Adaptive Curmudgeon

Those Were Good Fireworks

We’ve all had that dream where we reach out, trying to stop some cataclysmic event, but we’re too slow. Ed lived that dream. Spinning on a dime, four of the boys broke off from the pack and veered toward the truck. Instinctively, Ed knew the target. He knew but he wasn’t fast enough. There was nothing he could do to stop it.

In a flash of teenage heroics, driven by hormones, cheap canned beer, and a deep seated resentment of Ed and his bullshit, one of the four made his move. In a great leap, he cleared the trailer, vaulted over the Tri-county Anti-drug Community Interdiction Special Programs Environmental Task Force Team Pilot Project, and flipped the big red switch.

When it was built, a hundred and fifty years ago, the Gatlin gun was chambered in .45-70 Government. Originally based on the same powder as a muzzleloading rifle, .45-70 Government was an excellent cartridge for its time and purpose. If you wanted to send a big fat blob of lead, slow and lazy, into the flank of a plains bison, then .45-70 Government is fine. It would lob a big honkin’ 300 grain lead bullet at about 1600 feet per second. BOOM, thunk, and now you’ve got a dead bison for dinner. Scale that up to repeat fire and you’d created a righteous weapon of war; for its time.

By the time Pong was impressing home electronics consumers who would later invest in Betamax, Chigger’s old man had acquired the device. If 1970’s muscle cars had taught Chigger’s old man anything, it’s that bigger, harder, and faster was the way to live. Unsatisfied with fat blobs of lead embedding themselves in trees, he’d rechambered and rebarreled. Soon it was firing .300 Winchester Magnum. Originally released in 1963, it was the hard hitting death-round of his time. If .45-70 is for knocking down the buffalo on an old Pony Express trail. The .300 Winchester Magnum is for killing the elk that’s waaaaaaay on the other side of the canyon. (At the expense of a manly recoil to your shoulder of course.) Thus, the rechambered Gatlin gun fired jacketed hollowpoints that were slightly smaller (a still beefy 200 grains) but at nearly twice the velocity. That single modification had cranked up every single round’s energy from 1,700 foot pounds to a little over 4,000. (There will be an essay test at the end of this book and you’d better start gathering adjectives to describe precisely the forces that the Gatlin gun was unleashing. Of course, you shouldn’t forget the fact it now had more barrels and an increased barrel rotation rate.)

If the men and women of the 1860’s could see what Chigger’s old man would do with their (at the time) terrifying weapon of war; they’d have died with fright. Chigger’s dad was reckless and unwise, but he was also had a way with machines. He’d made the full analog, entirely mechanical, backwoods version of a tactical nuke.

The upshot of all this is that when the red switch was flipped, all hell broke loose. The machine went berserk. It was full automatic fire in a caliber never intended to automatic anything. The trailer rocked back on it’s suspension with the collected recoil of several thousand elk hunting rounds fired blisteringly fast. The Tri-county Anti-drug Community Interdiction Special Programs Environmental Task Force Team Pilot Project were showered with hot, smoking brass. The air was instantly infused with gunsmoke. Everyone dove to the ground as a solid white hot streak, made of thousands of bullets, blazed just over the roof of the Audi.

The sound wasn’t one gunshot and then another. Nothing of the sort would’ve been adequate for Chigger’s old man! His machinery made the sound of the universe being torn in half.

The onslaught lasted seventeen seconds. That’s all it took. Ed deserves acknowledgment in that he was willing to go near the beast, reach into that vortex of chaos, and flip the switch. Nobody else even considered such bravery.

He was lucky. It was a miracle (or curse) that the machine worked at all. It if was exposed to something approaching 30 seconds of continuous fire it would overheat, seize up, and explode. Chigger’s old man never had enough money to fire it that long. The price of ammo being prohibitive even back then. Nobody else, regardless of finances, would’ve been stupid enough to try. This is the only reason nobody had used the device long enough to blow themselves up… yet.

Ears ringing from the deafening roar, Ed grabbed a huge spotlight which was one of the few items he’d seized from an actual honest to goodness poacher, and aimed the powerful spotlight into the smoke. The beast had fired over the Audi and drilled a hole through the back wall of the Che (which was thankfully empty). The Che abutted a hillside and thus all damage was safely routed though a literature department and into the earth itself. (Later there would be much complaining about the loss of a beloved coffee maker. Ed would smooth it over when he busted, without evidence, a coffee shop in Portland for allegedly trading in endangered yak pelts. He donated the forfeited espresso machine to the university and all was forgiven.)

