Author: kennettron

I like to ride bikes and do things that are fun.

Inhumane Borders

Posted on by kennettron

The following is nonfiction.

A cross, white as bleached bone, stands atop a low hill beside Arivaca Road, a rural, two-laner that bisects the most dangerous stretch of border in Arizona. I’m tagging along with a Humane Borders crew, an outfit of retired seniors whose mission is to prevent migrant deaths as men, women, and children attempt to cross the Sonoran desert into the United States.

Scott, the driver, points at the white cross as he pulls the F-150 off the highway onto a potholed dirt road. “That’s why we put this water station here in the first place. Poor guy died within sight of traffic.”

“Happens all the time,” says Doug from the passenger seat.

I brace myself in the back as the truck bounces along the rocky road on old leaf springs. Beside me, Penny points to a second cross—this one green—held up by a pile of small rocks. “There’s so many,” she sighs.

“That one’s new,” Scott says. “Sheriff’s deputy found the body a month ago.”

A blue Humane Borders flag flutters above a stand of short mesquite trees a short distance away. I wonder aloud how the migrant missed this water station.

“Sometimes they avoid our stations because they know Border Patrol hangs out at them. But probably he just didn’t see it, being delirious and whatnot.”

“Border Patrol’s not supposed to hang out at our stations,” Doug adds.

I ask if there’s a law that forbids ambushing migrants at aid stations and Scott says no. It’s just a handshake agreement between Humane Borders and Border Patrol. 

“There’s emergency phones at some of our water stations,” Scott says. “Sometimes the migrants are the ones to call Border Patrol for a pick up, at least back when they could seek asylum. Now that that era’s over, the desert is even more deadly since they’re trying to slip through undetected.”

“It’s all so horrible,” Penny says. “And sad.” She repeats this last part when no one else speaks up, as if giving respect to the unnamed migrant who collapsed in the dirt will make things a little less terrible. The man’s death would have been brutal, his brain swelling within his skull, stomach toxins seeping into his bloodstream, kidneys shutting down as he convulsed on the ground, his American dream cut short before it began. A disproportionate number of such victims are children who don’t have the mature sweat glands of adults and are unable to cool themselves in the unforgiving heat. Will will pass more grave markers as the day wears on.

Scott parks the white pickup beside a squat mesquite tree and all four of us climb out, the three elderly Human Borders volunteers easing themselves down with the running boards, their joints as brittle as the dry, brown vegetation that populates Southern Arizona in late winter.

The tattered Humane Borders flag flaps in the breeze. It sits atop a thin metal pole that arches thirty feet in the air like a top-heavy dandelion stalk. Below the flag is a blue, fifty-five gallon plastic drum of water. It sits on cinder blocks like a redneck’s junker lawn ornament. And the water within is junk, as we find out with a digital water quality meter.

“Five hundred and eleven parts per million,” Penny says.

“Whoa, that’s too high,” Doug says. “Let’s dump it.” 

Humane Borders’ threshold is five-hundred parts per million—a unit of dissolved chemicals, salts, and minerals—so Doug twists the spigot all the way open and water gushes into the dirt, turning the ground to mud beneath our boots. I follow Scott, the driver and the unofficial leader of this outing, back to the truck bed where water is still sloshing within a four-hundred gallon plastic tank. Scott lowers the tailgate and I hop up, lift one of the new empty drums down, and carry it to the cinder block stand.

Scott starts the generator as Penny drags the hose to the new drum. We fill it in silence. A silver crucifix necklace hangs from a tree branch. Beneath the necklace, a pair of walking sticks lean against the tree trunk. The hand-grips are smooth where the bark has been carefully carved away to provide a modicum of comfort on an otherwise tortuous journey. Someone spent time making these walking sticks, time hiking with them, leaning on them, depending on them. I ask why they were left here with so many miles left to travel.

“They’re only allowed to take a little plastic bag of personal items when they get picked up,” Penny explains. “Basically just their phone and ID. Border Patrol leaves everything here in the desert for us to clean up. Backpacks, clothes, shoes, wallets…kid’s toys, everything.”

“When Border Patrol has enough of ‘em rounded up for a full load,” Doug says, “they put them on this charter bus on the outskirts of Tucson, which takes them to the ICE detention facility. We might see the bus on our drive back. The windows are all boarded up. They handcuff and shackle the migrants for the ride. Women and kids. I had a buddy who worked in a regular county jail and he told me they never shackled the inmates during transport because it was a huge safety issue.” Doug scoffs and shakes his head. “No rules when it comes to migrants.”

When the new water drum is full, Scott yanks the hose out of the opening and padlocks the lid shut. Border vigilantes regularly poison the water with turpentine and gasoline. On more than one occasion, thirst and desperation has driven migrants to drink the deadly water. Hence the padlock. Hence testing the water every month and replacing it when the meter reads more than five-hundred parts per million, although bacteria build-up is a concern in its own right.

I notice that my forearm is bleeding from a long scratch. I assume it’s from one of the mesquite trees. Everything in the desert has thorns to protect itself, to protect its most valuable resource, which is water. The humans that inhabit the area are hardly any different. One needs to look no further than the rust-brown laceration eight miles south of us, though the region is strife with barbarism dwarfing the thirty-foot-tall border wall stretching beyond sight.

In 2009, an anti-immigrant vigilante group broke into a Hispanic family’s house in the quiet border town of Arivaca, which we drove through to get to our second of six water stations. The vigilantes—two white men and a white woman—made off with a few handfuls of cheap jewelry, leaving behind a nine-year-old girl with a bullet in her head. She begged for her life before the vigilantes shot her, execution style. They killed her father as well. The girl’s mother survived by playing dead, bleeding on the kitchen floor from multiple gunshot wounds.

We drive to the next water station, Scott hunching forward behind the wheel as the old rig bounces along the dirt road, Doug in the front passenger seat filling out field notes in a spiral notebook, Penny and I in the back. Penny receives a text. She smiles and her eyes fill with pride. She holds her phone for me to see. There’s a photo of a middle aged woman standing beside a small pickup truck, one hand on the hood, the other in her pocket.

“I was terrified she’d drive it without insurance so I sent her a few hundred bucks to cover the first few months,” Penny says, then tells me of her previous life in Sacramento running a nonprofit that provided homeless people with food, housing, healthcare, and work. Gale, the woman in the photo, had been a homeless opioid addict for more than a decade before Penny began delivering groceries during Covid. Penny’s nonprofit expanded in 2021 and offered financial aid and job support, but the constant emotional encouragement was what got Gale off the streets.

“Everyone needs to feel loved,” Penny says. “That’s the most important thing we provided. More important than groceries. After so many hard years feeling like a criminal, like a failure, it’s easy for someone like Gale to forget they deserve compassion.” 

The pickup truck in the photo is the capstone of Gale’s success story—years of hard work to get herself clean, off the streets, and employed—culminating in her first set of wheels, a modest achievement by society’s standards, a seeming impossibility for a physically abused woman who’d almost died of multiple overdoses.

The next water station is full and the water meter reads three hundred and five parts per million—clean enough—so we continue on, trundling up a steep, rocky road that tops out on a narrow ridge. Creosote bushes screech against the side of the truck as we force our way into the wilderness. The drop to the valley below on either side would be fatal.

At the top, we’re rewarded with a stunning view of the wild, brown-green desert that we’ve all made our home. The border wall snakes to the south. Mountains rise in the west and north. Another blue Humane Borders flag beckons us in the distance.

Scott inches the truck off the road a few feet from the edge of a cliff. Doug breathes a thankful curse of relief when the vehicle comes to a stop with all four wheels still on solid ground. We all congratulate Scott for not killing us.

This is our fourth water station of the day and the drum, like all the others, is still completely full. Few migrants, if any, have come through this way in the last month, a victory for MAGA, a tragedy for those unable to escape a level of third-world poverty and violence unimaginable in the United States.

Scott tells me he used to volunteer with another aid organization down in Sasabe, Mexico, which lies smoldering in ruin just across the border.

“Total hell broke out and we had to leave,” he says. “It’s an actual war zone now.” Last year, rival gangs turned the streets of Sasabe into a no man’s land. There were so many stray bullets flying through the air, simply walking to the grocery store was risking death. So residents fled and the population fell from 2,500 to twenty almost overnight.

Not everyone escapes the violence of the North American drug trade. Up to twenty-thousand Mexicans alone die every year as fentanyl, cocaine, and heroin travel north from Latin America to feed American noses, lungs, and veins. The total death count, when including nations like Colombia that have waded through decades of war thanks to American demand, is in the tens of millions. 

“Wish I’d brought binoculars,” Scott mumbles as we load back into the truck. Half a mile away at the bottom of the hill, dust rises as two pickups approach. We roll our windows down and squint against the sun for a better view, our group’s collective mind wondering if we’re about to be harassed, or attacked, by an anti-immigrant vigilante group. There is no cell coverage out here, and unlike the vigilantes, Humane Borders forbids volunteers from carrying firearms, not that any of the pacifists I’m riding with own guns.

Scott puts the truck in gear and we descend the dirt road that straddles the narrow ridge. There is only one way in and out of here, and we must pass the two pickups that are now waiting for us at the base of the hill. My eyesight is the best in our group and I count at least five people milling around, unloading unidentifiable objects from the truck beds.

My heartbeat is probably pounding hard enough to show through my T-shirt by the time we reach flat ground. I try to convince myself to stay quiet and calm and non confrontational no matter what happens, that even if the vigilantes shove an AR-15 in the face of one of my senior citizen friends, I won’t grab the screwdriver by my feet and plunge it into the neck of—

They aren’t vigilantes. They’re ranch hands repairing a fence. The quiet, nervousness in our cab vanishes and we resume searching out the side windows for the rare bird Penny’s been talking about since the morning.

Twenty minutes later, we jolt left and right like bobble heads as the rough road worsens. Doug mentions something about one of the volunteers losing his hearing aid on the last outing.

“What?” Penny asks. “I didn’t catch that.”

Doug turns around in the passenger seat to respond. “I said Gary lost his hearing aid last week when were were out by the—”

“I’m kidding,” Penny laughs, reaching forward and squeezing Doug’s shoulder. Doug turns forward without saying anything and Penny, new to the group and a decade younger than Doug, who is eighty-something, rolls her eyes at me. 

Scott slows to a crawl to avoid wheel-eating potholes. Walking would be quicker. I drink my second bottle of water and eat my second sandwich. My hips are tight from being cramped in the backseat all day. We have one water station left but it’s a haul to get there on this primitive road, rocks like teeth sticking up at severe angles. I continue questioning Penny, Doug, and Scott about the various aid organizations they’ve all been part of. Their compassion for underprivileged people comes through as clearly as other people’s hatred for the same marginalized groups. 

The truck lurches over a rock and an explosion breaks our conversation. Scott comes to a quick stop and all of us get out and inspect the flat tire. Eighty-somthing Doug crawls beneath the truck, searching for the spare. He and Scott are slow, ancient old men but I resist the urge to take over. They have purpose here in the desert, and there’s no rush. We have four-hundred gallons of water in the back.

Half an hour later we’re moving again, Scott creeping along the road at three or four miles an hour.

“These rocks look sharper when you don’t have a spare,” Doug laughs.

If we flat again, I decide I’ll run to the highway and hitch hike into cell service. It’s a long run—maybe twelve miles—but it would be relatively easy as a white man with no reason to fear the brown-shirts, zip ties, and assault rifles of Border Patrol. And it’s only seventy five or eighty degrees, not the one-fifteen it will be in a few months.

Still, there’s hardly a square foot of shade out here. Migrants usually hike at night and sleep at day beneath the tallest trees that line the dry river beds. The men, women, and children who make the journey are often at the end of their reserves by the time they cross the border, having spent months walking along roads, hopping freight trains, and riding overcrowded buses. They go for days without food, showers, or a sound night of sleep. They live in constant fear of the cartel and Mexican immigration police. Both police and criminals rob, rape, ransom, and murder migrants as they make their way north, fighting for the chance at earning eight bucks an hour at jobs Americans won’t touch with a hazmat suit.

We arrive at our final water station, which sits beside a dry, sandy river bed strewn with garbage and bits of plastic. It’s early afternoon and the water drum is full. All of the drums have been full. For now, Trump is winning, that migrants are being thwarted by conservative rhetoric, news of ICE raids, and the demise of the asylum program. But true thirst will drive a sane person to drink poisoned water. Climate change will continue forcing low-latitude migrants from their homes in greater numbers, no matter ICE’s budget, the ferocity of Border Patrol agents, or the racism of white Americans who have interacted with a brown-skinned migrant.

We shake open garbage bags and circle the perimeter of the water station, picking up the personal items that Border Patrol agents forced the last batch of migrants to leave behind: camouflage backpacks, carpet shoes (shoes with carpet soles to obscure footprints), a bag of tampons, a child-sized glittery Mickey Mouse shirt, a pair of USA socks. I wonder where this family is now, if they’re still together. I’m grateful I was born in this country and didn’t have to sneak across the border to live here. But in truth I’m more disgusted than grateful.

We fill two garbage bags and drive home. Before we get back to Tucson, we spot the parked charter bus with its boarded up windows at Three-Points, a town that consists of a gas station and a handful of prefabricated homes drying out in the shadeless desert a mile from a Border Patrol checkpoint. An armed security guard in a bulletproof vest exits the gas station and makes his way to the bus. He sips from his freshly purchased Mountain Dew. A heavy set of keys jangle importantly from his belt as he climbs the bus steps.

I imagine what might happen if I got out and did something illegal to free the illegals shackled within. But I’m just an observer in a country filled with observers. The guard disappears behind the bus door.

“Let’s get out of here,” Doug says. And we drive home. 

Meat Tube

Posted on by kennettron

“Welcome valued customer. Place item in bag or cart, and scan next item,” the self-checkout machine blared. 

