He was a little boy

playing with a garden hose

as little boys do

but what little boys didnt do

was when an adult asked them to please stop what their were doing

that they wouldnt

that they would keep on and on until an adult finally came over and stopped them

had to stop them with violence exceeding their raised voice or an explicit threat

he wouldnt stop

until an adult stopped him

he was a little boy playing with a garden hose

the water always so cold

and he always so unmerciful 

when the other kids cried STOP

he wouldnt

hed go so far as to push the younger or smaller children down a latent fist or with his foot

and continue his torment  his cruel glee  beyond their helpless pleads and tears

hed laugh as they gargled and choked on the water  

gasped for air  

over their sobs he taunted   

Baby!

then an adult

always too late

would enter the yard out through the houses back door demanding what was going on

as if his actions were new

or a surprise

they would have to wrestle the hose out of his unremitting hands

it did no good  or helped  to slap him upside the head

no sooner had the adult stopped the dowsing

reprimanded the boy

and left

hed go around and slap the kids he just tormented

leaving his handprint on their mottled backs or flushed cheeks

their welt and scarlet camouflaged by the welts and scarlets children always sported when having played outdoors

the last he saw that peckerwood that miserable sonofabitch was in-country

and no one was more surprised  --  when he thought the war had stripped SURPRISE 

from him  --  than he

almost immediately he recognized him

some fuckin things never changed

it wasnt hard to recognize a sadist

if youd grown up with him from boyhood

what were the chances 

he was at some luckless villagers caught in a crossfire between VC and Army with a flamethrower   

they were hard luck bastards   just trying to get the hell out of Dodge 

and he wasnt gonna let em

from behind he could hear him screaming above the jet and gout of twisting flame

Ya fuckin gooks! fuckin gooks! worthless pieces of shit!

he could almost have wished he had a dollar for every time he heard that in-country

snarled at either North or South

                                                      over the roaring accelerant and androgynous flames  

he screamed STAND DOWN SOLDIER

then                                                                                                                                  

by the shift  the attitude of his head  he knew he had been heard

there was a POP in the flamethrower as he stopped . . . and  slowly  he  turned  towards  him . . . the flickering blue nozzle gasping

hesitantly pointed down . . .

and then . . . that . . . smile . . . slowly breaking on his blackened sweaty face

as it did 

years passed

in the sodden yard

the cold clear water flowing from the hose into the long green Midwestern grass

that . . . smile

a  long  eerie  silence  stretched   out  between them

                                                                            over the snake hiss of the flamethrower

over the lazy floating flutter of thin bamboo ashes

like those of Fall leaves he burnt in the street gutter when he was a boy

                                                                           over the whimpers and unearthly sounds

death rattles and choking moans

over the pungent smell of petrol burned flesh

that  long-toothed  white  smile

over it                                                                                                                                                   the dull eyes crinkling  honeyed by his cruel glee

as the flamethrower came up and began to spout

his bullets slapped him in the chest and belly    he exploded into a rage  an inferno

whose concussion threw him onto his back

                                                                        the tanks  creased and penetrated  blew 

an abject fit  and fire

which seemed always to have burn unquenched inside him

nineteen years old                                                                                                                          half-a-world away from home                                                                                                            doing a thing that should have been taken in hand then

so that now

it might never have had to happen

he felt real bad

and then he didnt

2356,  Sunday,  27  7. 14