“Thank God nobody was killed.” Breathed Ed, thought nobody could hear him. Everyone’s ears were ringing.

Fifty yards away the Girl’s leader had latched on to the nearest thing when everything went KABOOM. It was a Boy Scout. He’d thoroughly enjoyed the show. His arm had gone numb as the girl had gripped it in terror. He didn’t mind.

“Fireworks?” He prompted.

“Fireworks!” She agreed and gave him a peck on the cheek.

Then a nearby lamppost, which had been completely severed in the mayhem, eased off kilter and started to fall. It was a heroic death. A lightpost gone to Valhalla after a full attack of a genuine “Northern Idaho Ballistic Tree Felling Champion”. It fell smoothly. Gracefully. Unerringly. Directly onto the Audi; crushing it.

“Fireworks.” They both giggled and he gave her a peck back.

It was a match made in heaven and brought together by unhinged firepower. Young love in America.

We Were Promised Fireworks

The Boy Scouts (which was one third girls) had enjoyed themselves thoroughly. There’d been cops and soldiers. A few of them had scored beers from Ed’s well stocked coolers. They’d gotten to beat up some hippies. They’d gotten free military folding chairs. Then, when things couldn’t get any more awesome, there’d been the cell phone thief and the naked dude trying to kill him.

All in all it was a perfect night. Alas, there’s only one thing a teenage boy (or girl) cares about and that’s getting laid. They’d tried mightily but it just hadn’t worked out. They texted several times to the nearby Girl Scout troop. “You must see this! Naked guy chasing cell phone thief!” It didn’t get enough traction. “We already saw naked guy. Woof.”

One of the more mercenary of the boys promised the girls there would be “serious fireworks” if they came out and joined them. This wasn’t an idle boast. The boys knew darned well whenever there was this much firepower in one place, something would sooner or later explode.

Unfortunately, everything began to deflate as the excitement started winding down. Robert had been tossed into a police car and was being taken “downtown” for “further questioning”. This was probably for the best because he’d been just about questioned to a pulp by everyone there and needed a break. Several SUVs filled with various employees of important organizations saddled up and rode out too. About half of them aiming to keep an eye on Robert so they could get in on the Official Interagency Press Release; which meant credit for Robert’s apprehension and a chance to Hoover up more funding. It wouldn’t do to let the local cops get all the glory. The rest had caravaned for Dennys; having built up an appetite while saving the world. The MRAP rolled off… trailed by the 4×4 club. The National Guard contingent had failed to find room at any hotel, but they’d found a climate controlled warehouse facility on the cheap that would surely beat sacking out in a tent. They’d passed the hat, dispatched two men to buy most of a liquor store and meet the rest of them in the warehouse district, then demobilized.

That left Ed, who had just realized half his beer had been stolen by a bunch of snot nosed kids. He was livid! “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” He yelled. “I acquired that beer through asset forfeiture from some city guy with a bass boat, what right do you assholes have to steal it?”

Ed hated competition. He started storming around chasing Scouts and grabbing all the beer cans. The kids scattered, circled around, and reappeared near the unguarded coolers. Stealing even more beer. This was a fun new game. The Tri-county Anti-drug Community Interdiction Special Programs Environmental Task Force Team Pilot Project knew when they were beat. They sat on their respective coolers and let the rest get raided. Ed, however, was offended by the spirit of the thing. He lost his cool and started knocking over Scout’s new chairs.

Things might have calmed down, with Ed realizing he was the cat and the kids were the laser pointer, if only the Girl Scouts (which included one third boys) hadn’t shown up. The girls saw an angry game warden shouting and Boy Scouts swarming all over the place like rabbits. They were completely unimpressed.

The Girl’s leader, chosen through a series of backstabbing political maneuvers that made Game of Thrones sound like a friendly competition, put her foot down. “You promised fireworks!”

She had the toe tapping, hands on hips, angry woman vibe mastered perfectly. Someday she’d be able to crush a husband and gaggle of kids like Muad’Dib asserting the voice upon weaker foes. The other girls (and one third boys) lined up behind their leader… as they’d been trained to do by public schools, social media, and the innate herd mentality of all teenagers.