Sean dropped a plastic tube of ground beef in the grocery bag, followed by a red onion, box of spaghetti, can of marinara, and mushrooms. He wanted a Butterfingers but he’d already added everything up in his head and knew he’d be eleven cents short if he scanned the candy bar. Stomach grumbling, he paid and walked out of the frigid Wal-Mart into a ninety-eight-degree afternoon. It was the last day of sixth grade and Sean felt light and energetic despite the heat radiating up from the five-acre blacktop parking lot, which at two-thirty was as empty as the town of Las Vegas, New Mexico, itself.  

 One of the few customers, an old lady with pale elephantine legs, loaded groceries into her sun-bleached minivan. The cloudy white swirls on the van’s hood reminded Sean of the salt stains that used to form on his father’s shirts this time of year.

“Bringing home the bacon?” the woman asked, looking at Sean’s swinging grocery bag. 

“No bacon tonight,” Sean said. “My mom is making spaghetti.” 

The old lady smiled. “It’s nice to see such a young man helping out around the house.” 

“As the man of the house, it’s sort of my job.” Sean and his older brother David became the men of the house when their dad went to prison. 

“Your generation might not be doomed after all.” She grinned and so did Sean. Sean was better at making small talk with adults than kids his own age. He used to blame his lack of friends on being poor until David—this was a few years ago—pointed out that just about everyone in Las Vegas was poor. 

“You don’t have any friends ‘cause you’re a weirdo,” David said. “Sean the Yawn.” 

“Don’t call me that.” Sean hated that his own brother came up with the nickname, which had stuck in second grade. 

“Sean the Yawn went barefoot on the lawn,” David chanted. 

“Mom said you’re not allowed to sing that anymore.” 

“Slipped in dog crap, fell flat on his ass.” 

“Shut up!” 

“Now he’s scared of dogs and brown grass!” 

The seven-verse song, which everyone at school knew by heart—thanks to David—was based on a series of unfortunate but true events. 

“Walked inside and threw off his clothes,” David continued. “Smeared shit on the carpet and some on his nose!” 

Sean teared up, David called him a pussy and a fag, Sean threatened to tell their mother, and David mumbled an apology.

Sean stuffed the groceries in his backpack as he made his way across the parking lot. He waited at a crosswalk even though the only traffic was a mile away on I-25. The town hummed with silent boredom as Sean stood at the corner of the empty street, flapping his T-shirt for air flow. Sometimes he wished he lived in the real Las Vegas—the one in all the movies—instead of this boring tumbleweed town where the houses were as sun-bleached and worn-out as that old woman’s minivan. 

“Just remember, this is the original Las Vegas,” Sean’s mother said when Sean and David were complaining about Las Vegas one afternoon. “It predates the other one by half a century.” 

“Old doesn’t mean good,” David said. 

“Yeah,” Sean agreed. “David predates me and there’s nothing great about him.”  

An unexpected burst of laughter shot out of their mother’s mouth. She composed herself and told Sean not to be rude. “Brothers stick by each other through thick and thin.” She loved saying this. She loved sayings in general, as if tidy little quotes could bring order and sanity to the world.

Later, David got even in the backyard by kneeling on Sean’s sternum for so long, Sean blacked out.  

Sean walked along the uneven, weedy sidewalk. A toy poodle yapped at him from behind a fence. An old pickup coughed by on the-two lane road. Sean reminded himself to slow down and hunch over like a normal twelve-year-old. He was always reminding himself to be normal, especially when talking to people—to laugh, to smile, to frown, to reflect whatever fake emotion was expected of him instead of staring back with the slack-jawed expression that earned him the name Sean the Yawn. Brothers stick by each other through thick and thin. Now there was some bullshit. Despite his cruelty—possibly because of it—David had always been accepted by the other kids in school, if not mildly feared. Because David didn’t have to remind himself to act normal. He was normal. And normal people distanced themselves from outsiders. Ridiculed them, harassed them, assaulted them, even if they were related. 

Sean turned onto Washington Street, which was pleasantly shaded by two rows of towering oaks. Small, neat homes painted bright purple, red, and yellow stood like toy houses beneath the old trees. Sean’s house, which was on the other side of town, was plain white. Or it used to be a long time ago. Now the paint clung to the weathered boards like peeling bark, leaving bare patches that reminded Sean of a kid in school who was mercilessly made fun of because of his genetic skin disorder. Sean and David used to have a contest to see who could peel off the longest, unbroken strip of paint from the south side of their house. The loser had to eat a bite of the winner’s paint chip. Sean always lost, but the one time he didn’t, David refused to eat the loser’s meal. David always broke the made-up rules of games he forced Sean to play. 

Sean checked the time on his phone. It was almost three. As long as he was back by five thirty with the groceries, his mother could cook dinner before her second Uber shift of the day. Right now she’d be asleep in the Lay-Z-Boy, resting up for the night, Friends or some other 2000’s laugh track droning in the background, a room-temp ice pack under her lumbar, and a sweating vodka and Sprite in the recliner’s built-in cup holder, which was mildewy because of the chronic condensation that had begun pooling there this spring. 

He cut through the side yard of a vacant, two-story house. The dead, brown lawn was strewn with plastic bags, Coors cans, and bits of paper. The windows were boarded up and tagged with fading peace symbols and freshly spray-painted MAGAs and swastikas. Last winter, Sean ventured inside by himself and kicked around one of the many plastic vodka bottles left behind by the high schoolers who’d turned it into a hangout. The boarded windows made it dim and he’d accidentally stepped on what appeared to be a translucent, burst balloon filled with snot. Sean went home and told David about the gross balloon and David howled with laughter. 

“You’re always stepping on disgusting shit,” David said. “Why don’t you ever watch where your feet go, retard?” 

“Retard? You’re the one with the stupid sagging eye,” Sean said, making his best dimwit imitation. Sean regretted saying this even as it came out, not because it was rude to make fun of someone’s disfigurement, but because no one got away with mocking David’s deformed eye—a parting gift from their father. David gave Sean a black eye of his own seconds later, plus a fat lip and a chipped front bottom tooth. When Sean saw himself in the mirror the next morning, he decided it would be the last beating David ever gave him. 

Sean ducked through the hole in the backyard fence that led directly into Monroe Cemetery. The grass here, like everywhere in Las Vegas, was dead and brown and lumpy with ground squirrel holes. Sean trudged up the steep, treeless hill, sweating now that he was out in the open amongst the gravestones. He stopped when he reached the cemetery’s newest resident. A small granite headstone was all his mother had been able to afford. “Uber doesn’t pay shit,” she’d sobbed in the funeral home, as if Sean hadn’t already known. 

Sean looked around the empty, blazing hot cemetery, unzipped his jean shorts, and urinated on his brother’s grave. 

Dusty la cholla cacti flanked the steep single-track trail that led out of the cemetery and into the foothills that overlooked the original Las Vegas. Sean hiked for ten or fifteen minutes before stepping off the trail. He made sure the coast was clear, then knelt before a bowling-ball-sized rock. Tendons strained in his thin, sun-burned forearms as he pried the rock up and rolled it away. Still crouching, he popped his head up to survey. No one but a pair of vultures circling high above. He dug, scooping warm handfuls of sandy soil between his legs like a dog. He felt the Zip-Lock bag and pulled. It came out of the ground like he imagined an organ might pull free from a roadkill carcass. He held the bag up, inspecting it for holes. It contained four red cardboard tubes with six-inch-long fuses. Sean found a shoebox full of the M-80s under David’s bed a few months ago. He spent the spring testing them on glass beer bottles, then a honeydew melon, then the arms of a cholla cactus, then an anthill, then a bull snake. Today was graduation day. 

The trail continued to the top of Sugarpine peak—a three-hour round-trip hike from the cemetery parking lot—but Sean only followed it a hundred yards further before veering off trail and descending into a dry creek bed. Knee-high bushes clawed at Sean’s bare shins. It was too hot for long pants today. But the heat was good. The heat was necessary. It would keep the pack of stray dogs hunkered in the shade of the pinon pines that lined the sandy wash. The heat would also make the dogs extra hungry because the dump, which served as their feeding ground, was too hot for them on days like this. 

Sean unshouldered his backpack when he got to the wash. He rummaged through the Wal-Mart grocery bag, ignoring the onion, spaghetti, mushrooms, and marinara. He withdrew the hamburger meat and used the edge of a rock to rip the taut tube open. He stuck his finger inside. The wet meat was still cold. He tore the package the rest of the way and balled up three portions of fatty ground beef. He laid the balls carefully on his backpack and put the tube of meat back in the grocery bag. Next, he took out three M-80s. He stuck a finger in the first hamburger ball and pushed an M-80 into the hole. He crimped the opening down, leaving a small bit of space for the fuse to stick out without touching the meat. He’d experimented and learned that the meat would put the fuse out if he didn’t leave a few millimeters of breathing room for the flame to pass through. 

Sean walked amongst the dry, reed-like grass that rose well above his head. When the monsoons came in July, the grass would turn green and the scrawny desert willows would suck up the water and sprout magenta flowers. Birds and deer would flock to the area as if it were a Disney scene. He and David used to come here and shoot birds with their wrist rockets. They almost never managed to hit anything. 

Sean ventured into the deepest part of the channel, which was free of vegetation. The hot, dry sand made walking slow and difficult. He was thirsty and hungry. His planning hadn’t extended to satisfying basic bodily needs, just the needs of his soul, which were about to be met because a white pit bull trotted towards him, snout high in the air. The dog’s wide, pink tongue hung out of his mouth in a happy grin. 

Las Vegas had a stray dog problem, with new recruits bolstering the pack’s numbers faster than animal control, cars, or coyotes could chip them away. Sean whistled and held up the meat bomb. 

“Here boy! Come on! Get it while it’s fresh, you stupid fucker!” 

The pit bull came to a full stop ten yards away. A short-haired, skinny mutt watched in the distance. When Sean looked at it, the mutt vanished into the tall grass, tail between its legs. Sean turned his attention back to the pit bull, which a normal person, Sean knew, might think was cute. 

“I’ve got something for you.” Sean waved the meat bomb back and forth. He put it to his mouth as if to take a bite.

The pit bull’s nostrils flared in and out, pulling in hot desert air laced with greasy meat.

Sean felt a breeze at his back. Perfect. Things were going just perfect. He set the meat bomb on a flat piece of driftwood, and from his backpack withdrew a red plastic cup—the kind high schoolers used for beer pong. Sean lit the fuse with David’s lighter, then covered the burning fuse with the red cup because everyone knew dogs didn’t like flames. The fuse, which he’d learned how to extend thanks to YouTube, was exactly sixty seconds long.  

“All yours!” Sean said to the pit bull, backpedaling. 

The white pit bull looked at Sean, sniffed the air, and cocked his head. Sean realized the dog wanted even more distance so held his hands up in an apology and retreated until the dog was satisfied. Sean’s heart pounded as he counted off the seconds in his head. Twenty-four, twenty-five. . .  

The pit bull approached, keeping one eye on Sean and the other on lunch. He was just a few feet away from the meat bomb now. He looked like a puppy—soft pink snout, big feet, dopey eyes. His ribcage heaved in the heat. He stretched his muscular neck as far as it would go, hind legs firmly planted in the sand, tail tucked, body low to the ground, ready to spring away if Sean moved an inch. 

Sean did not move an inch. 

The pit bull sniffed the meat bomb. His tongue flicked out, tasted the cheap greasy chuck. Saliva oozed from his droopy black jowls to the sand. He didn’t seem concerned with the smoke that rose from the lip of the upside-down cup. 

Thirty-eight, thirty-nine. . .  

The pit bull took another tentative lick, held eye contact with Sean—it wasn’t fair that eye contact came more naturally to dogs than it did to Sean—and grabbed the meat bomb in his mouth. 

Forty-eight, forty-nine. . .  

The pit bull swallowed hard and the lump passed down his throat like a rat making its way down a python’s gullet. 

Sean stared in awe, his yawning mouth—Sean the Yawn!—hanging open in disbelief. It actually worked! Of course it worked. He should have had more faith in himself after what he did to David. 

Fifty-three, fifty-four. . .  

Sean plugged his ears—M-80s were loud fuckers—but then he imagined David calling him a pussy so he let his arms fall back to their sides, which was just as well because Sean wanted to hear the wet plopping squelch the dog’s flesh would make as it splattered across the desert. He’d always envisioned the bomb going off in the dog’s mouth, spraying teeth and ears. This was even better. Its entire body would detonate like that honeydew. Except instead of light green, the shower would be dark red.

Fifty-eight, fifty-nine. . .  

The pit bull puppy looked at Sean, wagged his tail, and seemed to smile. Now it would die.

Sixty!

The dog sat in the sand, panting and pawing the air with his left paw, asking for another treat.  

Sixty-three, sixty-four. . . 

“What the hell?” Sean whispered. All of his fuses were within a second or two of a minute. Maybe excitement had caused him to count too fast.  He decided to count another ten slow seconds.

Eight, nine, ten. . . nothing.  

Sean realized what happened. The jury-rigged fuse got dislodged in the dog’s mouth. How had he overlooked this?

Because he was an idiot. A stupid idiot like everyone always said. Sean heard David laughing hysterically. I may have the sagging eye but everyone knows you’re the one who came out underbaked!  

“Fuck,” Sean hissed, kicking the sand. “Fucking fuck.” The pit bull sprang away and disappeared into the brush.  Sean’s face burned with humiliation even though no one was around to witness his stupidity. He strode towards the red cup and was about to crush it under his foot when a simple solution presented itself. 

“Just make the bomb bigger,” he muttered. Yeah. That was it. He and his mom could make do without meat for dinner. She could anyway—the ass imprint she left in the La-Z-Boy had already increased in width and depth since David died three months ago. If Sean made the bomb bigger, the next dog would be forced to take bites instead of chomping the thing whole and dislodging the fuse. With any luck, the M-80 would detonate inches from the dog’s head if Sean timed it just right. It might not be as spectacular as an exploding head or torso, but it would get the job done. 

