STRIKE ANYWHERE matches were the bomb

he picked up the bomb from a girl from Boston he met on the Wisconsin River as a longhaired teenager doing his best impression of Easy Rider on his black motorcycle

she wore a fetching   utterly fetching  knit white bikini that left just enough to the imagination to render him desperate and work really hard to see her  not just imagine

she was tall darker complexed and the revealed spaces between her white knit was hobbling  breathtaking 

of course she was there with her boyfriend and their ensuing fistfight was worthwhile to dispense of their relationship

from getgo she was obviously keen on him paid attention to him  but that wasnt his fault

and looking at her why wouldnt he be keen on her too 

it was mutual

she was a minx the three days they spent together before her family her father flew into Dane Madison airport to bring her home

exmilitary  her father asked why he hadnt been drafted obviously he was ablebodied better yet why hadnt he enlisted for Vietnam to protect the country

Nams not an existential threat  Its other countries that need to be protected from us

they did not hit it off well

her last night they fucked in the suite on the couch outside the hollow bedroom door her father slept behind

he gagged her because she was noisy

her eyes grew large as he did though her smile wasnt lost behind it

Im doing this so you dont wake your old man

she nodded in answer then slipped out of her shorts pulled the thin straps of her top off her shoulders and yanked it down past her breasts around her belly

as she pulled at the buttons of his jeans fly he took his black tshirt off over his head and recognised briefly that the only respect he had for her father was for fathering her

he whispered to her through the suite door to get her to unlock it Teresita Urrea said Truth is everything Of Truth I have no fear In Truth I see no shame

parting the door her face at the jamb JesusChrist she cooed youre romantic

then she threw it wide open

maybe he was    maybe

but he couldnt imagine her getting away from him until he spent all the semen he had inside of her

leaving her early in the dark morning he reminded her tugged at it with his finger to take off the gag

her eyes crinkled

they kissed goodbye

it seemed she might have fallen asleep with it on as comfortable as she was wearing it as comfortable they seemed with domination

surprisingly he was pretty good at it

Theyre strike anywhere matches

Ive heard of em the kid said putting away his matchbook Lemme see a couple

Tell ya wha  Throw in the box of matches and Ill take the bike at your priceWont negotiate a second longer

Done

a few days later the kid got killed on the bike

at the funeral home to pay his respects the kids mother tried her grieving best saying out loud and loudly he killed her baby boy she didnt want him to have the bike but he him standing there in the aisle before her babys body bold as taxes he knew she didnt he knew that but he wanted her boys money he didnt care what she thought he wanted the money and now its blood money my sons blood is all over it

You bastard! You bastard!

he stepped inside of her screams close to her and very quietly said into her twisted face That was your sons choice He was your son Im not responsible he was a dimwit

after paying him the cash he sat straddling the bike digging on it and lit Strike Anywhere matches match after match off the gas tank cover

he threw them on fire onto the gravel

This is the shit manReally This is the shit   Where you say you got em

Hardware store on Main

it was at the intersection south of the hardware store that he tried to beat cross traffic

witnesses said

  

1641,  Twosday,  27  9. 16

1032,  Day-between-Two-Ts,  28  9. 16

quote from The Hummingbirds Daughter by Luis Alberto Urrea

walking and reading wasnt something other people did often or preferred and they made no bones about it to him because he did

the crux of their argument simmered down to what he was missing as he walked focused on the words the story and ideas in the book rather than on the things happening around him

Really he said midday during the week on courses for the most part I can walk blindfolded(except for the inexorably wide intersections where automated crosswalks were installed but whose mechanisms spoke too softly compared to the overwhelming drone of traffic despite his repeated complaints to city government which he lodged on behalf of its disabled persons)

I aint missing shit was his usual reply to their unsolicited remarks

Youre rude

I didnt ask you for your two cents either did I

it amused him people were defensive or injured(shit) when he replied abruptly to their provocation

he wasnt born yesterday and his utility to walk and read he practised since he was a boy  it was better than a mile home from any of the schools he attended and walking because no ride came or went he knocked off reading assignments a loose piece of paper inside at the back of the book a pen riding on top his ear to make notes if necessary  he was a Swiss Army knife

though walking home today up a street he didnt frequent walking into traffic along its curb he kicked something that spun on its axis flatly through fallen leaves that gathered there

he stopped and looked

a crushed jerked squirrel formed into a flat disk with its furry tail still intact