The Boy Scouts realized two things: First the girls had actually showed up, there was hope. Second, there had better be fireworks!

Slutburger on the Prowl

Having exited the Arena, Robert’s soon to be ex-girlfriend knew it was a new era. “Woof.” Her life would be bisected by this moment. This was her first moment of AW (after woof) and she was already forgetting the details of BW (before woof). She stood uncertainly, watching the scene in the parking lot. Several dozen folks were beating the hell out of Robert. They kept saying things like “please stop resisting” and “you must comply”. Robert was balled up like a turtle, making little weeping sounds. Presumably they’d be done eventually and then Robert could drive her to her apartment. Then again everyone not actively beating Robert was “searching” the Audi. Several people were stuffing all sorts of things into the Audi and other people were pulling them back out. They were proclaiming loudly the incriminating nature of what everyone had seen planted just five seconds before. It was an increasing spiral. In the few minutes she’d been standing there it had gone from “Ah ha! A little bag of white powder that might be cocaine” to “Oh my God, we just found Jimmy Hoffa’s left testicle”. In another few cycles they’d probably convince themselves they’d found a giraffe in there.

It looked like neither Robert nor the Audi were going to be any use to her for a good long time. She shrugged. That was all BW anyway. She gazed longing at the other side of the parking lot where Janice was surrounded by more law enforcement officers. Someone had handed Janice a towel which he’d tied around his waist in a way that just made the “Woof” even better. A loincloth! What kind of girl can resist such woof-ness? Janice had enlisted the help of a circle of observers and they were all pounding the area that once had the broken bits of Robert’s phone. She wanted to march right over there and get to work… but the circle of men (and some women) pounding a crater in the ground was the wrong place and the wrong time.

She ordered up an Uber and vamoosed. She had things to do.

Woof

Janice had never really registered Robert at all. When the cellphone went flying he stayed on target. It was all about the phone. It was going to pay for what it had done!

The phone landed on a patch of grass between the curb and the sidewalk. Gerald was on it like a tiger. He drew back a mighty fist and punched the phone directly into the dirt. Machine like, he began jackhammering whatever plastic bits were left into the subsoil.

Robert, terrified, battered, and crushed into the pavement had no thought but escape. He clicked his key fob and the Audi’s taillights blinked. Janice, busy chewing on the phone’s battery, didn’t notice.

Suddenly everyone knew the cell phone thief was the big time drug dealer! He’d been running too! Running meant he’d been trying to flee the scene!

They rushed forth in a great show of interagency cooperation. They were going to serve and protect the living hell out of this twerp!

Robert curled up into a ball as the 4×4 enthusiast released his chokehold just long enough for a dozen assorted officers to shout “Quit resisting arrest!” and begin stomping him like a bunch of grapes about to become wine.

Back in the arena, Winston sat quietly and stared at the ceiling. He’d done what must be done. A deal is a deal, and now his name was tied to a moment of stupidity.

If Robert’s cellphone had any remaining corporeal presence (which it did not) it would have happily presented the new announcement on social media:

“Winston Jones, Professor of Business Math, is pleased to announce this year’s annual charity drive has been a success! $8,600, has been donated to ‘Dude Yoni’, a charity which provides feminine hygiene products to incarcerated male to female transitioning women.”

Next to Winston, sat Winston’s wife. She had wide eyes and the look of someone who had just seen behind the curtain. Two seats over, Robert’s soon to be ex-girlfriend had the same look. Between them, a set of broken bolts represented the place where Robert’s chair had been; a place that had been entirely unremarkable until a giant enraged naked man had blasted both Robert and the chair out of existence.

Winston saw the look on his wife’s face, and the identical look on Robert’s soon to be ex-girlfriend. He was no fool. He’d seen the same show.

“How in the name of Ron Jeremy did they think that thing was female?” Winston groused.

“Yes.” His wife agreed. “Very, extremely, male.”

They looked over the ruined chair at the younger and more shell-shocked girl. She looked back. She could only manage one word; “Woof!”

Muscle Car Undercarriage

A fat county sheriff made a leap for Robert and missed. Janice didn’t dodge left or right of the sheriff who was suddenly in his way. He simply went through the exact space the man was occupying at the exact moment he occupied it. Given that momentum equals mass times velocity squared, it’s a miracle the sheriff didn’t explode into component molecules. He merely bounced off Janice and landed on the pavement with a “thunk.”