Sean divided the rest of the meat between two grapefruit-sized meat-bombs, keeping the fuse entrances clear. He put one bomb in his backpack and walked with the other, whistling and calling out in a friendly tone. If he was lucky, the pit bull would still be in the vicinity. And he wanted that pit bull. It had taken one of his last M-80s, which would harmlessly pass through the dog’s digestive tract within twenty-four hours instead of doing what it was designed to do.

Sean pushed his way through the thicket of grass, which was so tall it made him feel like a kindergartner. That brought up an interesting question. What would an M-80 do to a kindergartner? Better yet, what would an M-80 do to Eleanor Whitehead, who spread the rumor that Sean was gay? The problem was Sean couldn’t get Eleanor to eat a meat bomb. He’d have to devise some other way. Maybe tie one onto a rock and toss it through her bedroom window, or—

There was movement on his left. Sean whipped his head around just as a dog tail disappeared into the brush. He tried to whistle but his lips were too dry. Damn, he was thirsty. Feeling thirst hit so hard and so suddenly was a bit frightening, and he was half an hour from the cemetery. Plus another ten minutes to the first gas station where he could get water. He should have brought a bottle. But he couldn’t be expected to think of everything. 

Just like he hadn’t thought of everything when it came to poisoning David. Instead of putting the rat pellets back in the garage, Sean had stupidly left the box in his own bedroom closet all week when David was dying on life support. That had been a real Sean the Yawn move. 

“Come on out,” Sean cooed to the dog. “I’ve got an even bigger treat for you this time. Oh! You’re not a dog.” 

A rail-thin coyote with short brown hair emerged from the grass. The coyote’s patchy fur made it look mangy. Even a bit pathetic. It held its injured left hind leg in the air. Its massive ears stood straight up like a donkey’s, accentuating its holocaust-skinny appearance. A stiff breeze wouldn’t have just blown it over. A stiff breeze would have scattered the creature across the desert like a fistfull of dust.

The coyote sniffed at the meat bomb from a dozen yards away, ribs sticking out even more than the pit bull’s. By killing it, Sean would actually be putting it out of its misery. In a way, this made Sean less enthusiastic. 

But the result would be the same as a dog. Ka-boom. Blood and bone and fur everywhere. Sean could save the second meat bomb for the pit bull if it came around later. Besides, there was a full summer to massacre all the dogs he wanted, provided he could get his hands on more M-80s. He had a lot of practice ahead of him if he wanted to remove Eleanor Whitehead’s lying tongue. 

Sean set the meat bomb on the sand. Sweat dripped down the tip of his nose. He was thirstier than he’d ever been. His mouth and throat were painfully dry. The coyote sniffed, looked at the meat, then at Sean, then back to the meat. Sean took out his lighter and was about to ignite the fuse when the coyote abruptly turned and loped off into the tall grass. 

“Hey, wait!” Sean grabbed the cup and the meat bomb and followed the coyote. By the time he pushed through the other side of the thicket, the coyote was already twenty yards away, looking warily over its shoulder. Sean held the meat bomb up but the coyote was clearly spooked, somehow sensing Sean’s intentions.  

It was time to change things up. Sean extracted the M-80 from the chuck, set the meat and the red cup on top of a log—he would retrieve both later—and took the lighter from his pocket. If he lit the fuse just half an inch from where it entered the M-80, it would explode roughly five seconds later. 

The coyote limped on three legs as Sean jogged after it in the main channel of the wash. Sean’s lungs and legs burned. The back of his throat felt drier than a scab. The coyote stopped and glanced back. Sean sped up, closing the distance. He got the lighter ready. The coyote limped off again, nimble as a grasshopper over the deep, scalding sand. Had it been holding its left or right leg earlier? Because it was definitely holding its right leg up now. 

The coyote disappeared in the brush and Sean went in after it. He would light the fuse the next chance he got. He was desperate for a kill and the coyote wasn’t going to let him get closer than fifteen yards it seemed. Sean didn’t have good aim—David always teased him for throwing like a girl—but fifteen yards wasn’t far and even if the M-80 went off a few feet from the coyote, the explosion would have enough force to stun it. Then, when Sean was closer, he could light a second M-80 and toss it on top of the— 

Something hard slammed into Sean’s leg below the knee, hitting him with so much force that he was suddenly looking up into the blue sky, suspended in the air. He came down hard on his side. The wind rushed out of his lungs. Then agonizing pain gripped his leg. He tried to draw in breath to scream as an animal pulled and shook his calf. His lungs seized up instead.

Sean twisted and kicked at the animal with his feet. It was the coyote. No. It was a different one. This coyote was larger and sleeker, its winter coat fully blown. A second coyote grabbed Sean by his neck and now he did manage to scream. 

He screamed and flailed. He tried to pry his fingers in between the coyote’s jaws, which ground together like kitchen shears, cutting through tendon and neck muscle. Maybe David would have been strong enough to get his fingers in there, but not Sean. Not Sean the pussy who threw like a girl and couldn’t remember to smile or make eye contact or learn how to make friends. 

Sean realized his backpack strap was caught between his throat and the coyote’s upper set of teeth, keeping his airway free. He clawed at the coyote’s head and face. If he could just get this one off him and reach one of the fist-size rocks that lay a few feet away. . .  

But now three more coyotes latched onto his body like leeches, pinning him down and ripping at his stomach and arms and legs. The original attacker pulled a long, thick strip of skin, fat, and muscle from the back of Sean’s knee down to the center of his calf, where the flesh broke off then disappeared down the coyote’s throat. Blood gushed from the wound. Bone—white as fresh paper—stood out against the red tissue like a flash of lighting against the night sky. Sean jerked his body madly but the fight was going out of him with every second. He had to reach one of those rocks. Or light the fuse of the M-80. But where was it?

The teeth pressing down into Sean’s throat finally cut through his backpack strap and punctured his esophagus, which made a crunching sound like a chicken carcass being pulled apart and crammed into a crock pot.

There were at least a dozen coyotes on him now, swarming over him like a school of piranha, ripping meat off and choking it down as Sean’s gargled screams became increasingly impotent, a word Eleanore Whitehead used to describe him just a week ago.

Now he truly was impotent, because he felt teeth on his penis, followed by a searing rip of pain. He sensed his entire scrotum had been taken with it. 

The coyote attached to his throat jerked its head back and forth. An acidic, electrical jolt shot down Sean’s spine and suddenly, mercifully, he felt nothing below his broken neck aside from the fire in his spinal cord. The coyote let go. Then its hot, slobbery mouth enclosed around Sean’s face, blackening the sky. Bones crunched. Sean lay dead still on his back, unable to move or scream as the coyote tugged at his face as if it were a rubber chew toy. Because the rest of his body was mostly numb, Sean felt the sharp canines piercing and ripping into his eye socket, nose, and jaw all the more intensely. The coyote pulled free and tossed its head back. A gelatinous portion of Sean’s own lips and freckled cheek vanished into the coyote’s mouth. 

Two juveniles bumped the adult out of the way as they fought over Sean’s intestines in a game of tug-o-war. They growled but their tails wagged in delight as they stood above him. The thick pink rope of intestines burst and something warm splattered over Sean’s face. It smelled like shit. Because it was shit. His own shit. It leaked into the gaping wound that served as Sean’s nose. 

Somewhere, Sean heard his dead brother laughing as he came up with another verse of Sean the Yawn.  

Look Both Ways

Posted on by kennettron

Adriana felt her daughter’s shoulder pop as she yanked the four-year-old back onto the sidewalk. A semi-truck roared past, a second later, dragging a plume of hot fumes.

“The red hand means stop, Izzy!” Adriana yelled. “And you never, ever cross before me!” Her body shook from adrenaline. 

Izzy’s face bunched up into a knot and tears instantly plopped on the gum-splotched sidewalk like burst water balloons, darkening the scalding summer concrete and quickly disappearing. Everyone had a short temper in Tucson when it was above one-hundred-and-fifteen but Adriana realized she might have overreacted. 

“Remember, we cross with the white man,” she said, forcing calm into her voice. “But even then we have to look both ways.” Grand was a five-lane surface street with a forty-five-mile-per-hour speed limit, a narrow sidewalk, and a Circle K every other block—not a street designed for children. Or anyone, really. 

Adriana bent over Oscar’s hand-me-down stroller. She tried pulling the sunshade lower even though she knew it was already fully extended. She felt a tug at her hand from Izzy. 

“It’s, it’s the white man,” Izzy stammered, pointing at the pedestrian signal. 

“Is it safe to cross?” Adriana asked, looking left and right twice, turning her head with exaggeration. 

“I think so.” 

“I think so, too.” 

They stepped onto Sunset, another five-laner. The black asphalt beneath Adriana’s thin shoes felt hot enough to sear a steak. She would have worn her work shoes for this length of walk—any nurse who’d been on the job more than a week knew the importance of supportive shoes—but she had to keep those as white as possible because Star Valley Nursing Home was in the midst of a layoff. Adriana had been spared so far, and if maintaining bright white shoes gave her an edge, she’d take it. 

A horn blared as Adriana pushed the stroller up to the sidewalk. A silver Porsche screeched around the corner behind her, passing so close it sucked at Adriana’s thin, yellow dress, revealing her dark, smooth legs.  

The driver whistled and yelled, “Damn, momma’s hot!” from the open window. 

Adriana didn’t flip him off, for Izzy’s sake. 

“What did he say, Mommy?” Izzy asked. “Was he mad at us?” 

“No, he wasn’t mad. Come on. Keep up.” 

“Then why did he yell?” 

Adriana searched the dusty vaults of her mind for something—anything—to get off the subject of catcalls. “He said he was too hot. He needed to go to the cooling shelter. You know, the one we went to when our air conditioner stopped working?” 

“But the cooling shelter is that way!” Izzy pointed. “Mommy, the cooling shelter is behind us!” 

“Don’t worry he’ll find it.” 

“But he was going the wrong way!” 

Adriana dragged Izzy with one hand and pushed the stroller with the other. The wheels creaked over the uneven, cracked sidewalk. One spun uselessly in the air half an inch off the ground. Izzy mumbled to herself about the cooling shelter, that if the man couldn’t find it he’d die. Adriana would have liked to help with that.

She could smell herself whenever the hot, belching breeze of traffic rushed from behind. She smelled like body odor’s body odor, cheap floral deodorant, poverty, baby wipes, and fresh sweat even though her skin was dry, the sweat on her exposed skin evaporating before it formed beads.

She felt eyes on her from the passing cars. Some were the leering eyes of men. Others were women, critical of her for taking her kids out in the heat. She imagined a scolding by one of these women. Everyone knows you don’t take babies and four-year-olds out when it’s over a hundred, just like you don’t leave a dog in the car while you do errands!  

But it wasn’t Adriana’s fault her hours had been cut at Star Valley, or that her husband left a week before Oscar was born and hadn’t paid a dime in child support. It wasn’t her fault Oscar had been in and out of the hospital with RSV and that his medical bills meant her Civic sat in front of her apartment with a dead alternator. 

She paused to check on her six-month hold. His forehead was flushed, warm, and still wet from the water she’d poured over him a few minutes ago. His eyes were closed tight. How was he managing to sleep when it was so hot? Goosebumps rose on Adriana’s arms. She prodded Oscar’s ribs with a finger. Nothing. She prodded harder. Still no response. 

“Oscar!” She shook him hard enough to rock his head back and forth, and continued shaking him until he began to cry.

 “Thank God,” Adriana whispered. 

“Why’d you do that, Mommy?” Izzy asked with a thumb in her mouth, a habit she’d picked up after her father left. 

“I was just making sure your brother wasn’t too hot.” 

“I bet he is too hot because I’m too hot, and tired,” Izzy whined, dragging out tired into three exaggerated syllables. “I wish Grandma was here. She’d carry me.” 

“Me too, Izzy.” Adriana held back tears. Her mother hadn’t been able to afford Star Valley Nursing Home. She died in the ER, along with Adriana’s last shred of hope. If Mom was still around to watch the kids and help split rent, she wouldn’t be out here with a cranky four-year-old putting her baby at risk searching for a job she didn’t want. 

Adriana felt ashamed for wishing her mother back into existence for logistical purposes. It seemed like everywhere she went these days shame was right behind her, holding the leash. And of course she should feel ashamed. The illegal, debasing things she’d done to provide for her children. . . things no mother should have to do, things no woman should have to do. 

“Okay. Break’s over,” Adriana said.

“Can I have a pink Otter Pop when we get home?”

“Yes,” Adriana said, knowing they were out of Otter Pops. 

 

Daryl flicked his cigarette butt through the two-inch slit and quickly rolled up his window. It was a fucking oven out there. But an oven had its purposes. For instance, the sidewalks were almost completely clear of panhandlers. Daryl’s pulse always ticked up a notch when a red light forced him to stop alongside a homeless man and his nervous-looking pit bull. 

Most of them held greasy cardboard signs—Veteran Anything Helps God Bless—and pushed stolen shopping carts loaded with other stolen crap. They staggered about from fentanyl-induced hysteria like they’d just climbed out of a fresh grave. Daryl wasn’t afraid of the homeless, though. For a man of Daryl’s impressive stature—five-foot-nine-and-a-half and one-hundred-and seventy pounds—being afraid of a homeless veteran gimp would be a joke. They just made him uneasy, that was all.  

Daryl’s phone buzzed as he made a left turn onto Grand. He grabbed for it like a starving rat lunging for a piece of moldy cheese, his dopamine receptors opening their mouths wide in anticipation of a treat. 

It was just a text from Mother. The dopamine fled as quickly as it had come. 