Motherfucker

           he was dejected that someone hadnt picked it up off the street and laid it on the shoulder in the grass or up higher under a tall rosemary plant  but then who the fuck walked anywhere anymore

it was ignoble

no creatureno fuckin earthling deserved its gore to dry and become desiccate on the edge of a trafficked 25 miles an hour residential roadCocksuckers  because he knew indubitably some peedestrian some shithead had walked along and seen the squirrel and kept on without a moment to reflect without the courtesy to do what he would

he didnt have a high opinion of his species  

life was cheaper and cheaper every year he was alive  their skillsets more and more deficient  and decrepit

he stooped and picked up the squirrel

he carried it up the slight incline probably from where it descended and set it down on the brown grass and he pulled debris out from under the rosemary

then gently he slipped the squirrel under its boughs covered it with matter cut a flowering branch and laid it atop its makeshift grave

he spared it words

its religion and his didnt have any

  

1524,  Twosday,  27  9. 16

Ben Harper  Excuse me Mister  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtPly0WmgOw

he was looking at the numbers(to some  numb-ers) he wrote in red ink on a piece of discarded printer paper that the company he worked for was too  too  he had no idea what  to shred its proprietary documents before disposing of them which he salvaged and kept himself flushed to the gills in one-sided paper

9/26    913 / 952   its division equaled .959033613

(he was excited as a boy by numbers less-than-zero as he was by the concept of negative integers  –  which hadnt changed to date  --  which he said of then that they Blew his mind using Laugh-Ins vernacular before he had any idea what it was to be blown) (later a huge fan)

these numbers meant September 26   913 pieces published over the 952 days since February 18, 2014 when wrioter.com came into being at his girlfriends insistence inception

by her creative finese and computer know-how  

he looked at numbers  a bit amazed  while sitting at his diningroom table

before him were spread and stacked his usual array of fiction and non-fiction library books personal books sheaves of papers and a clutch of pens

behind him played tri-hop softly

it was evening

pitch-black outside

he was enticed by what .000033613 might look like 

his enticement powered by the threes in it which when squared equaled his favorite number

Life is powered by simple pleasures simple observations that perhaps no one else on the planet had the fortune or dumb luck to witness

last night arriving home from work he went back outdoors to feed bigfoot and after stroking him talking to him as bigfoot ate he went down the steps into his backyard and saw the vast Milky Way strewn directly above his house and while admiring it trucking out of the southwest a comet streaked over and disappeared leaving in his eyes the ghost of its trail a dark shimmering stripe that remained a little longer than he could have possibly hoped thrilling him all the more

what were the chances 

what were the chances that anyone else at 2226 hours were outofdoors looking up into space at that exact moment 

to see that celestial peek show

hed bet hardearned cash that in that moment hed been the only one

in that vein as he enjoyed the inscribed integers enjoyed the remnant scent of honey barbecued ribs the gnawed bones tumbled on the metal plate to the right of his elbow the cold beer he sipped  he looked up at the screen door letting the cool night air in and saw three(it had to be) preying mantises(praying! fuck that! pay attention  those bugs ate raveneously) clinging to it

he went out the front door so he could come around on the wrapped porch and up behind them

Hello boys he hailed  he could as easily said Hello girls but if out carousing at night he preferred to leave it to the stupid sex  besides the light wasnt sufficient for him to count their abdominal segments six for grrls eight otherwise

they rolled their tiny heads bulbous eyes side to side their mandibles worked as if to reply

Sorry gnawed dem ribbones clean If Id known you were coming Idve left some for ya

they worked their huge forelegs raptorial limbs plucked their spines in response he thought  he knew they couldnt hear him they were auditory cyclops two eardrums in one ear it was tuned to the ultrasonic frequencies that prowling bats emitted which let them if in flight to curl up their abdomens create drag and pull aerial stalls 

Maw Nature  her gives and takes  fuckin ingenious if She was allowed intellect(and he did)

three preying mantises

another simple treasured gift

it never got old

2323,  Monday,  26  9. 16

1353,  Twosday,  27  9. 16