The next to give it a shot were six burly guys from the National Guard. They formed up in a classic football defensive line and tried to clothesline Robert; who dodged left, skidded past a parked Fiat, and kept running. Janice rolled through the line like a bowling ball; turning the extreme left and right into a human 7/10 split and the rest into walking wounded.

Up in the chemistry lab the crowd was on their feet whooping and shouting. A naked man bulldozing a half dozen army grunts? This was exactly the point of a university!

The Tri-county, Anti-drug, Community Interdiction, Special Programs, Environmental Task Force Team Pilot Project knew all about Janice. They didn’t move an inch. Likewise Ed stayed put. This inaction frustrated one of the 4×4 groupies who flipped his baseball hat backward and shouted the All-American Battle Cry of Freedom… “Hold my Beer and watch this!”

Any man who has welded a V8 short block onto a rototiller has no fear. Having done such things and more, he was the right man for the job. He took two big strides, vaulted the Gatlin gun’s array of barrels, and caught Robert; shoulder high. Twisting in mid-flight he executed the perfect takedown.

Robert never had a chance. The 4×4 redneck had performed a feat that would have taken out a wildebeast and Robert was a soft college dude. He landed like a sack of wet cement. ‘Merica!

The man from the 4×4 club had many stories. Shockingly, all of them were true. His favorite story happened when he was eleven years old and his older brother was seventeen. His brother had a hopped-up Plymouth Barracuda and the two had been arguing about suspension sag when the Barracuda went airborne (a situation that was surprisingly common). In order to solve this important debate, the two of them labored all afternoon to build a suitable ramp. Then he’d laid on the pavement while his brother jumped over him with the Plymouth. Their mother had arrived just in time to nearly have a heart attack. She grounded them both for six months.

He though he’d never again experience such a heady rush of machismo and narrowly avoided catastrophe. He was wrong. When he and Robert toppled to the pavement he landed face up; just in time to see Janice’s undercarriage as the maniac flew overhead. Reliving the greatest and stupidest feat of an exceptionally stupid youth! What more could a man ask for?

Cell Phone Thief

It’s a disconcerting thing to witness an arena filled with frenetic screaming masses pivot on a dime so many times. The crowd had careened from good natured support of Mindy’s athleticism, to revulsion at Mindy’s failure to honor Janice’s brave and beautiful example of social justice, to basking in glorious violence, to terror as Janice breached the octagon, to relief as each and every spectator individually thanked their creator that Janice hadn’t crushed them. Now, all was confusion. How can you have a fight if one of the gladiators freaks out and charges after other quarry? Make no mistake, Janice didn’t flee. He got so unhinged that he forgot to kill enemies in the proper order.

Mindy, still in the octagon, circled nervously. Nothing in her training had prepared her for what she’d just experienced. Instead of a sporting event with rules and logic, it had been… war. She was, not entirely illogically, concerned that Janice was coming back. Would the maniac come back with a tire iron? A chainsaw?

The audience was deathly still, possibly having similar thoughts about Janice and chainsaws. The referee saved the day. “By reason of leaving the octagon” he announced “Janice has lost through forfeit.” He grasped Mindy’s and held it aloft. “I present the winner of today’s match, Mindy Anderson!”

The crowd was happy to be told what to think. They cheered for Mindy, though somewhat less than at the start of the match. They weren’t sure if Mindy was an honorable athlete who’d stayed on the field of play or literally Hitler who’d oppressed poor helpless Janice. They consulted social media but the instructions were unclear. If nobody’s there to tell you that you’re at war with Eastasia; what then?

Out in the parking lot nobody had time to ponder such details. They were presented with a squealing terrified little guy running like hell from a growling, barking, enraged, maniac. The little guy was clutching a cell phone in one hand and car keys in the other. Presumably, he had a vague idea that he’d leap in his car and drive away; very far, very fast. The maniac in pursuit was wild-eyed and menacing. He was entirely naked save for a sports bra stretched over rippling six pack abs. He was shouting “KILLLLLL!”

It took only a second for everyone to come to the same conclusion. That little guy had stolen the big naked dude’s cellphone. What a bastard!