The Asphalt Bungle

by Jon Wesick

About the Author: Jon Wesick has published hundreds of poems and stories in journals such as the Atlanta Review, Berkeley Fiction Review, I-70 Review, Lowestoft Chronicle, New Verse News, Paterson Literary Review, Pearl, Pirene’s Fountain, Slipstream, Space and Time, and Underside Stories. His most recent books are The Shaman in the Library and The Prague Deception. http://jonwesick.com

Excerpt

Tony Grisbi slid his history book aside to read the Mad Magazine hidden underneath. Anything other than studying in detention broke the rules but he resented being stuck in a classroom after school just because Mrs. Endicott couldn’t take a joke. Besides, this issue had a parody of the Man from U.N.C.L.E. with Napoleon Polo and Illya Nutcrackin. The two agents had entered the secret entrance to headquarters disguised as a dry cleaner, when someone ripped the magazine out of Grisbi’s hands.

“You’ll get this back at the end of the school year!” Principal Hornyak said. He was a stout man who wore a shoe, the size of a football, on his right foot. The kids speculated about what was inside. Some said he’d stepped on a landmine in Korea. Others thought it corrected a birth defect or even contained a nuclear bomb to retaliate against the Russians if they wiped out our Minuteman missiles. Whatever it hid, the oversized shoe wasn’t giving up its secret. “And it’s another week of detention for you.”

Grisbi turned to the page on the Emancipation Proclamation as Hornyak thumped to the front of the room.

After a needless hour of tedium, Grisbi knelt by his stingray bike and dialed the combination into his padlock. Before he could remove the chain, someone grabbed his shoulder.

“Where you going?” Dick Clavelli asked.

“Home.”

“No, you’re not.” Clavelli dragged Grisbi to his feet. “Mark Riedenschneider wants to see you.”

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