Better Living Through Plastic Explosives Read Free

Ptolemaic period was found to be a fake.
    â€œIt’s all the same in the end, isn’t it?” said Patel. “People place great stock in authenticity.” He turned to our guest, who stood squinting his eyes and chewing his upper lip as if deeply considering the issue, and asked his opinion. “What I’ve been wondering,” he said, thrusting his beer in the direction of Trevor’s chest, “is how much mileage you get with that rice grinder out there.”
    Kim’s wife, ever diplomatic, extended a skewer of honey-glazed late-season fiddleheads, cultivated in the dankly shaded side of their house. “Kim’s a committed locavore,” Trevor said, recovering himself admirably. “He’s been trying to convert us all.” The Truck Guy smirked and twirled a finger alongside his right ear: “Loco what?” We had no choice but to laugh along good-naturedly, even Kim. He was our guest, after all, the new guy on the block.
    The evening proceeded towards what could in hindsight be clearly seen as a preordained train wreck. (“In the land of the blind, the one-eyed jack is king,” a hungover Stefan remarked the next morning. To which Trevor replied, “Come again?”) Our neighbour actually giggled at Marcus’s lamb popsicles in fenugreek sauce, and when Karlheinz unveiled a test-tube tray of plastic ampoules filled with wild-morel cream that we were meant to squirt into our mouths (the women loved it, that clever Karl!), he pretended to inject his amuse bouche into the raised veins traversing the waxy underside of his left arm, flexing in a manner that accentuated his already over-delineated bicep. Again we laughed. (Although Marcus stage-whispered to Patel, “It’s obvious that he’s never actually shot up.”)
    Karlheinz was explaining his failed attempts at crossbreeding golden agoutis with voles in order to create sleeker guinea pigs when someone passed our new neighbour a plate of Trevor’s dulse salad. He demurred, muttering something about erectile dysfunction.
    What felt like light years later, during which “Hot Rod” (as Stefan dubbed him that night) frequently interrupted the conversation with detailed descriptions of the modifications he’d made to his car—Noki adjustable shocks, Bruce Herb 1.31-inch anti-sway bar, two-inch lowered Simpson Michigan leaf springs[?], EJR carpet, Dyno-Mite insulation, restored dash pad, Ultra-Lite Automorphic gauges, Painfree Wire 16 circuit, ’68–’74 muscle-car kit, TPS polygraphite bushings [?] used throughout, including body mounts , WRT Z28 coil springs, Calvert Johnson “Cal-Rac” traction bars [a pause for lubrication here], Black ’73 interior, added years ago! , Sony Frost Mark stereo head unit, 5 × 160 watt amp. And believe you me a twelve-disc multi-play CD changer, two 6 × 9 Altitude rear speakers, and PH Quartz components in front—he returned bleary-eyed from yet another trip to the bathroom and shot dual pistol fingers at each of our wives. “Next weekend I’ll make you ladies some real food.”
    With that he disappeared into the night, and in the elongated silence that followed we could hear the waters of Lynn Creek churning through the gorge below the water-pipe bridge as the snowpack far above melted in the July heat. Already it had claimed a young man, the season of playing chicken with the creek only just begun. We could almost hear the melt.
    Sure, we knew men like him existed. But we’d never had a chance to observe one in such close proximity. Karlheinz confessed to thinking of him as a specimen , and we nodded in agreement.
    We have often wondered what Darwin would have made of the summer-long struggle for existence on our cul-de-sac. If he’d lived here, would he have taken the role of observer or participant? By all accounts he was a bona fide gentleman, didn’t partake of arguments, even kept his