But I knew better. My WebZine HRI blazed live_action vids of the actual blast, tagging it a militia_rumbled 'Semtex-sizmo' and Wednesday had 500,000 page_clicks EVEN with no azz and no tits and no feelies for chicks don't have either. Advertizers screamed for Web banners. Thursday morning I got a call ...
"PEANUTS - GETCHUR PEANUTS ---- CHIMICHONGAS HERE --- OHBABYBABYYANEED-A DATE--- DAWGSDAWGSDAWGS N' KRAUTS --- PROGRAMS - GETCHUR PROGRAMS ---"
Waiting for contact I make rounds ... cause no reporter's special. Nobody showed first day of Spokanes 3x3 basketball tournament. The entire towns center, from river to freeway is packed with players, fans and teen-grooming pedofiles. City streets stink of tar and sweat and cheap, sour margarine. Top teams play on Sundays cool morning, but by 11-AM streets are hot as Irish cunt swilling GlenFidich and I'm prepared for a sun-washed zero. Nothing, nada, nix ...
"Heh ... y-e-a-h y-o-u ... fuckhead with a Kavu cap - yo Scranton!"
Two voices. I didn't expect them to use my name. The shouts slide over my left shoulder from close up. Voices of big men - cutting through street noise like a Sprague Ave. whore hustling dates. There's plenty here at tournament time: whores, players, fat-legged thin-faced tourists. Street's packed, the parts not laid out as basketball courts, and just turning I elbow aside a couple fat chicks. Spokane's known for them ... felons, febs and fat dyke chicks on welfare. Need a programmer? Better think fat-first, cause Spokane pushes them like protein_deficient white pearls. Felons too ... Washington State dumps its child-molestors in Spokane for rehab and grooming practice. Like the Federals, Spokane loves its perv dependents ... deficients ...
What it thinks of freemen? I leave that for HRI. I'm facing the molestors, three sweat-smeared jocks each stretching over six feet tall and dressed-for-game.
Shouting tourists bump by. I call to the rangy Negro. "Fsckhead? Hell no - I'm the Dutch Cleanser salesman ... wash your mouth."
A dead man told me craft counts. Three pairs of eyes follow me circling the library ... minutes later, cross the street they brush by as I examine shoes at Le'Bon. Feds can lay a silent shell around you fast as peanuts rot. I'm brushing off that smell I can't feel following skywalk crowds while three pairs of eyes ... they stop at the theater bar. We wait for them on the bridge. Soft mist curtains rise from the falls downstream. Beneath us, water roars throwing up the sweet stench of fresh-melt snow. This year, as each year since the Japan Current swung north, snow falls through May and summer melts stretch into August roaring cascading floods. A girl stands beside me whispering dirty little things about last night ... some I remember. A girl. Required. Most militia feel the Feds won't see one of their own female agents struck down. So we two stand middle of the bridge staring down at foam. And if I've been turned, all five of us will go over the bridge together ...
"You be squeeky clean."
"Only God is clean."
"What do you need..." says the rangy Negro after all three stop beside us. Casual. SNAP-SNAP cameras snap all around - same for tired, moving-up winners grins. They stretch, nod, palaver as other players pass by. Hi-5! Natural it says ... not the first time it says.
"Need? I'm a reporter, so who, what, where ...."
"Save that crap, Scranton. You know WHERE, we're WHO."
The girl blurts. "This your first time?" She wants to help. The Negro spits. More perky she tries "most HRI viewers don't believe Blacks belong to the militia."
"Blacks? Scranton here call us Negros - always has - and Negros don't belong ..."
I say. "Three men took out the Owens Valley pipeline last May. Semtex ... I didn't get the AVI, but I understand ..."
"That be us."
"Wasn't the pipeline blown twenty-five feet up, at a river crossing? Same method got used Monday ... on the tower. It wasn't blown at its base, but ..."
The Negro thumbs to a six-5 red-face giant beside him. "Shorty. Hell-uv-a climber. Make fixin' the mess double."
I smile. "Climbers, huh ... gonna make messes. What mess do you figure cleaning up?"
Negro grin shows too many white teeth. "What Jefferson promise."
I snicker. "And that might be ... a chicken in every pot?"
