JIMMY: Damn, boy—I thought you were good!
DALTON: Go fuck yourself.
Ah, the rapier wit of Mr. James Dalton. Once again, he responds to a fairly specific taunt from his enemy with whatever generic oath he finds lying around in his battered mind, nearly to the point of non sequitur. He doesn’t defend his martial prowess, he doesn’t malign Jimmy’s in turn—he simply picks a more colorful version of “Go jump in a lake.” (Which indeed Jimmy will soon do, sort of, and fatally at that. Be that as it may.)
But the thing is, why would Dalton keep a complement of insults ready to hand? Recall the Giving of the Rules: Insults are just two nouns combined to elicit a prescribed response. What’s he gonna do, call Jimmy a cocksucker? Call his mama a whore? A seasoned fighter would know better than to respond to such meaningless verbiage, so there’s no reason to accumulate it. You are such an asshole, go fuck yourself—these are the comebacks of a man whose mind is taken up with more important matters, both physical and philosophical. Because Jimmy is wrong—Dalton is good, as Jimmy is about to learn to his great misfortune.
Tags: dalton, jimmy, road house, the beach fight