Did you get the margarine? the text read.

“Damnit,” Daryl said, still looking at this phone. He’d forgotten the fucking margarine. Nine heaving plastic bags of groceries and two-hundred-and-ten dollars later—nearly all of his weekly unemployment—and he’d forgotten the main reason he’d driven to Fry’s in the first place. He had two options. Turn around and waste another twenty minutes of his weekend, or go home to a barrage of ridicule. 

He was about to make a U-ey when a third option presented itself. He could blame the bagger for misplacing the margarine. He looked up at the road and straightened out. He’d been halfway into the bike lane. 

Yes, Daryl typed into his phone, steering with his knee. Got the margarine. Heading home now. Got Land-O-Lake like you wanted.  

Daryl practiced what he’d say when he got home. Bagging lady must have fucked up because I definitely bought it.

Mother would scold him for using foul language then ask which bagging lady it had been, as if his Tub-O-Lard mother ever went out. Daryl would pause to think. Maybe he’d pull out the stops and furrow his brow and scratch his chin.

It was one of those real dark-skinned women, he’d say, knowing this would distract Mother from looking at the receipt.

Algeria I bet, Mother would say. Or one of those other shithole countries with the ear-splitting Islam.

You can’t say that in public.

Oh hell, Daryl. I know that! You think I’m a idiot or something? 

I don’t think you’re an idiot. I think you just need to watch what you say sometimes. He and Mother had a similar conversation last week so it was easy to imagine this next part. 

Gotta watch what I say cause I’m a woman, huh? You think all women are dumb, doncha? 

No, Mother. He was fully reliving the conversation now.

“You think I should keep my mouth shut ‘cause I got a pair of these?” At this, Mother had grabbed her ample, sagging breasts and lifted them up and down as if she were measuring their weight. Daryl turned away, breakfast rising in his throat. Against his will, something even less pleasant rose in his pants.  

“No, of course not!” he said “And don’t do that in front of me. It’s not right.” 

“Why? You don’t like ‘em anymore? You liked ‘em well enough when you was a little boy.” 

“I don’t want to talk about this again.” 

“Sucked on ‘em until you were in first grade!” She cackled and coughed from her COPD. “I wonder though. Sometimes I do wonder about you, Daryl.”  

“About what?” He was losing his patience.  

“When the last time you talked to a woman was, other than your momma.” 

“I speak to women all the time.” 

“I think you got something against ‘em. Can’t imagine why. Well, I can think of one reason, actually.” 

Daryl throttled the steering wheel as he rode the ass of a purple Kia Soul. “For the last time. I’m not gay!” He changed lanes without looking and cut off an SUV. Daryl gave the finger as the driver honked. He floored the accelerator, leaving the Kia and the other asshole in a cloud of diesel. The traffic light ahead turned yellow. He pressed the accelerator to the floor and made the light, sort of, flying through the intersection at sixty.

His phone buzzed again. Dopamine flooded his brain.  

It was Mother and the dopamine receded. What the hell did she want now? 

Too many recordings on DVR. Need to record Hannity tonight. Which should I delete Diamondbacks game or Cardinals? 

DO NOT delete either game, Daryl texted. I haven’t seen them yet. Delete an old episode of— 

His truck jolted violently and rubber screeched against concrete. He dropped his phone and used both hands to steer himself off the sidewalk. 

“Shit!” Sweat dripped from his pits. He swore again, looking in the rearview to see if anyone had noticed. No one was behind him. He searched by his feet for his phone. He found it. And finished the text. 

 

 

“I’m so hot,” Izzy groaned. “Can we sit in the shade?” 

“We only have half a mile to go,” Adriana said. 

“That’s so far!” 

“The sooner we get there the sooner you get that Otter Pop. There’s a purple one with your name on it.” 

“I want pink.” 

“Right.” 

“And I wanna rest in the shade.” 

“Look around, Izzy. Do you see any shade?” 

“There was a tree back there.” 

“We’re not backtracking.” 

“Can we go inside a store?” 

“There’s our street up ahead. Remind me what our address is.” 

“I live at 2644 Dodge boul-de-vard in Tucson, Arizona zip code 85712,” Izzy sighed.

“That’s good.” 

“I’m not a baby.”

There was a clearing in traffic on Grand and Adriana didn’t want to walk a quarter mile out of their way to cross at the next signal. “Hold my hand,” she said. 

“Ooooo! Mommy’s being bad, Oscar! Mommy’s crossing the street without the white man!” 

“Adults are allowed to cross without the crosswalk.” 

“That’s not true!” 

“Adults over twenty-five can,” Adriana said. “It’s a new law.” 

“When am I going to be twenty-five?” 

“In fifty years.” 

“Oh.” 

Adriana eased the stroller off the curb.  

 

 

DO NOT DELETE EITHER GAME! Daryl texted, holding his phone low in his lap in case a cop rolled by. Was Mother getting senile? She was only fifty-nine but she’d been watching Hannity for over a decade and she knew the schedule. Maybe she really was losing her grip, Daryl thought, considering the way she would drift from one subject to the next with no obvious connection. What would he do with her if she really was getting dementia? He wasn’t going to watch her all day. No fucking way. He’d put her in a home. Screw that, he’d put a pillow over her face. 

He thought of Mother’s comment about him breastfeeding in the first grade. It must have been a fucked up joke. But it wasn’t normal to remember breastfeeding, was it? Maybe he didn’t actually remember breastfeeding. Maybe Mother had teased him so much that the memory had been implanted. Either way, Mother had done a job on him. The things she said, it was no wonder he’d never been in a relationship. It was no wonder Dad left. 

But now, thinking of the way Dad treated her, Daryl felt ashamed for bashing his mother. She’d raised him alone on a line cook’s salary. And she hadn’t always been such a psychotic bitch. He thought back to the early days, back when she sort of fit in with the rest of society. She’d actually seemed happy for a while after Dad split, probably because she didn’t have to cover up the bruising with makeup. But the good times ended when Daryl was in high school and Mother quit working at Giorgio’s. She claimed it was impossible to compete with illegals in the kitchen because they were willing to work longer shifts for lower pay. She was probably right. Daryl had experienced this himself at Amazon. Technically he’d been replaced by an autonomous forklift, but he was sure illegals were part of the problem. 

A text came through. Dopamine flooded his brain. Daryl turned left across traffic onto Dodge, reading the text at the same time. It was Mother. The dopamine fled.  

Deleting Cardinals game. You had plenty of time to watch.  

“What the fuck, you stupid bitch! Hannity doesn’t even run on the weekend!” 

 

 

“Oscar, honey? Oscar, wake up!” Adriana shook Oscar and poured the last of her warm water bottle over his forehead and chest. Why had she gone out in the heat of the day and put her sick baby at risk? She could have waited in the air conditioning in Fry’s for the next bus if it wasn’t for her pride. She’d wanted to get out of the grocery store the minute her job interview was over because stocking shelves was beneath her. For Christ’s sake she was a certified nursing assistant, she’d gone to college, and someone who looked like her—she hated that she was this vain—shouldn’t be bagging groceries or corralling shopping carts. She could have been a model if things turned out differently.  

Although, was Fry’s really that much worse than Star Valley, where the new administration not only fired the most senior and highly paid staff members, but had installed thirty surveillance cameras? Those damn cameras. Always glaring down at her, seeming to insinuate she was doing something wrong, as if Adriana was the only one who pocketed the odd bottle of Oxy to help make rent. 

Oscar moaned and wiped feebly at the trickle of water that Adriana poured on his face. The panic hissed out of her like a flat tire. Oscar was fine. Her baby was fine. She’d be off the street and inside soon. Everything was fine, damnit. She would put him straight in the bathtub with cold water when she got there. But another terror took its place. Izzy. 

Adriana spun around. Dodge was a quieter street than Grand, but— 

“Izzy! Get back on the sidewalk right now!” Adriana yelled. Somehow, Izzy was forty yards away in the bike lane in front of a four-way stop sign.

“But there’s a quarter!” She bent to grab the coin.

“Out of the street now!” Adriana applied the stroller’s safety brake and ran.  

“I’m not crossing the street!” Izzy yelled, examining her newfound wealth. 

The roar of a fast-moving vehicle approaching from behind made Adriana run faster.  

“This is more money than I’ve ever had in my whole entire life!” Izzy said, proudly. 

“Izzy! Get out of the street!” 

 

 

The front end of Daryl’s Silverado closed in on the little girl. He braked and veered out of the bike lane. His phone tumbled from his hand. He saw the whites of the mother’s eyes in his peripheral vision, glowing like the edges of two eclipses. He had time to note the mother’s beauty and wonder why such an attractive chick was out on the street like a homeless woman. The little girl disappeared beneath his hood. 

When he came to a stop, well past the intersection, he looked back through the cloud of scorched tires. The little girl was lying on her side. She was dead. He killed her. He should get the fuck out of there before the mother had time to memorize his license plate. He looked in the rearview as he pushed the accelerator. The girl rose. The mother grabbed her and swallowed her in a hug. The girl was unharmed. She’d just fallen over. 

“Thank you, Jesus,” Daryl whispered. He rested his head against the steering wheel and put a palm to his chest to slow his heart. He was only thirty-five but a heart attack felt like a very real possibility. His hands shook. He needed a cigarette.

There was a tap on the passenger’s window and bolted upright. The woman was standing there, breathing heavily. Even in her frantic state—sweaty hair plastered against her forehead, eyeliner running—she was a specimen to behold: wide eyes, flawless brown skin, perfect bone symmetry framed by a thick frock of glassy black hair. She was thin but her breasts looked heavy and firm beneath her yellow sundress. She had perfect hourglass hips and waist. Her arms and legs looked smooth to the point of slippery, as if she’d just hopped the border, though Daryl guessed Mexicans could only be called wetbacks in Texas where they had to cross the Rio Grande.  

“Sir?” The woman made a window rolling motion.  

It was too late to flee. Daryl rolled down the window part way, bracing to be spat on or screamed at. He probably deserved both. Hell, of course he did.

“I—” he began, unable to get anything else out because his mouth was dry as Mother’s snatch. He tried again. “I’m so sorry for—” 

“Thank you,” the woman said. “Thank you for saving my daughter’s life.” 

 

 

“I should have been watching her,” Adriana said. “I turned around for one second and then she’s in the road going after a quarter.” 

“No problem, ma’am.” The driver tipped his hat. His cheeks instantly flushed as if he knew how unnatural he looked doing it with his salt-stained Cardinals baseball cap, which was on backwards. 

“I was just trying to cool him off.” Adriana reached into the stroller and stroked Oscar’s thin brown hair as Izzy sobbed beside her, holding a scratch on her elbow as if it was a spurting artery.  

“It’s okay,” the driver said. He paused before adding, “I did what anyone would do.” 

“I know this is asking a lot of you,” Adriana said, placing a hand on her chest and watching his eyes follow. “But could you let us cool off in your truck? We’ve been out in the sun way too long. It would just be for a minute or two.” 

Adriana got the sense he was thirsty for female company as he lunged across the passenger seat to open the door. His thirst worked in her favor. She boosted Izzy in and lifted Oscar from his stroller. He felt like a superheated fire pit stone. 

The driver turned the AC to max as Izzy, crying, climbed in the backseat. 

“Thank you, sir. I’m so sorry about my daughter. I know better than to leave her unattended like that. She’s a wanderer.” 

“It’s no big deal.” 

“To me it is.” 

“Well. . . I guess it was a good thing I was paying attention.” 

“And thank you for letting us cool off. I’m Erin,” she lied. 

“Mommy, that’s not—” 

“Hush, now,” Adriana said, cutting off Izzy. “Here, knock yourself out.” She handed her phone to Izzy. “I usually don’t let her on it because it’s so addictive.”

“Like a drug,” the man said.

“Yep. A sedative.”  

The man extended his hand. “My name’s Daryl.”  

Adriana shook his sweaty hand and smiled. “It’s always a nice surprise finding out there are still good people in the world,” she said. 

“Oh! You’re probably thirsty.” Daryl reached behind his seat and brought out a gallon of water. He handed it to Adriana, who unscrewed the cap and held the jug while Izzy drank. When Izzy finished, Adriana poured water over Oscar, mumbling an apology for getting the seat wet. She trickled the water over his mouth before passing the nearly empty jug back to Izzy. 

“Thank you,” she said, touching Daryl’s shoulder. He flinched slightly. He was a nervous one. She had to be careful not to scare him off.

“I’m glad I could help out,” he said, glancing at her wet sundress.

He might have been nervous, but he was lonely and horny enough. Adriana almost felt sorry for him.

 

 

Daryl was terrified his erection was showing through his jeans. If he’d been in basketball shorts he might have blacked out from embarrassment. He wasn’t well-endowed by any means, but the way this woman looked and moved and spoke and touched his arm had his welterweight penis punching above its class. If Mother could see, she wouldn’t be insinuating he was gay. He was disgusted with himself for thinking this.  

“Supposed to be even hotter tomorrow,” Daryl said, hating himself even more for bringing up something as droll as the weather. 

“You won’t find me out in it again,” Erin laughed. 

The baby kicked out his tiny foot, knocking Daryl’s wallet to the floor, which had been resting on the center console. 

“Sorry about that,” Erin said. 

“It’s okay.” Daryl bent to stuff the bills—four-hundred bucks of Mother’s disability—back in. He closed his wallet and tucked it into his back pocket where the leather brick sat like a carjack for his ass. 

Erin fiddled with the air vents, directing them onto her baby’s face. Daryl turned the radio on and flipped through stations until he found something that wasn’t a commercial. The weight of the silence was crushing. He wiped sweat from his forehead. What was she really doing in here? He glanced at her. Her bronze wet tits pulled at his eyes like magnets. Was she. . . interested in him? She’d made direct eye contact with him multiple times, had even smiled at him multiple times. And she hadn’t left yet. That alone must have meant something. 

