Road Warrior : <i> Wham!</i> The Bumper Car King takes a hit. But his revenge is sweet.

Teeth clenched, eyes narrowed like some perverse road warrior, Charlie Slocum careens down an open straightaway, looking for victims.

Anyone and everyone. He’s lusting to deliver that Excedrin headache rear-ender, teeth-jarring head-on crash or kick-’em-when-they’re-down blindsider. He’s checking for the gridlock that makes other drivers vulnerable, the perfect chance to move in for the kill.

“The trick is to wait for them to get tied up,� Slocum says, spinning his hot rod to avoid a wild-eyed woman lunging out of his blind spot. “Then they’re an open target. A sitting duck. All you need is a running start at them.�

Slocum drives a bumper car for a living: Around and around and-- Slam! --around.

Hours on end, several days a week, he rocks ‘n rolls across the bumper car track at the Santa Monica pier. Doing doughnuts, driving backward, waging seek-and-destroy missions.

Like atoms loosed in a cyclotron, bumper cars are made to smash and bash, hit and run, to obliterate anything that moves. On slow days, when there aren’t enough paying drivers (read moving targets), Slocum’s job is to jump behind the wheel and knock heads with the senior citizens, 6-year-old boys and frustrated white-collar workers.

In a jam-packed California car culture, where rush hour has become a high-anxiety tightrope ride, Slocum gets to live an open-road dream: He gets paid to bomb around like a bat out of hell, to cruise about looking for trouble.

“Can you imagine a better job?� asks the Baton Rouge native, 39, who resembles actor Sam Elliott with his thick mustache and salt-and-pepper hair. “I get to pull stunts that people on the freeway never get to do. People get in my way, they cut me off, I run ‘em into the ground. I show no mercy.�

Slocum once worked for a defense contracting firm, installing weapons on submarines. Then came tough times, a layoff, and he went to work on the carnival circuit.

Several weeks ago, he became the pier’s bumper-car man.

“This suits my temperament a lot better than submarines,� he says. “Look at these people. They’re having the time of their lives. Sometimes, it’s hard to tell who’s having more fun--the adults or the kids.

Slocum helps keep all two dozen cars in shape for the quarter-million drivers who use them yearly.

On a recent Sunday, he slid behind the wheel of his favorite--a jet-black Corvette look-alike. He eyed the dozen other drivers on the covered track--shaped like a huge, 30- by 70-foot dance floor where three-wheeled cars do their electric slam dance.

Bumper cars--which have been amusement park mainstays since the 1920s--are miniatures of real rides, with a few notable exceptions. They have steering wheels and accelerators, but they only travel at a less-than-breakneck speed of five miles an hour.

And another thing--they don’t have brakes. “The only way to stop,� Slocum says, “is to slam into somebody else.�

Like a hungry predator, he motions toward a 40ish-looking man: “That guy over there looks like he needs to be hit.�

Slocum surprises him, striking from the rear, snapping the victim’s head back like a brainless crash dummy.

But on the bumper-car circuit, there are no fiery tempers. No obscene gestures. Drivers come to hit and be hit. The other driver only smiles: “You’re a marked man,� he says.

Slocum laughs.

Then-- Wham! --Slocum takes a blind hit. Boom! And then another. Two 10-year-olds, obviously friends, have given him the double whammy.

“Sometimes, they gang up on you,� Slocum says, cackling cruelly. “This calls for a little strategy. A little psychological warfare.�

He circles the track, dodging cars that fly mindlessly past like characters from “The Far Side� cartoon. Then he delivers a hit to make the first kid’s teeth rattle. “Paybacks are hell,� he says.

Then the second joker gets his: a head-on slam he’s helpless to defend. Outside, a crowd cheers his maneuvers like fans rooting a bullfighter.

“The hitting,� he says. “It gets into your blood.�

Slocum rides morning, noon and night. Even on hectic weekend nights when, for a dollar charge each, drivers remain for several hair-raising three-minute rides at a time.

Why? Because Southern Californians are wild at heart, he says, and many drive bumper cars to unleash aggression. Slocum says he’s seen kids take out licks on their parents, women lash out at their husbands:

“They’re frustrated. And this is a lot cheaper than a psychologist.�

These days, Slocum doesn’t even own a real car. He lives in a trailer near his job and doesn’t hit the freeway. His only driving is at the boardwalk.

And the Bumper Car King wonders whether he’ll ever brave the real road again.

“I don’t know,� he says, slamming into a woman driver half his size. “The way I’ve seen some of these people drive, I sure hope they don’t have licenses.