The Lifespan of a Long Fuse
by Ben Bird

I’m staring at the baby blue paint peeling off the back of our house, daydreaming about blowing up the neighbor’s pool. Fat John and I have been going to the library once a week, reading up on how to build pipe bombs. Truth is, it’s not that hard, but we’ve never been able to get enough firepower to do any real damage. We tried putting one under Fat John’s stepdad’s car after he ran over Fat John’s foot and didn’t even apologize. All it did was mess up the tire a little bit and get Fat John a nice belting. He showed me at school the next day, his big, bruised ass spilling out over his pants as he pulled them down. We got in real big trouble for that. When I met Fat John, in second grade, he was a skinny little kid, just like me, but even more thin, even more wiry. That’s how he got his name. People could see right through him. They thought it would be funny. As we got older, Fat John filled out a little bit more each year. Almost like he had to catch up to his name.