Those Silos Gotta Go, Boys

As Bob and Petey and Jay lay on their stomachs in the ditch, surveying the bank of five large silos and their elevator house across the narrow valley, and the loaded truck driving away from them, a furrow appeared across Bob's brow. "Yeah, well, 'Feed a cold, starve a fever'; How about, 'feed your bros, starve your foes'. Those silos gotta go, boys. They're filling the bellies of the guys that are shooting at our boys. We can't get what's in them for our boys, but we can damn sure keep them from theirs. We're bringin' those sunsa*****es down."

Jay had seen Bob pull off some pretty good jobs with limited resources in their short time together since they mobilized, but this was different. "Now just how do you think we're going to get enough boom juice to make THAT happen?"

Bob wasn't easily phased. He dropped his binoculars and turned his focus to his lieutenant. "Patience, my boy, patience. Rome wasn't built in a day. We'll work our way up to it. On THEM. They'll end up BEGGING us to blow their stuff up!" He clapped him on the back for reassurance and once again looked through his binoculars at the target looming large across the way as a narrow smile of growing pleasure spread across his face...

The classified ad in the local paper requested someone to remove a large, thick, overgrowing vine on the concert hall. Bob put the paper down. "There's our start, boys. But we gotta make it good. You got all our papers in order, Jay? We're going to have to talk to the mayor or whatever he is around here. Let's get going".

Not only a very skilled demolition expert, but rather gifted in the art of showmanship, Bob had Petey patch into the public address system that was all along the Main Street. Petey never said much. He did his talking with his hands. Bob rented an electric guitar from a music shop. Petey plugged it in with a long cord and teed in a microphone taped to the body. Suitably equipped, Bob climbed the ladder to the power pole they were hooked up to and addressed the gathering crowd: "LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! We are working with THOUSANDS of volts here, folks. This is EXTREMELY dangerous! PLEASE, translate this to your non-English speaking fellow citizens!" A loud murmur quickly spread through the crowd, with corresponding gasps and hands to ladies faces. "PLEASE: Do not move any closer! EVERYBODY on the sidewalk and maintain your distance!" Another murmur and a general shuffling, and the sidewalk was standing room only for half a block each way.

"I am going to count down from FIVE, and then there will be a FLASH, and HOPEFULLY the vine will be gone!" The murmur quickly spread with ooo's and ahhh's and the crowd's focus became rivetted on the wall.

"FIVE!" With a squawk, his voice electrically carried up and down the street out of the dingy silver PA horn speakers on the power poles in a loud, tinny, shrieking manner with feedback from the mic. As Bob counted down, he stuck a correspondingly higher chord on his guitar: 

"FOUR!"

"THREE!"

"TWO!"

"ONE!" 

Letting go of the guitar and letting it drop to hang by the strap over his shoulder, he slammed the big gate switch Petey had rigged home with his other hand. Petey could rig anything. Across the street there was a very loud electrical transformer fusing sound and the entire vine up the front of the building momentarily lit up in a blinding neon blue flash illuminating all the branches like a robot's circulatory system as gray-blue smoke erupted from it then obscured it. He threw the switch open again, struck a crescendo on the guitar, then grabbed the ladder to steady himself before he lost his balance. The strong breeze quickly blew the smoke away revealing a completely bare wall except for the cables Petey had strung all along it and a smoky, charred imprint of where the vine had been.

The gathered crowd erupted in loud, jubilant cheering at the spectacle.

And the first rock star was born.

It was wild. It was crazy. It was almost suicidal.

But it worked.

Jay looked up at Bob, once again finding himself shaking his head in wonder; "You CRAZY sunuva ... "

"NOW we'll get a GOOD job!"

To be continued...