...hunching low like the gods, tearing through the trash of the dumpster. it
is a big spill, guts into the alley. phone books and crap and a few wires but
nothing exciting and tearing through the plastic of a bag (hyperspace! he laughed
at the children) and then flushing out paper and pulling at the book, the big
book with the blue on the binding (bingo! he said out of the edge of his eye).
he hit his friend in the crotch of his arm and forearm and they tore off down
the street, (out into the cold of the night; it was blue under the streetlamps,
he said to them) went to an arcade and in the splintering barrage of color read
damn he said to thomas. we can do hell with this. (thomas scratched his chin,
he answered) well, i guess then, we'd better get to it. my mom's not going to
be pleased, he said. yeah, but think how cool it will be. yeah, said thomas.
they left.
so what did you do?
oh, we went to work, and set it up, and called up the places we needed
to and hacked an old HP3000 somewhere and came up with the number, then hooked up
the box and bamm! it went off. she went off. thomas' mother, he explained, was
a quit-and-done actress who sort of gave up and went off on drinking binges, and had
just taken on a lover named thad. he called nightly, when he was drunk, to talk
sweet to her. had apollo 35 still been up there, they would've gotten his final call!
gods! and all hell broke loose so we ran down to the pub and drank till dawn!
when we came back we tried to sneak in but as we climbed the fence, we accidentally
cut loose the propane tank. mr hibbard next door had fallen asleep in his easy
chair again with a cigar, and he set the thing off. kaboom! and it filled the
sky with flames, and blew mr hibbard's daschund through our windshield (and dad
was mad, glass being expensive then!). so they knew we were sneaking back in
drunk.
Mariella called from the kitchen: What are you talking about? Was that the
night that poor man died?
yes, it was, slowly. i guess he did care after all!