Carl Faucher

Redhotballs

There was a man sucking a RedHotBall in the street.
"Hey," I said, "how about one of those RedHotBalls."
"Fuck you," he said and bit into it, the crack shuddering
through the town. Everyone in the street watched
and followed. He bit and bit and crunched and crunched.
An old man with a limp hooked him with his cane.
"RedHotBalls?"
"Fuck that."
Crack went the cane on the head of the crunching man.
He fell, bits of the RedHotBall spilling from his mouth.
A crossing guard stopped traffic to pull at an arm.
A young boy kicked at a rib. A black dog gnawed
on a shoe. Everyone closed, devouring, pulling him apart
all over the street. "Any RedHotBalls yet?" I said
from a distance.

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