OCR Text |
Show 106 What are you going to do when this planet becomes a cinder?" The Football Game Burglars Strike again in Glenwood Karl kept axg his gun collection in his basement and when I went to see him he was usually down there fiddling with his guns; cleaning them, building them, something. He'd just joined an organization called The Sons of the Pioneers and they ail built there own muskets and dressed up in buckskins and went out on the weekends to re-fight the American Revolution or the War of 1812. Sometimes a -ti&ak of Pioneers gathered on Karl's porch and got looped and passed out after requisite hooting and shouting, then the place looked like the bad end of a skirmish. Red wasn't too hot on the Pioneers. Sometimes when things got a bit noisy he came out on the porch with his bowling ball and sat on the railing flipping that ball into the air and down again and up his arm and even over his shoulders like a god-damn Harlem Globe Trotter. That bowling ball was getting to be like a tiddly-wink. The Pioneers gave x Red beer and Red explained to them that this was a family neighborhood and most people would probably appreciate it if they were a little quieter. If that didn't work Red exercised the option of speaking to the noisiest one with the bowling ball, just kind of tapping it lightly on his akaw chest, though real polite. Red was getting pretty diplomatic as he settled into middle age, mostly hecause his fo£*arms were the size of my thighs, his biceps were logs and he had tree trunks for legs. I could barely get two hands around his wrist, which was the smallest thing he had. Besides, Red exuded with every movement of his £ giant xaM self that he'd fight any god-damn thing in the world and any number of them too, and even one night when one of the Pioneers put his pistol between his chest and Red's bowling ball Red told him "You better kill me with the first shot because xxxxaxxaaxxi you won't get another one," which may not have been true but was close enough to being true- Red wasn't too crazy about Karl or the Pioneers but Karl was Red's neighbor and that was about as mystical a bond for £ Red as family was for Bush or a sacred mystery for Helen. So Karl pretty ™^h *** decided that when Red came to visit the Sons of the |