"You be one fool white boy." The big Negro wipes his hands on the sweat-stained shirt, peers down at the rivers boiling rage saying almost casually. "Mr Jefferson ... he promise to a faithless America more new than blind a just Gods vengence."
"'More new than blind'? HA You take grammar lessons pal", I ask? The Negro sez nothing. I say. "Yeah right. Jefferson, huh ... good luck, pal. So....... what's next, Seattle Space-Needle ...?"
Shorty grunts. "Sure, pad're - maybe we spray-paint Governor Mendozas drawers."
Washington States new NAMBLA governor ... it's all about diversity said the Puget Sound nancy boyz ... begs blow-jobs while his azz hangs off a railing 200 feet up. Last month, HRI did a spread -- teenage boys & girls -- damn, we kept photos online for 3-hours while lawyers wrangled. I say. "So you intend branching out from California. Made arrangements with local cells?"
"I be say'n, pad're, Negros don't belong ..."
"Don't fuck with the Niggar, Scranton," sez Shorty.
I glance over at the third man, who has not spoken. Sweat streaks his lean, country face and a white cut scar runs up his chin. It's a Norwegian farmers chin. "What's your story, blabbermouth? Just along for the give-N-go?"
The Negro spits and says. "Last year, Feds be ketchin' him home-schoolin' his kids from TBBOM. Figured they could crack him and roll up the cell. For two weeks ... he wouldn't crack Then him they pass off to Belltown dykes who be cuttin' out his tongue."
My mouth goes dry. I feel the bridge rock, and icy, burrowing eyes. I stutter. "L..Lo..Lost his tongue hum ... bet that smarted. G..Got a wife?"
"One in Reno, baby, two in Cherokee ... they don't mind what's missing." Negro pauses. "Some men need a mouth be talkin'..."
"Fair enough," I shoot back! That peaceful Norwegian face holds my eyes ... "Then he's your mechanic - brews the Semtex and detonators. Got diagrams? HRI readers love details."Who, what, when, where, why ... like any reporter I got the story. Negro, Shorty and the Norwegian farmer with no tongue ... they disappear in crowds. The girl has her tongue in my ear. I need to take her some place almost quiet and fuck her she says as we move with a body-stream crush south into Riverfront Park.
PEANUTS HEREGETCHURPEANUTS .. DATEBABYBABY-DATE ....
Suddenly, the Norwegian brushes by and plugs a FLASH_card into the girls jean pocket. He slides away invisible. I grab the girls azz. She and the FLASH_card diagrams ... for HRI it's worth another million-hit day. Shouts break out behind us. Bodies crush and rush and the pack of flesh sways ... BAM-BAM - Shots fly overhead and a security column in black body-armour tunnels through batons flailing and bright chrome 40-caliber autoloads raised high. The crowd scatters - a flock of bleating sheep while hard men-in-black make for the bridges south end. I fight for close-up shots of bloody faces and terror while the girls sound-cam ticks away. Bitch slams me in the side, biting my neck.
"Dude ya fscked up. They got his tongue already ... fscking Scranton."
"Damn, bitch keep the sound running ..." I shout.
We scramble up ... yards ... to the rise behind the main basketball court. Most people lay face-down sucking grass and pissing. Helicopter blades beat the air and a grey stealth shape rises through river mist. The copters Gattling_gun spits white moaning a tamborenes tragic rattle. I can see to the bridge, where along its rail the Gattling_guns hot lead hail has opened a bloody bloody red gash. What was crowd become carnage. Bodies ... bodies razored, snapped ... broken open ... SNAP-SNAP-SNAP I'm snapping the digi-zoom. A reporter kills for a bleeding lead like this.
Bloody thrust and slash. A human size space and human violence even Jefferson would have approved. In that space the Norwegian and the peanut-vendor are battling - each with a combat knife - thrusting ... BLAM- PING-BLAM ... bullets whine around them and ping off the steel bridge framework. GETCHURPEANUTS rings in my memory I make a note of it ... The security column has them surrounded and rushes in ... nearly ... grabbing ... when both men tumble flailing ... shouting ... stabbing .... over the rail ... falling falling into the rivers white foamy roar ...
... with another HRI. Returning to port. Ladies and gentlemen, good night.
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