 

Oscar squirmed in Adriana’s arms. He was feeling better and probably wanted milk.  

“So, you live around here?” Daryl asked. 

“Couple miles away,” Adriana said. 

“I could drop you off.” 

“No, that’s okay.” 

“Oh.” He seemed let down. “Take your time cooling off. I’ve got nowhere else to be.” 

“Thank you.” Adriana wanted to leave but she didn’t move. A few weeks ago she left the kids at home to run an errand and her eighty-year-old neighbor heard Oscar crying. The old bitch had called protective services, who’d arrived just before Adriana got home. Adriana was on their list now, and the old bitch was home all day every day, just waiting to make the call because she had nothing better to do with her time. Adriana had an eight-hour shift tomorrow and Oscar’s babysitter refused to come back until she was paid for the previous week, which Adriana couldn’t afford. 

Adriana just needed enough money to get through July and then Izzy would start kindergarten, freeing up about a thousand dollars a month currently spent on preschool. With that thousand a month, plus the extra income from Fry’s and the discount on groceries, Adriana could slowly pay off her credit cards. Eventually she could apply for a student loan and finish her degree. She’d earn twice as much as a registered nurse, which required a B.A., as she currently did. This would take years, but it seemed within reach. It all hinged on the next few weeks, which hinged on the next few minutes.  

Adriana closed her eyes and visualized how close Daryl’s truck had come to running over Izzy’s head. She saw the phone in his hand. She saw the skid marks that started at the stop sign, not before it. She saw his wallet, bulging with cash. She saw the way he’d been looking at her. He wanted her so bad he’d probably drain his entire bank account to fuck her even with the kids in the backseat. She had to go through with this. Just one more time and then she’d be done for good. 

 

 

Darly was confused when Erin leaned into the backseat and set her baby next to the little girl. 

“Make sure he doesn’t fall off the seat, okay?” she said. “Can you do that?” 

“Okay,” the little girl said. 

Erin turned to Daryl. “I want to ask you something,” she said, reaching in her purse. 

“Okay.” Daryl felt giddy. She was actually interested in him! Where would he take a woman like this on a date? Anywhere she wanted. The most expensive place he could find. 

She put her hand on his thigh. “Do you like me, Daryl?” 

“Yes,” Daryl squeaked. 

She leaned close to him, her hand creeping up his thigh. “Do you want to fuck me?” she whispered in his ear. 

“I. . . I. . .” 

“Yes or no.” 

“Yes,” he gasped. 

“How much?” Her breath was hot on the side of his face. 

“A lot.” 

“How much would you pay?” 

It was too good to be true. She didn’t like him. She was a hooker. So be it. He didn’t care right now. “I’ll pay anything.” 

“That’s good. Now one more question. What do we do when we come to a stop sign?” 

“Huh?” Had he heard her correctly? 

“I said, what do we do when we come to an intersection?” 

“I don’t . . . know what you’re talking about.”

Her hand moved to the back of his head, fingers weaving their way through his sweaty hair. “We look both ways,” she said. 

Something pricked him in the thigh. Daryl flinched and looked down as Erin withdrew a hypodermic needle. He stared at the needle stupidly, groggily, then back to Erin. She calmly put the syringe in her purse as he slumped against the side window. His eyes fell shut against his will. He felt Erin pull his wallet from his back pocket. He tried to grab her arm but his limbs were waterlogged. He tried to remember her name and her features for the police report, though he was already forgetting what happened as he slipped into unconsciousness.

Adriana walked four blocks home, called Oscar’s babysitter, and told her she had last week’s pay plus an advance if she could come tomorrow morning. Izzy was crying in the background because there were no Otter Pops. Adriana ended the call and threatened to send Izzy to her room if she didn’t stop. Izzy quieted down, somewhat, and Adriana made instant lemonade as a consolation. Sirens wailed from a few streets over. 

“Was it heads or tails?” Adriana asked Izzy.

“What do you mean?”

“The quarter you found.”

“Oh! Heads!”

“I thought so.”

Diggable Ground

Posted on by kennettron

Experimenting with 2nd person present tense.

The ground of your ancestors is not diggable. It is hard as frozen rock, barren as ash after a wildfire, empty as your cheek pouches at the end of winter. Undiggable. The ground has been this way for many generations—too many to count. Tales from before describe a ground fertile with spidery white roots and lush tubers the size of torsos, of damp, loose loam and space for endless tunnels. Now, the ground is undiggable. 

You were born high up on the hillside above this desecrated ground of your ancestors. The hill, with its many pebbles and boulders and steep incline, makes life a constant struggle for you and your compatriots. In search of new land, brave scouts once ventured high up to the mountain where unnavigable river beds cut through the slope, creating unthinkably high ravines. Your kind has been stuck here ever since, in between the treacherous slopes of the mountain and the undiggable ground patrolled by humans and their soulless machinery.

Too long has your kind lived in this confined sliver of space. Mazama pocket gophers such as yourself may be small, but they need room to dig, to build, to meander Earth’s dark places. As the saying goes, to confine a gopher is to stop the worms from crawling out of the dirt during a rain and dying in mud puddles. It is an impossibility. 

Even as a young pup you heard the whispers of the Great Reclamation. Snippets of visions, patched together by a chosen few gophers over the ages, were stitched together to form this prophecy. But the final vision needed to complete the prophecy remained untold, and the tunnel forward remained blocked. 

And so the years passed and the sprawling human compound, where the sacred grounds once lay, clawed its way ever closer to your hillside. Tree by tree was slayed, and gopher by gopher was butchered if they didn’t have the foresight to flee their tunnels in time. The compound grew and bizarre, boxish mountains millions of gopher-feet high and millions of gopher-feet long grew from the ground.

But this era of devastation may soon come to an end, for you had the final vision last week. The Great Reclamation prophecy will soon be complete! There is just one problem. The Mazama Code requires you, the Chosen Pocket Gopher, to carry out the quest. A quest from which you may not return. 

Word of your quest spread quickly in the time leading up to today, and many fresh roots were deposited by your bedchamber last night. These roots gave you the energy to scramble down the hillside, where you stand now, and (with luck) to join the very hawks in the sky. Or so the prophecy goes. 

You drag your limp, furry body between the base of a fern and a dry, scratchy bunch of grass, your whiskers finding the way. You sense a sudden shift in the temperature. Heavy waves of heat radiate toward you, causing you to flinch back. You cannot see more than a few feet in front of your tiny pink nose, but you know that you are on the precipice—just a few paces from where the undiggable ground begins. Go on, you tell yourself. Be like the weasel. Be like the fox. Be like the fearless marmot who lives high up on the mountainside.

You scuttle your baggy brown body along with your short, powerful legs until the canopy above parts and sunlight sears your dim, pitiful eyes, painting your vision a painful white. Again you hesitate, reluctant to leave the relative safety of the ferns and shrubbery and endlessly high fir trees. Ahead is doom: open space. Every instinct in your body tells you that you will not survive the infection of that thing they call bravery. Few gophers ever have. But the roots in your full belly—roots given up during hard times—sit like stones. Shame eventually moves you. To a pocket gopher—Earth’s most noble creature—shame is more powerful than the fear of disembowelment.

You scamper across the barren, black, undiggable ground—the ground that covers the memory of your ancestors like a molten river of genocide—with your heart practically up in your fur-lined cheek pockets, which are typically used to store food. You swallow instinctively and instead of forcing your heart back to where it belongs, down goes a tasteless chunk of tuber that you’d forgotten about. Shoot, I was saving that for later, you think. 

Your pink feet and hardy claws patter and scratch on the hot, rough, unearthly surface. A looming sense of catastrophe hovers over you but there is nothing you can do about it, so you distract yourself with what’s below. You wonder if there are still tunnels beneath the black human-made rock. You imagine a network of deep, dark, and (above all) safe tunnels. Another network would be cut low in the earth, practically touching the surface, which could be used to graze the white succulents dangling within a whisker’s reach. But, of course, these ancestral tunnels have long since been compacted, flattened under the unthinkable weight of the dead rock ground you scamper across, which is heavier than the world itself.

Finally, you stop in the shade of a tall tree, out of breath and shaking with fatigue. No, not a tree. You sense that it is much longer and wider than any tree. Your whiskers explore, sending miniscule shock waves to your mind, which paints a picture clearer than any your eyes could see. The object is hard and smooth, somehow even more void of life than bleached bone. It is some type of mountain made by the humans. It’s one of those boxish mountains, you realize. You have never seen one of these mountains before; they have only been described to you, drawn in the dirt by those who had the misfortune of blindly stumbling upon one in the night (for that is when gophers roam). You explore more, squinting your miniscule eyes up at the structure, mouth agape, for some type of sign. There! On the side of the structure a contraption is drawn. It is some type of massive, tubeish bird-like creature with a bald head and tiny black slits for eyes. You understand that it is human-made, because nothing that heavy and odd looking could fly in the natural world. 

If the prophecy is correct, this is the entry point to your final destination: the sky. You have always been unsure how a gopher could end up in the sky, but you have no more seconds to waste out in the open because a shadow passes over you. The fur on the back of your neck instinctually recognizes this fatal, feathery shadow. It is cast by a red-tailed hawk. 

In terror, you search for an opening at the foot of the boxish mountain. The shadow above you vanishes as the hawk tucks, careening toward you at catastrophic speed. You need to take cover! There! A small crack in the side of the boxish mountain! You dive for it, squeeze through, skin and fur ripping at your sides against the sharp edges of the entrance. You pull your rear legs in behind you with a sudden jerk and there is a rush of air, a bang, and a frustrated screech of talons against the mountain side. The hawk screams in anger and a gleaming black beak twice the size of your head crams through the opening. The beak opens and a putrid tongue, pinker than an earthworm, protrudes. You scamper backward, urinating on yourself in fear. The beak thrashes against the walls of the entrance, forcing the hole ever wider, pushing through. It is just gopher inches from you and yet, you remain motionless, paralyzed with fear. Suddenly, the beak vanishes through the hole, there is a whoosh of wings, and the yell of a human from the other side of the mountain, who must have scared it off. Your heart is back up in your cheek pockets. There is nothing to swallow this time. 

 As you turn away from the entrance, your fear is replaced by wonder and disgust at the brightness inside this human-made box mountain. Aren’t the insides of mountains dark? There must be another sun in this odd world. The interior of this bad place is open, echoey. And, worst of all, it is undiggable, you note, scratching at the smooth rock surface, which is polished like river stone. Your nose also tells you there are humans about. You need to be on the move.

Loud human instruments of magic clank, hum, and explode with terrifying bellows as you sprint through the mountain’s endless insides. You run in a panic. Not quite a blind panic (your kind does not appreciate metaphors of blindness), but close to it. Your whiskers stop you before you run into a vague shape many gopher feet high and wide. You navigate its features with your whiskers and take a deep whiff of its acrid stench, a stench that reminds you of the smoke and melting sap from when you were a small pup and fire rushed across the earth’s surface as you sheltered in the tunnel dug by your mother.

Remember the prophecy, you tell yourself. When you come to machinery—a term and object you vaguely understand only because of your own prophecy—you must climb. You take hold of the vague machinery—its dimensions are beyond your vision, but then again almost everything is—and pull yourself up onto its lower slopes. Your balance is poor because you are not a climbing creature, but your energy reserves are full thanks to the roots provided by your compatriots. You make slow and careful progress, rising to a height that, should you fall, your soft body would explode on impact. The shout of a nearby human causes you to slip, and for a moment all seems lost. Your digging hands are strong, as is your grip, and you do not fall. You continue climbing, and the higher you go, the more confidence you build. You start to truly believe—to believe in the accuracy of the Great Reclamation prophecy and the success of your quest at taking back the stolen ground. How your kind will dig through that impenetrable black rock, you do not know, or have time to think of as you climb. Focus, you tell yourself. The fate of nearly 15 pocket gophers depends on your success. 

You pull yourself into an entrance. With shaky muscles, you crawl—thankfully now in the dark—until you reach a dead-end. The box-shaped tunnel is slightly taller, and therefore less secure, than your tunnels on the hillside, but it will do. Feeling safe in the dark, you listen to your exhausted body and decide a short nap is in order. The early stages of your quest required bravery and death-defying speed. This middle part—you understand from your vision—requires the patience of a hibernating creature, of which you are not. But tunnels are your forte, and sleep comes easily.

Many days later, long after your hunger and thirst passed from need to obsession, movement wakes you. The earth trembles as if one of those magic human-movers is rumbling over the top of your tunnel, shaking the dirt ceilings loose and threatening a collapse. The trembling continues and now the entire world flips upside down and the floor becomes the ceiling, then the ceiling the wall. You grunt in pain and astonishment as your newly bony body bangs against the unnaturally hard surface. The world stills. Minutes pass before a shrill, hammering cacophony erupts. The hammering is so strong you feel the vibration through your feet, and the hair all over your body stands on end. Smoke fills the tunnel. You clap your hands over your ears against the noise and find that warm liquid is beading out. It is blood, and with every drop drains a mote of your hearing. You screech in pain and desperation. Your screeches weaken, not by lack of vocal cords, but by something else. By. . . deafness. All sound ceases, aside from a whining, harsh pitch that complains in the center of your brain. Consciousness fades. 

You lose track of the days and your life becomes an endless series of dreams that are more memory than dream. These dream memories consist of your home tunnels, of your sisters and brothers when you were small, of your mother’s milk, of delicate forbs, grasses, and roots. Of accidentally mating with one of your sisters because of your bad eyesight. These dreams are rudely interrupted by deaf consciousness, pain in your ears and hollow stomach, the cold alien landscape of the too-large boxish tunnel, and the dead air that smells of sulfuric human magic and your own dried excrement. You relish sleep and the dreams it brings. Really, all that you relish is that death finds you quickly.

