he really reallyreally liked Xplosions

                                       not like BOOM BOOM in The Death and Life of Bobby Z

but Xplosions

               he wrote it Xplosions now after he and two buddies survived that one as kids  they made bombs together and that big one was the last he participated inhe couldnt vouch for them he did it as a lark they were somehow invested and at the time they needed a third to help procure ingredients 

                                                                            IT WAS SUMMER

   so  besides the public pool that consumed a good amount of his time he learned how to hold his breath for nearly two minutes watching girls lose their swimtops jumping off either of the two one-meter boards or between them the three-meterGUARANTEED TOPS TO THEIR CHINS  

                                                so he had vagrant timeslots in his day to fill  

the bomb blew his shoes offtattered his pant legstossed him heels over head over heels over head some twentytwentyfive feet from a depression in the ground where a sledding hill for winter was being “built” at the Public Park

they werent idiots

                   they werent trying to kill anyone

speaking for himself

he was curious

                 and to be a part of the KA-BOOM was terribly exciting

it was exciting to do something wrong that he knew coudntwoudnt speak for them  was wrong

took them nearly the entire summer vacation to acquire the ingredients

they made the local newspaper POLICE LOOK FOR BOMB SUSPECTfront page not the crappy Neighborhood News at the back with Want Ads The Classifieds the Horoscope  

it occurred to him they were years ahead of IEDs improvised explosive devise

                                                                                he wondered if the other guys thought so  they were dead now  anyway he bitched enough for the three of them that theythey were the Fathers of IEDsSTOP

Stop  No  British coined it during the Northern Ireland conflict   when it became common American parlanceDUH 

it was an asymmetrical war

                              the United States should haveprobably did expect that when they forewent the Worlds hand to help them bring terrorists to justice  combine their Intel      

War and Justice are not the same thing

we did nothing more than pour gas on the fire

he truly anticipated their standard elementary school first written paper What I Did During My Summer Vacation.

then he thought

his hands were tied

he couldnt remember what he wrote as disappointed and deflated as he was  

he was pretty sure it was awfully shitty

usually he was an enthusiastic storyteller too 

                                                 his reputation preceding him

1644,  Monday,  31  7. 23

1242,  day-between-2-Ts,  23  8. 23