Flipping through my copy of Road House today, waiting for inspiration to strike, I came across one of my favorite goofy moments in the movie: Brad Wesley stopping his ATV, which he’d been driving around he lawn of his mansion or something I guess, in order to watch and gently scoff at Dalton doing tai chi across the river. The combination of factors at work here—a shirtless and glistening Patrick Swayze performing tai chi on the Missouri farm where he lives during his stint as making six figures at a local shithole as part of his career as a famous bouncer, a deranged JC Penney enthusiast finding this interesting enough to park his Big Wheels and watch but ultimately come away unimpressed, as if he’d expected better form, or a dryer torso—is irreplicable in any other film.

But something hit me about Dalton, as seen from Wesley’s point of view in this moment. Something that I have seen in another film, albeit not a feature. Something that comes close to capturing our sense, and perhaps Wesley’s sense too, that when we look at Dalton we’re seeing something that defies comfortable categorization. Something wild, mysterious, dangerous, untamed, and all but extinct.