Death does arrive at your tunnel’s doorstep. Let it be over soon, you think. You are being lifted up. And up. And up. Peculiarly, your stomach, which now feels sick, seems to be back down on the floor. Wait. This isn’t right. If I’m dead, you wonder, why am I going. . . up? All Mazama pocket gophers know that in the end, one sinks down. Down into the earth. Mazama pocket gophers do not rise to the realm of hawks and the sun. Then you realize. This is it! You aren’t dead. This is the final act of your quest.

Stretching your back and hindquarters, you feel blood and life flow into your legs and feet. Your head clears and you make your way to the end of the tunnel as quickly as you can, which isn’t that quick given your weakened state and your short, stubby gopher legs. The floor of the tunnel shakes and vibrates, and the sensation of lifting up into the sky continues. You somehow know that this machinery in which you ride is somehow well above the fir trees, above the human-made box mountain in which it was previously contained, above the hillside where you were born, above the real mountain where the marmots frolic in the mist. Altitude was not a word in your vocabulary before today. But now, somehow, the word comes to you. You are gaining altitude. 

The original entrypoint to the machinery is gone. The humans added another tunnel where that entrance was, back that day when you lost your hearing. Your whiskers find the way. They always do. Your legs follow, as they always do. You make turn after turn—far too many turns to count. At least five. The tunnel narrows and the walls shrink until the ceiling is at your back. You flatten yourself and push on, the confined space giving way to a vast room that, in the pitch black, your whiskers sense is larger than your bedchambers back on the hillside.

You search, running your whiskers along the wall, until you find what you’re looking for: a root. A thick, hard, bright red root nearly the width of your body. This is where your vision of the prophecy ended, but you do not need to be told what to do from here. You are a gopher, and this is a root. 

You set your long, buck teeth into it. They sink in easily enough, but the root resists when you try to pull out the bite-sized chunk. The root casing stretches unnaturally and tastes like bitter poison. You are only slightly surprised. It is human-made, after all. Humans are a species made of poison. You take another bite, spit out the root casing, then take another. Soon a sizable portion of the root’s hardened bronze innards are exposed. This inner cord of the root is stone-like. But your teeth are strong. Your teeth are pocket-gopher-strong. 

From Reuters

5/14/25

SEATTLE, Washington — Investigators finished their investigation of American Airlines flight 820, which crashed Monday, killing all 323 passengers and crew aboard. According to the Federal Aviation Administration, the crash was caused by faulty wiring at the tail of the plane. The elevator, which is the flap that controls a plane’s elevation, became unresponsive soon after takeoff. Boeing, the manufacturer of the 737 Max 8, has denied wrongdoing, calling for an immediate investigation into American Airlines’ maintenance prior to the flight. 

American Airlines flight 820 departed Seattle at 9:23 a.m. for Los Angeles. Authorities say four minutes after takeoff, the pilot reported losing control. The Boeing 737 plummeted 8,000 feet into a raptor sanctuary one mile south of Interstate 5. Because the aircraft was transported, via the Puget Sound, from Boeing’s Everett factory to Seattle International Airport just three days prior to Monday’s tragedy, it was the jet’s first time in the air. 

Federal investigators arrived in Everett Wednesday to tour the nearly 1,000 acre complex and were initially denied entry. Local police were called to the scene, arresting two security guards who were allegedly ordered to keep the gates closed for the next 24 hours because of an alleged rabies outbreak. 

“We’ve had a number of strange rodents approach the facility in recent days,” said Boeing spokesperson Allen Plaintiff. “Two employees were bitten and are receiving care at Everett Community Hospital. We were happy to open our doors the moment things were cleared up.” One of the security guards, who wished to remain unnamed, claimed that the rabid rodent situation was merely a cover up story, and that Boeing was disposing of evidence at the time of the FAA search. The FAA has not commented on the matter.  

On Thursday, Boeing stock took another major blow, dropping an additional 18 points when nearly a dozen of its safety inspectors resigned after Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun made a public announcement that it was not his idea to cut funds for quality control measures in 2014. Boeing, one of only two major airline manufacturers in the world, has been struggling ever since Lion Air flight 610 crashed in 2019, killing all 189 people on board. Outside analysts have called this latest crash, which was the deadliest day of American aviation since 9/11, the final straw for Boeing. “Another plane down, another out and out lie issued by Dave Callhoun,” said Karen Simile, one of the 11 safety inspectors who walked off the job Thursday. “It seems almost like groundhog day around here.”

An internal company memo reports that Boeing’s Everett factory may be temporarily closing due to financial constraints. . . 

Werner and Row

Posted on by kennettron

 Short Story #2

Werner tried pressing call but his phone had a strong distaste for the blood that was being smeared across its screen, exiting the call app and turning on the camera instead. “Damn it,” he mumbled, wiping bloody fingertips on his jeans. He looked around at the inside of his Silverado for something to clean the screen with and located an Arby’s wrapper. He cleaned his phone of blood, but now the problem was barbecue sauce. Maybe this was a sign he wasn’t supposed to make the call after all. Maybe there was an alternative.

“And maybe you’re letting the concussion do the thinking for you,” he muttered. He sighed heavily and began punching in the number—a number impossible to forget because it was plastered in four-foot lettering across the side of every other bus in town. More accurately, it was plastered on every bus in town, but only one side of those buses.

 

In a Wreck? I’ll Write a Check! Call Row Law Today 777-777-7777

 

Werner’s own number was on the other side of those Sun Tan buses, which served the dusty, heat-stroked town of Deming, New Mexico, and its ever dwindling population of 15,000. It seemed like every time Werner drove down Maple Avenue another grocery store or auto body shop was celebrating its 40th year of service by closing its doors for good, to be replaced, respectively, with a Dollar General and a meth den.

Deming was founded as a railroad junction in the 1880’s, reached its peak in the early 20th century, and had been dying a slow death ever since. The interstate, with its steady infusion of gas station and Big Mac revenue, had kept Deming on life support, but the signs of decay were everywhere now: trash in the street, stick-like trees in desperate need of irrigation, broken glass littering the potholed pavement below smashed-out street lights. 

There was only one thing more prominent than the empty storefronts and crooked Commercial Space For Lease signs, and that was the graffiti. A trucker passing through from Los Alamos likely wouldn’t have noticed it, even if his or her route took them through Deming twice a month. Not so for Werner. He closed his eyes as his fingers hovered above the number seven on his phone—he’d gotten to five sevens and stopped—and the bus bench ad (the one near the corner of 7th and Prospector) flashed in his mind. He was dressed in a black suit and dark blue tie. The photo was cut off at the waist by a banner reading:

 Wronged? Call Werner for a Windfall 666-666-6666

His arms were folded and his tan face was grim, with deep-cut lines at the corners of his eyes and mouth as if he’d grown up wrangling cattle south of town out past Hacienda, not playing Super Mario Bros. in the dark basement of his parents’ 3,500-square-foot house in the “rich” neighborhood that overlooked the east side of town. The lines on his face in that photo had not been Werner’s idea. 

“You want to exude confidence,” the photographer had argued. “No one has confidence in a 31-year-old lawyer out on his own. Especially when it’s their one and only shot at a big payday.” So Werner had given the go-ahead and the lines had been photoshopped in, creased forehead and all.

The Hitler mustache, however, had not been photoshopped. That had been the crude work of one of the skatepark teens, who had almost certainly been paid in six packs. The mustache had been replicated two dozen times on other benches, the sides of buses themselves, and even on one of the three-story billboards gracing I-10. Speech balloons had been added to some of these:

I take 90 percent commission. You take it up the ass!

I got disbarred in Janueary! (January was misspelled).

Werner’s got a wittle weiner was another popular hit. 

I gobble my mother’s fat veiny cock must have been the artist’s favorite line, for it had been reproduced the most often. Werner’s ads were adorned with other illustrations, including hastily drawn hair cock and balls, pirate eye patches, and blacked-out teeth. And while Werner would have gladly taken the teen out into the desert and held his .45 to the little shit’s head as the scrawny fuck pissed his jeans, the responsible party was an adult. Wasn’t that always the case? Wasn’t a parent or an uncle or society at large actually at fault when an adolescent shoplifted or borrowed a neighbor’s car for a joyride? This had more or less been the line taken by many defense lawyers whom Werner had gone up against as a young prosecutor in Albuquerque, and it had often proved successful. Besides, there was someone else Werner wanted to use his .45 on much more than the skatepark teen.

He looked down at the glowing blue screen with the five sevens. Before he was able to add another, a stabbing pain in the center of his skull jerked his hand and the phone dropped between his seat and the center console, where the .45 was conveniently located should any would-be-carjacking-teen make the mistake of blaming society for his misbehavior. Werner reached his hand down in there to grab the phone, momentarily forgetting about his mangled fingers and knuckles. He yelped as the raw skin, covered in a bulky bandage, pressed against the hard plastic of the console.

“Fuck you!” He wasn’t sure who the curse was directed at: his phone, the console, or his knuckles. The cab fell oddly silent after the yell dissipated. Aside from the hot engine of his Silverado ticking on in the darkness, there was nothing. It was still over 100 degrees at nine-something at night and sweat was forming at his brow.

“Fuck it, and fuck him,” Werner said, breaking the silence. He pressed the ignition button and cool relief began pumping out of the vents. He threw the car into reverse and backed out of his driveway. “Fuck it, and fuck him,” he repeated. 

Five minutes later he was at the yellow front door with the obnoxious, oversized horseshoe door knocker. He pulled the knocker back, hesitated, lowered it slowly, and rang the doorbell instead. He felt sick. His pits and crotch were slick with sweat. There was time to turn back. He didn’t have to go through with this. But what other option was there? It had to be this, didn’t it?

“The fucking bastard,” he said, under his breath. “The fucking bastard!”

Werner may have started the smear campaign, but he’d been drunk off his ass at the time. He could barely remember taking the sharpie to one of Row’s bus stop ads and scrawling Row’s social security number across the image of his former law partner’s forehead, along with a message reading, I diddle young children! Yes, that had been a bad decision—one that had prompted swift escalation—but Row was the one who’d cast the first stone. Row had been paying homeless “eye witnesses” to come forward in otherwise unwinnable cases. Nine months ago, when Werner had confronted him about it, Row had claimed that Werner must have known all along.

“How on earth did you think I was finding all those winnable high asset cases?” Row said in defense. “Besides, it’s none of your business. You handle your cases and I’ll handle mine, and I’ll continue paying 70 percent of the overhead while I’m at it. You’re welcome.” 

“You’re going to get us sued, for Christ’s sake!” Werner protested. “Disbarred. Hell, thrown in jail!”

The argument had continued for weeks until the two men eventually parted ways. Werner had convinced (blackmail would have been too strong of a word) to let him keep the original phone number with all the 6’s, but Row had gotten back in his own way: he’d slept with Werner’s younger sister. Simple as that. 

There were thudding footsteps of a heavy, barefooted man on hardwood and the deadbolt on the door ca-chunked. The door opened and Row’s bulk took up the entire doorway. The 45-year old man, adorned with real wrinkle lines, seemed unfazed, as if he’d been expecting his former partner and current adversary at this late hour.

“Bryan,” Row said.

“Hello, Renny.” Werner said flatly. 

“Look,” Row sighed. “I’m glad you’re here. We’ve had some. . . rough months, but it needs to end. We’re in agreement on that, right?”

“That fucking bus,” Row said through clenched jaws. “Why didn’t you pull me off the street when—”

“There was no time! Believe me, there was no time.”

The two men had been arguing in the crosswalk, each holding a fistful of the other’s collared shirt, yelling at the top of their lungs, when it happened. Row had lunged backward and stepped up onto the sidewalk just in time. Werner dove. Not in time.

“I swear to God, Bryan. I wouldn’t have just stood there and let you get creamed.”

Werner visualized pulling the gun out from his waistband and pointing it at Row’s forehead. But that wasn’t going to happen. For starters, the gun was still in his car. More importantly, he needed a favor. There were just two law firms in town—Werner Law and Row Law, and representing himself was out of the question. Every attorney knew this. Besides, it was a losing case. They’d practically jumped in front of the bus. The driver had already given his account to the police, and the official accident report would be written in stone in a day or two.

“I think I know what you’re here for,” Row said, almost sympathetically.

“I’m still in debt from law school.”

“Our education system is broken.”

“I won’t be able to work for the next month,” Werner said.

“I know. The concussion.”

“And my hand. It’s practically chewed down to the bone at the knuckle.”

“A miracle the tire didn’t crush it or tear it off completely.”

“Renny, I. . .”

“Don’t worry, Bryan. “Let me do you this favor and we can call things even.”

“How?”

“As it happens, I might know a guy who saw the whooole thing unfold.”

“Let me guess. The bus driver was speeding.”

“Yes. And come to think of it, this guy, this witness, saw the bus driver change lanes last second. Swerve is the word he’d use.”

Why Don’t you Get a Job

Posted on by kennettron

For the time being, since I don’t have any races going on, I’ll be using this blog to post various short stories I’ve written over the last few months. I plan on posting once a week, so come back for more if you enjoy.

Short Story #1

Why Don’t You Get a Job

She used her eyes like weapons, rolling them this way and that as he spoke. Once, years ago, they were her finest feature, bright gray with flecks of steel blue. Mesmerizing. Eyes that could hold your own for hours, it seemed. She rummaged through her mostly empty purse and began applying pink lipstick (he hated the color), the crumpled road map in her lap. She used the tiny mirror of the flipped-down sunshade.

“Can you give me an update, please?” he asked. His voice was steady but he could feel an unpleasant pulsing, surging, pressure deep in his chest. Why did she have to be so difficult? The driver drove. The passenger navigated. Pretty simple stuff. “And can you turn that light out?” he added. “I can’t see with the glare—”

“I just need it on for just a second, babe. And let’s not forget that you were the one who got home late and rushed us out the door, remember?”

