The soldier this afternoon:

“I may have to get in a fight, P. Some guy is giving me trouble and I may have to fight him and I’d rather not. He’s not a guy you want to fight.”

“Why’s that?”

“Well he’s big, P and he’s mean. He looks mean like he killed his mother or something. He’s big as a house and mean as hell.”

“I see.”

“Yep, he’s the kind of guy I’m going to have to use tricks on. Like my first trick will be to run as fast as I can until I see something I can clunk him on the head with.”

“Uh oh.”

“Uh huh. He’s mean and he’s bald. Bald, P! He looks like he eats chards of glass for breakfast, you know. He kills his mom and then he had his glass chard breakfast and now he’s looking at me.”

“You going to be all right?”

“Don’t know. Might get something broke.”

“Uh oh.”

“Yeah, I don’t think I am even going to be able to break this guy’s neck. I don’t think I can get my arm around his neck it’s so big. He’s a pit bull, P. He is a full size dog and I’m just this little bulldog with a small butt. But this guy, his butt is big. His butt is jumbo, his neck is huge and one of his arms is like the size of one of my thighs. And he has cauliflower ears. You know those gnarly ears that look like they have cauliflower on them big mean bastards get? Have you seen them? I don’t know what they are but he looks like he’s been in a fight or two, I’ll say that.”

“What’s he doing?”

“He’s back there brooding. He’s trying to come up with a plan so that’ll take him awhile. I already have my plan. I am going to clock him in head with one of the pieces of metal lying around here. I’m scouting them right now. And then I’m going to (I forgot what he said) and then right after that I guess I’ll kill him. I think I better to killing him fast as I can because a guy this guy… well you just don’t want to fight them if you don’t have to. Guys who just killed their mother are the worst. So anyway, right now I’m just sitting in this air conditioning drinking my Pepsi. I figure I should be as cool and non-sweated as possible. Maybe I should stretch,” he said as it occurred to him.

I laughed. “Okay, sounds good. Stretch, drink your Pepsi, get your pipe and call me when you have an outcome.”