tennis Resort just a couple weeks after they escaped from the POW camp, sitting at the bar. Peck was cross-legged on the countertop dealing cards with a purple and blue bruise spread out under his left eye and Baracus was up against the wall without a mark left on him, glaring at anyone stupid enough to approach. Smith was on a barstool, laughing like it was football Sunday and not the middle of the war. Murdock had been laying flat out on the bar on his back, head just almost touching Peck's foot, staring at the ceiling in silence.
They weren't even talking but you could see it, like there was something invisible tying them all together, holding them stuck there just the four of them. They didn't notice the rest of the people that were there, they didn't even notice you. They were in their own world then and they're still there now. They were untouchable because they were not single human beings, alone they may have done well but eventually they would have been caught.
Together they were something greater, something almost transcendent, and you wonder at how they all ended up together like they had, and stayed that way.
You know, of course, that Murdock is still with them. A man can only donate so many kidneys before it starts to raise red flags, and Peck has been checking him out of that hospital for holidays using every alias under the sun. You can't help but admire his boldness, and wonder when the time will come that he'll slip up and try and run the same scam on the same nurse. Peck doesn't exactly have a forgettable face, so how he's able to scam people the way he does and then do it to them again with a slightly different hat and accent and name is a mystery you know you won't ever solve.
He just flashes that grin and you suppose you forget you can't believe a word he says, and you can almost forget that he was Smith's best sniper in Vietnam too, that he once shot a man through the heart from five hundred yards using a broken scope.
You've thought, more than once, that Peck was the most dangerous in the group, if only because he never seems dangerous at all until it's too late. He can get himself out of those situations he gets himself in because no one ever thinks he can, because everyone underestimates him time and again including you. He's the gentleman of the group, the one with the blinding smile and the arsenal in the trunk of his Corvette.
He doesn't wear his strength for everyone to see the way Baracus and Smith do, but he's just as strong. Murdock's a whole other story, but that's Murdock, and you're not even going to try and get in his head because it's crowded enough in there already.
It's been a few years now since you started this hunt and you're finally convinced they didn't decide to rob that bank on their own. If they'd done it then they probably would have kept on doing it, because you have no doubts that they could. Instead they help the helpless and only occasionally charge a fee, hardly more than it costs to do the job. Men don't change that much, so you've reached the conclusion they really were ordered to do the Hanoi bank job.
You know they didn't murder anyone in cold blood, either. You still do your duty on the stand. You admit they're capable of anything because for the most part that's true, and that they're dangerous has never been in doubt. They're vigilantes and they live completely outside the law, it doesn't matter if they were forced to, it's where they are.
You hate that you feel guilty not speaking for them, anyway. You remember all those people they saved, that you never save, that you almost ignored just to get them in chains. The small business owners and the ranch cowboys and the pretty girls in distress. The countless arrests you've made since you started following their path, the small town criminals and the big time mob bosses left tied in rope and ribbon with a little love note pinned to their shirts from Smith or Peck, with a 'please arrest me' maybe or 'I'm a bad guy, put me in jail.'
The stories rise up behind them like the legends you know they're starting to become.
You were there the day they lined them up against that wall, and you were the only one not surprised when the bodies disappeared, when the doctors said the blood splatter on the concrete was colored corn syrup, and the master of arms reported that not a single live round had been fired from even one of those guns.
You're probably the only one that isn't bothered by it, too. You've gotten used to their disappearing acts. You would have been disappointed by anything else.
And you just continue on searching for them to bring them home again, because that's your job, and you know that if anyone would understand that, it's them.