He sighed and gripped the steering wheel a little harder. “It’s not like you didn’t have time to get ready before I got home,” he muttered. Rain began misting the windshield. He flipped on the wipers, which left a muddy streak directly in his line of vision. The blades were probably two or three years old. Maybe older. He squinted into the darkness and past the bright glare of oncoming vehicles as they sped down the interstate. He changed lanes to get around a white semi stenciled with Office Depot, a new brand he’d never heard of. Their little red Toyota Tercels’s engine revved furiously, tiredly, as if it was about to cough twice and let out all the air in its lungs for good. It needed an oil change. And a new belt or something. Probably an entirely new engine for all he knew.

When he’d finally passed the truck, he asked, “Are we coming up on the exit?” The windshield was a sheet of dirty water and he wanted to get off the freeway as soon as possible. There was a wreck waiting to happen down the road. He could sense it.

“I told you,” she said, in that overly pleasant tone that was anything but. “Exit 125. Grant Street, remember honey? We still have, like, five or six miles so just relax.” He was such a nervous wreck. Just about all men were. Especially the ones she had the misfortune of dating. Maybe it was a generational thing. She’d have to consider finding an older guy next time. 

He felt a trickle of sweat cut down his temple. Remember, dear? Remember, honey? Remember, babe? She was always treating him like he had fucking amnesia. As if he was suffering early onset dementia as a 21-year-old.

Was there something wrong with her to still be with him when it was clear that he was a loser? None of her friends said so outright, but come on. She could sense it. 

“It’s getting really difficult to see,” he said.

God, he was annoying. Always complaining about something. And always late. Always losing his damn job because he was so damn absent minded he’d show up two hours late for his shift. He claimed the absentmindedness was just part of his creative process, and not laziness. She always scoffed at this. Creative process. As if he’d come up with a hit. He’d been kicked out of every band he’d been in—the tally was up to three since they’d been together—just like he’d been fired from every burger joint, gas station, and warehouse gig he’d managed to get hired at.

She closed the sunshade and the light went out and now the inside of the Tercel was dark. The rain was coming hard and he was leaning forward, craning his neck over the steering wheel, as if those four extra inches would do any good. Four extra inches. . . She snickered to herself. He needs at least four extra. He looked over at her, his perpetual frown pulling down the sides of his mouth like an old, old man’s. God, he was a downer. Such a sniveling little dick. He was about to ask about the directions again, wasn’t he. So help her, God, if he did.

She smiled at him then looked out the side window where lighted billboards for fast food, law firms, and Marlboro ads went by at 60 miles per hour. He didn’t see her eyes roll. He felt the roll. He cleared his throat. This was as good a time as any since they were already practically at each other’s throats. She was going to turn this into a thing. She never passed up an opportunity to fight. 

“I didn’t get it, if you wanted to know,” he said.

“Didn’t get what?” she asked.

“The job.”

“Which one?”

“The one at Subway.”

“Well. . . you tried, I guess. It comes down to the fact that you can’t compete with more qualified applicants.”

Applicants with high school diplomas is what she meant. It was a rare day when she didn’t bring that up. He should have been grateful just now, but the abscess of the dig at him made it all the more deafening.

“I know a smart guy like you will find something sooner or later,” she said.

“That’s the plan,” he sighed. 

“Because that new amp of yours really put a dent in the budget.”

There it was. He knew it had been coming. First the knife, then the twist. 

“I still don’t understand why you needed a third amp,” she scolded. “It’s not as if they’re growing on trees.”

His grip on the steering wheel was near crushing force. His greasy palms were slick with sweat and hair gel. He could feel tiny bits of the foam covering the steering wheel coming off in his hands. He was about to open his mouth—tell her to shove her high school diploma up her fat ass—but she beat him to it.

“The phone was practically ringing off the hook this afternoon with bill collectors. The car, the electricity, even the phone bill. They’re all overdue.”

“I know that.”

“They’re going to take the car back if we don’t come up with the dinero.”

“I. . . know. . . that,” he said more slowly. What she failed to mention was the new skirt she was wearing, and the $25 she’d spent the previous weekend on drinks with her gaggle of bitch friends. She was the one with expensive tastes, not him. Besides, the amp was a work expense.

“I’m doing everything I can, babe,” he said. 

“I know you are. But we can’t afford you sitting around on the couch for much longer.”

“Excuse me? I’ve been out there busting my ass searching for—”

“Sorry, sorry!” she said. “I know you’re trying.”

Silence passed.

“But there’s a time for trying and a time for doing,” she eventually said.

“Yeah, and there’s a time of war, a time of peace,” he mumbled.

“Wow! Now that’s a good line, babe! Did you just come up with that?”

He could feel her sneering at him, practically burning a hole in the side of his face with those evil, sarcastic eyes. At least he had a dream. Her singular goal seemed to revolve around tearing him down. It must be easy doing nothing at all. God, he had to lose this damn chick. He glanced at his white knuckles ringing the steering wheel and imagined them around her neck in the worst kind of way.

She sank back into her seat, fiddling with a bent red-and-white-striped Burger King straw left on the floor from an eon ago. The problem with guys like him was the gulf between his ability and his pride. He thought that if he could stay home all day screwing around with his toys, while she was out working, he’d magically come up with a hit (not to mention a band) and make it big. He was an average guitar player at best, and his lyrics were a step up from dogshit. Barely. But the real problem was his voice. It had allegedly been decent in high school (before he dropped out), but it had since taken on a whiny, shaky pitch, as if it were unsure of itself. Someone like him had no shot in the music industry. She knew it. His own parents knew it. They’d cut him off 10 months ago (hence the bill collectors), his own mom telling him that free rides don’t just come along every day. If she hadn’t started babysitting they’d be out on the street by now. Babysitting as a 21-year-old was a major blow to her own pride, especially when she’d delayed college—she’d gotten accepted at half a dozen good state schools—to be with this loser. She couldn’t stomach babysitting much longer. That much was obvious. I won’t pay ya forever, babe.

“The turn is coming up,” she said. You fucking dick, she added in her head.

“Okay.” You bitch. 

“What band are we seeing again?” she asked. “Some friend of Dexter’s?”

“No, it is Dexter’s band. They just changed their name.”

“Oh. Them again.” She rolled her eyes. 

“They’re a big deal now.”

“They made it without you?”

“I’ve got an idea. How about you go fu—”

“Sorry, just teasing, babe! They were Manic something a few years ago when we saw them last? What are they called now?”

“Offspring.” 

“Weird name. But I kinda like it.”

Silence passed between them as the rain hammered the windshield and the roaring rush of a car’s wet tires went by on their right. 

“Oh, honey?” she asked. 

“Yeah?”

“You just missed the turn.”

 

What Happened at Indian Wells?

Posted on by kennettron

I hadn’t been on the bike long when I realized my legs simply didn’t have it, and the last race of the year, Indian Wells 70.3, was just going to be a matter of trying to keep a smile on my face and reach the finish line with a few large handfuls of Maurten gels to help offset the expense of the trip. To say that this year has been a disappointment, in terms of race results, is a. . . statement (it’s actually not an understatement like you thought I was going to say—I despise that exaggerated expression because it can only be used improperly).

With a DNF from mild hypothermia at Texas, a 13 mile jog to barely reach the finish line at Boulder 70.3, and 30th place at Indian Wells, the only successful day I had this year in triathlon racing was at Wildlife Loop. I won that one, but it’s a small event (it still felt really good winning it though). I also won a 5K here in Tucson a few weeks before Indian Wells, so that was also a fun day.

However, the last six weeks of training leading up to Indian Wells were some of the most consistent I’ve had when it comes to performing well at all three events. Every week included at least one really good session in each of the three sports—and often two good sessions per week in each sport—which has been rare for me over the years. Typically, I’ll maybe have one good run and one good bike ride per week, then the running legs fall off for a month and I’ll have one good swim and one good bike per week for the next month. I almost never have three to five good sessions per week, which has been the norm. Ever since Chris Leiferman came down to train in Tucson for Cozumel in early November, I started ticking off good sessions regularly.

Some of these solid performances included masters swim sets making 2:30 send-offs for 200s, regularly performing well on Tucson’s TMFR group ride (normalized power was typically 350 to 370 for 50-ish minutes on these), and running 5:3X pace off the bike for various chunks of time without lung cramps or asthmatic breathing issues, a victory in and of itself. One solid two-day block actually came Monday and Tuesday of race week. On Monday I did a 2.5 hour ride on Mt. Lemmon averaging 347 to milepost nine, then ran 5.5 miles off the bike averaging 5:42 pace. The following day I rode a little under three hours during the TMFR group ride, normalizing 367 watts for 48 minutes while sharing pulls with Ben Hoffman in a two-man breakaway, then performed well at noon masters later that day. Note: I essentially took my taper week a week early due to Thanksgiving and bad weather; usually I don’t go this hard race week. 

For the two weeks leading up to the race, I was extra paranoid that I was going to get sick or injured before race day. Something was going to keep me from performing well. But I made it to Saturday (the race was Sunday) and was still healthy! In fact, I had some of my best-ever bike openers on Saturday, easily hitting 420+ watts for two minutes in all of my openers. But apparently I peaked a day early. That’s the only explanation I have at this point (other than possibly going too hard on Monday/Tuesday), because 18 hours later I seemed to have lost virtually all of the fitness I’d built up this fall. 

I swam okay. Not great, but good enough. I felt somewhat sluggish in the first few hundred meters and didn’t make it into a great group, but was able to close a gap later in the swim to maintain contact with the front half of the group I was in, and came out mid-pack at 25:49—enough to exit the water with Sam Long and ahead of Trevor Foley. My goal for the bike had been to either hold onto Sam’s wheel for as long as possible, or if he got away quickly, to ride hard solo and figure out where Trevor was on one of the turnarounds. If he was close, I’d potentially ride easy for a bit to let him catch me, then work with him. Indian Wells is pretty much as flat as a course can get, and with roughly 50 male pros, it was going to be a draft-fest. I assumed I needed to have someone to work with if I was going to make it to one of the front groups and still be able to run well.

But Sam got away as I wasted time with my broken zipper in transition. It was just the second time I’d used the new skin suit and the zipper broke—possibly from my inflated ego—as I attempted to zip it up after shedding my wetsuit. I take that back. I don’t actually think I had an inflated ego. I just liked the metaphor. Or analogy. Symbolism. Whatever it is. 

My legs cramped after about a mile of riding, which is normal for me at the very beginning of a race. But they never really un-seized. I tried riding hard again a few minutes later when I thought they’d allow it, but I was still having trouble pushing anything over 300 watts. I continued sitting in with the small group of four that I’d merged with, Robbie Deckard leading the way, waiting as patiently as I could for things to start feeling better. Typically they cramp up very briefly and I’m able to start pushing hard after one or two minutes of easy riding. But I went to the front and was met, again, with acid in my quads and glutes. I looked down and saw that I was only averaging something like 310 at that point, four or five miles into the race, so 40 to 50 watts lower than what I’d planned on doing for the first 20 or 30 minutes. 

Trever passed a short while later and I made no attempt to get on his wheel. There was no way my dead legs would allow it. With my unzipped jersey flapping in the wind and my legs flapping uselessly below, I drifted to the back of our group that was (mostly) forming from behind, eventually swelling to nine of us by mile 25 or so. My race ambitions were over, other than to try and enjoy getting to be in a race, and to see if I had anything special for the run. Placing in the top 10 was already a non-option, but maybe I could get a run PR. It had seemed possible, even likely, a few days earlier. A 1:14 half marathon would do it, but by the time I got off the bike (average power was just 288 and roughly 30 to 40 watts lower than what I thought I’d do) and donned running shoes, my legs were as flat and weak as they’d been on the bike. After three miles of trying, I began slowing down to slightly above endurance pace, just wanting to finish and get off the course, almost embarrassed at how poorly I’d performed compared to how fit I was.

But racing for results alone isn’t a good way to judge yourself, at least for me. Having this race on the calendar got me out the door for early morning rides, had me running hard off the bike on tired legs, and got me to the pool on days I would have rather just sat at home and rested. I truly enjoyed the training and the comradery I’ve had down here at masters and group rides—more so than I’ve enjoyed training these past few years. Tucson doesn’t have the mountain scenery or the long, winding climbs of Boulder that pop you out onto quiet, dirt roads at 9,000 feet among the aspens, but there are some other great aspects to Tucson: consistently good weather, free community pools close to home, an excellent masters program, two blazingly fast group rides per week, and the Loop path for running and riding, sans irate drivers. The race didn’t go well, but this was potentially the fittest I’ve been—across the three sports—since I started triathlon. That alone was gratifying, especially at the decrepit age of 38.

Next year will be my last year as a pro, and my last year racing triathlon in general because I have no desire to race in the age group field. Once I’m done with triathlon, I’ll be moving on to different sports if I decide to compete in anything (I’ll still run, ride, and swim for my own neurotic exercise purposes). But it’s about time to start focusing on other things in life, like stockpiling guns and canned food in preparation for the end of civilization. And yard work. Lots of yard work. 

I’m going to keep the ending of this post short and simple because I’ve got some other writing to take care of. Bye. 

Wildlife Loop Triathlon 2023

Posted on by kennettron

Like any good day, my day started at Day’s Inn with waffles and coffee at 6:30 in the morning. I moved about slowly in the below-ground, windowless dining room, knowing there was no reason to show up too early to the race. This year, Wildlife Loop had around 75 competitors split between the 70.3, Olympic, and Sprint distances, and the parking lot was 50 feet from transition. It would take just 15 minutes to rack my bike, rubber band my shoes to my bike (to keep them from spinning while running out of transition), and don a wetsuit. So I sat listening to a TV weather report on repeat, forcing down cheap carbs until just past 7:00.

