Why They Make Methamphetamines
Doug Crandell

Spit dips down like the Golden Gate Bridge from his mouth to the harp; he reaches a marbled hand for the pull-tab can of Pabst Blue Ribbon. This man, George Willard Wiedler, is on his stump by a fence post fire. It is out in the center of Toombs, this ramshackle farm he guards like a collie from those who have burgled his Anhydrous Ammonia from white pill tanks to use along with filched tubing, pretty Sudafed cold tablets and a recipe to cook down to a tallow of fumed, re-vaporized combos that will keep unknown men dieselized for days on end, for weeks ending in slow days. I tell him, with the diffused commitment of a college graduate, that frivoled away honor and declinable heartaches don't always make for people who need punishment or caging. Or even shot on the spot for stealing out the wazoo. He ignores me, or pretends to, plucks the mouth area, in the shadows all he is, is a patch of heat and flannel and the twang he's able to make pulse through the dark. He tells me he remembers a note that used to make fools mate; scalded by love, he says, is the only way to go.