Race director Brandon Zelfer has always allocated a fair bit of prize money for the 70.3 ever since he started putting on Wildlife Loop 10 years ago, but this year a substantially larger $20,000 purse (contingent on the number of participants) was announced, which drew a half dozen male pros, mostly from Colorado. The seven or eight of us vying for that prize money lined up in chest-deep water as the countdown began. One other racer, possibly competing in the Olympic distance event, chose to start five feet directly in front of us, and refused to move when someone politely suggested he slot in alongside everyone else. “The race director said we could line up wherever we wanted,” he quipped. About seven hours later I came up with the great comeback of, “If that’s true, I’ll start at the third buoy!”

That’s what I should have said!

The guy became a speed bump—I assume he didn’t drown—and caused chaos in a swim start that should have been uncontentious for once. 

Since Custer, South Dakota, sits at around 5,000 feet and I 1) don’t swim well at altitude and B) have been living at sea level for two months, I didn’t sprint to close a gap when the fight for position finished 200 meters into the swim. A flashback from Boulder 70.3 in June of having to breaststroke was encouragement enough to just fall in line and rely on my biking ability. This proved to be successful as I and the two other guys I swam with (Taylor Reid and Brand Scheel maybe?) came out of the water just a minute or so behind Ben Deal, who I believe was first out, followed closely by Todd Suttor and possibly one other. 

The bike course starts out with a 10-ish mile rolling descent, none of which is very steep. Therefore pedaling is required. I caught Todd by mile four or five and wasted little time passing the RV that he’d just become stuck behind. The course isn’t closed to traffic, so wildlife-gazing tourists tend to clog up this section of the course if you’re going over 30 miles per hour. And the wildlife did not disappoint, because just after I caught Todd, a large herd of mountain goats meandered across the road in front of me. I touched the brakes and cut through a gap, quickly getting back on the pedals in my worry that there were five more guys up the road. 

All photos by Randy Erickson

A few miles later I caught Ben, who was in first place, my legs relishing the non 100-degree air temperature that I’ve grown accustomed to in Tucson. I built a 30 second lead by the first turnaround, which I nearly overshot, and began the rolling 10-mile climb, which is broken by multiple descents. I hit the lower slopes pushing threshold power, legs feeling fresh and (as I just mentioned) enjoying the cool weather and the shade offered by the pines. Lately, when it’s been above 95 degrees—which is all of my rides except the two group rides I do that start super early—I have trouble pushing even 180 watts during the warm up, which is incredibly demoralizing. I’ve actually come to believe that training in ‘super heat’ takes about two times the bite out of one’s watts that training at mid-altitude does.

I cruised through the first lap with an average power of 308 (normalized 322)—pretty decent for me on a hilly bike course at 5K elevation. The next lap was less spectacular as I began running out of energy and conserving for the run. I knew the gap to Ben was over four minutes at the second turnaround, and I believed I could hold him off if I had at least a six minute lead off the bike, though that was just a wild guess. I truly had no idea what type of run I’d be capable of since I’d basically shut down my run training three weeks prior due to a hip injury. In fact, despite one of my main goals of the season being to improve my run, I’d hardly done any serious running since May, due to various injuries. 

The run started out poorly as my chest cramped all over the place, but thankfully With Enough Caffeine, Shame, and Fear, Anything is Possible™ (a better and more accurate slogan than Ironman’s). By mile two I’d peed and farted out the chest cramps, or something, and began picking up the pace as my asthmatic lungs quieted down. I’d come off the run with about seven minutes and I still had a five minute lead at mile four after the second turnaround. I began conversing with myself about just how hard to push, if I should save energy for the hills, what I’d do if I got caught. I tried convincing myself that I’d still be happy with second place after a good swim and bike. You haven’t been run training anyway. Just pack it in and be content with whatever happens! 

Deep down I knew that if I just made it to the halfway point, I’d be willing to die in order to stay in first place, but with nine miles still to go I allowed myself to be a weak-willed-wimp, pardon my French. It had been a long time since I raced hard to the end, and it took a moment to get in the right mindset of taking things mile by mile. Racing is all about living in the moment, and just in case all of your nerve endings are dead, know that this moment sucks and that you’re causing permanent brain damage at the very least™ (another improvement on Ironman’s slogan).

At the halfway point I still had a 4 to 5 minute lead, sitting at an average of 6:20-ish minute per mile pace on a fairly hilly run course. I kept applying pressure, trying to trick myself that the finish line was the last turnaround with 3.5 miles to go. I forced down the last of my gel flask and dumped two bottles of water over my head at the next aid station, finally and truly suffering. Earlier I hadn’t been in any real pain, just anxiety about being caught. Now the pain was digging itself into my legs, stomach, and intestines. It didn’t matter that this was a small race in a place that no one has ever heard of (unless you’ve visited Mt. Rushmore). Maybe this was the last race I’d ever do. Maybe I wouldn’t get around to finishing out the season like I’d been planning, and something would come up in 2024 to spoil my final year of racing. Half-assing it for the next five or six miles to win by a minute was not how I wanted to end things.

By the final turnaround I still had a four minute lead on Ben, who grunted out “it’s yours” or something to that degree as we passed each other on the narrow bike path. I kept running hard until I got to the final climb with two miles to go, then eased up on account of my hip, not wanting to needlessly set its recovery back any further. 11 hard miles was plenty. 

I crossed the finish line and my anxiety and the pressure I’d put on myself vanished. Finally a good performance—the first since a year ago at Embrunman. I wouldn’t say that a weight was lifted, but I do feel more confident heading into the next few races this fall. Confident that I’ll be able to perform well (though not necessarily get on the podium or anything) and more importantly confident that, despite the result, I’ll actually be able to enjoy the trip, the excitement of racing, the people, the scenery of a new place, and most importantly the continental breakfasts. 

Thank you to everyone who showed up to race, to the volunteers, and to Branden Zelfer and his mom for investing so much of their time, energy, and money into this event. 

Rebooting the season week #3

Posted on by kennettron

It’s week three and the crotch swamp and resulting chafing has set in hard, even though the temperature has steadily been dropping from 108 – 112 the first week we were here to a more comfortable 100 – 106 this past week. The problem is that all of my shorts have a liner, and if I go outside for more than about two minutes, the liner is bound to become saturated, requiring a change of shorts if I have an extra pair lying around.  And I only have so many shorts to go through in three days—about the timeframe I have to do a load of laundry—so other than doing laundry every two days, which would be insanity, my solution either lies with talcum powder or vaseline. Possibly both at the same time. 

This will most likely be the last week I do this weekly training update, by the way. I may try to keep the blog alive with training and racing stories, and rants, like in the old days. Or I may give it up again. But I already keep a personal training journal, so this feels redundant. And if I have the time to write two training journals, I should probably just start on another next manuscript instead. Or get a real job. 

I’ve been reading through some of my old blogs from years past and it feels like an entirely other person wrote them. The excitement, sarcasm, self-deprecation, and fake arrogance (and real arrogance) that made those posts so good, or horrible, seem to belong to someone else. Maybe I’m just out of practice. Maybe I just need something else to write about and the ability will come back. 

I think this blog died a slow death right after I started triathlon. Triathlon, as a sport, just hasn’t been the same type of muse that bike racing was for me. The racing is not nearly as exciting for one thing. But the lifestyle—the lack of teammate shenanigans, the reduced travel schedule, the stability that doing three sports instead of one requires—I think is the main issue. To be a good triathlete (and I’m not saying I’m good, by the way), requires a fairly boring day to day. Consistency. Rest. Dealing with injuries. For whatever reason, bike racing invited chaos, not just in races but in life as well. And chaos makes for good writing. Or maybe I was just young.

Another manuscript may be calling my name. And hopefully more law firm website pages because unpublished manuscripts don’t pay the bills. 

Monday

6.3 mile run. My shins and calves were still incredibly achy and I had to stop at mile 3 to walk. Should have turned around there and taken the shortest way home, but I was being stubborn and continued on. Ended up walking/jogging home. Need to just take the rest of the week very easy on runs. 

1 hr easy spin on the road bike. 

20 min strength. Main lift was Bulgarians. Skipped deadlift. Probably need to back off the strength a tad to let my legs recover. 

Tuesday

3.75 hr Tuesday Morning Fairwheel Ride. AV 214 NP 260. Stronger group today so I sat in for the first third of it, fearful of the McCain climb (it’s like 2.5 minutes, so super long and hard). Managed to make the front group of three again. Normalized power for the hardest 30 minutes was 370. 

Wednesday

4 mile run at 7:59 pace. Shins felt a little achy in the last mile, but not horrible. I was able to run the whole thing at least.

50 min endurance 3K swim. Did this swim at UofA. A bit too warm, but manageable. Decided I should start kicking while swimming. Aside from really focusing on the swim and putting in +20K a week of structured workouts and masters, I think that adding the kick (I currently do not kick at all) is the only way to get faster. This week, as you’ll see, I’m essentially only riding because my lower legs are fucked and the masters group that I just joined is off for the week because the pool is being cleaned. 

2.5 hr ride with the El Groupo team as a volunteer coach. Rode with three teenagers who are stoked about bike racing. It brought back memories. Not of being a teenager because that was too long ago to remember, but of being stoked about bike racing. 

Thursday

1.25 hr easy spin. AV 160. This is how champions are made. Or so I hear. 

Friday

2.5 hr ride 6×4 min Vo2. Average interval power was 394, up 8 watts from last week’s average (386). Granted, it was cooler today than last week, but things are looking up! Just 50 more watts to go and I’ll be back to where I was 10 years ago (at altitude). 

5 mile easy run. 7:41 pace. Lower legs held up, but just barely. 

Saturday

3.5 hour Shootout ride. Same size group as the Tuesday ride with a lot of the same guys. A few new people as well, though technically I’m the new guy. Made the selection over the bridge but got beaten on Sprint hill by an El Groupo rider, Elliot, who was less than half my age. It was a fun, hard 40 minutes spent at a normalized power of 372 for the race portion, and two hours at NP 321. No way I’d ride this hard by myself. I’m very fortunate these two group rides exist, though I really should start riding the TT bike at some point. . . 

3.3 mile run off at 7:24 pace. Lower legs were aching so I had to take it easy. 

Sunday

6 mile hike starting from Gordon Hirabayashi trailhead on Mt. Lemmon with Adelaide and Maybellene.

35 min strength. Normal lower body routine of:

  • About 5 minutes of band exercises to tire out the glutes so they don’t interfere with the rest of the workout
  • Bulgarian split squats 3×8 each leg at 125 lbs (for my fucked up knees)
  • One round of 25 x Mobo board band dips and 25 x Toe Pro calf raises in between the BSS sets (for my fucked up plantar)
  • Deadlift 5×3 at 275 lbs (for my fucked up testosterone)
  • 10 bent over Ts (12 lb dumbbells) in between each deadlift set (for my fucked up back)

Tucson Week #2

Posted on by kennettron

Monday

10 mile run, 6:37 pace. Drove one mile from home to the bike path so I could access my cooler with cold bottles every 3 miles. Legs were already pretty achy by the second lap (6 miles in), so I cut the run short to 10 miles from the planned 13. Happy with the pace though. 

2K easy swim. Pool was too hot to do anything fast or long. I’m considering joining a masters group later this month, but I’m content focusing on the bike and run for the time being since the first race I’m training for (Wildlife Loop) does not have a make or break swim group. 

35 min strength. Swapped out deadlift with side lunges because my legs and hip were wrecked. 

Tuesday

2.75 hour Tuesday morning fairwheel ride, same as last week. There were some stronger guys there this week and I got my legs ripped off by Hoffman. 23 minutes at NP 372 for the hardest section. 

16 min 2 mile run off. Hip was still really sore from the run yesterday so I kept it short and easy.

4 mile evening hike with Adelaide. 

Wednesday

3K easy swim. Even the UofA pool is too hot for me to do a decent-paced workout. Took the rest of the day off from training because I’ve been pretty tired the past few days. 

Thursday

3 hrs still on the road bike since I need to finish switching out brake pads for the TT bike. AV 211 NP 256. 6×4 min on Lemmon (385, 385, 385, 388, 385, 393). 4 min rests. Continued up to mile 13 before flipping. Goal is 8×4 at 400+ watts by the end of the month. 

3.2 mile fast run off at 6:08 pace. Fucking hot. 100 degrees since I started the ride late. Cooked by the time I got home.

35 min strength. Main lifts Bulgarians 3×8 at 125, deadlift 5×3 at 275. Felt a lot better today than yesterday. I must have needed the rest. These early mornings are really getting to me though. I usually don’t wake up until 7:30. Lately I’ve been getting up between 6:00 and 6:30—even earlier for the group ride. 

Friday

5.9 mile run. Goal was to do a fast paced 75 minute hilly loop, but my lower legs were wrecked so I turned around early.

Masters swim at Ford Aquatics. 3.5K long course, meters. Finally a pool with water temperature that’s tolerable to swim in. Felt really out of swimming shape. I wonder why.

20 min upper body strength. Overhead press, skull crusher, pullups, shin strengthening machine thing.

Saturday

3.75 hr road bike ride on Lemmon. AV 219 NP 235. Skipped the Shootout again because of the early morning and needing to sleep in. Getting out the door at 5:40 is a big struggle. Hopefully it’ll happen next week. 

35 min strength. Normal lower body routine. 

Sunday

6 mile run. Shins were still achy but I wanted to get at least a little speed this week. Did this moderate run workout on the bike path hoping I’d still be able to do a longer run tomorrow: 1600, 1200, 800, 400 with 90 second rests. Paces were pretty restrained: 6:15, 6:05, 6:06, 5:51. My lower leg pain happened earlier this year after a break from running and eventually went away, but it took a few weeks. I’m prepared for that to happen again. 

20 min 1K float in one of the city pools.