A 3 Foot Wick On Your Dynamite Stick

He held the stick of dynamite sideways. Tightly in the palm of his fist, so its length was parallel with the ground. The wick was off to the side, gently arcing downwards.

He reached his free hand into his jacket, retrieving a thin red disposable lighter. Only then did I get a little nervous.

He turned towards me and said, “Now ya may not know this, but there’s rules to lighting a stick of dynamite. Ya hold it like this, so the wick goes off to the side or down. Ya never do it like ya see in the movies, where they hold it wick up. Cause if you light it wick up…and one single spark should fall to the base...well, heh heh…then I’ll be picking your pieces up and mailing ‘em back to your mum in a box. Hear me?

I nodded.

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My parents had been on my case to get a job for weeks. I was 17 at the time, and a job was the last thing on my mind. Summer was dominated by soccer, swimming at the lakes, attending bonfires hidden deep within that infinite stretch of Midwestern cornfields, or far upstream on remote bends of the Missouri river. I had an on again off again girl friend, and solving the mysteries of the female mind was a far more pressing issue then finding a job.

Despite my lack of diligence, my mom pulled me aside one day and said she had found a job for me, whether I liked it or not. She gave me the address, then told me she didn’t know much about it except that it was definitely hard labor, and it definitely paid well. There was little room to argue, I clearly didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. “You start on Monday, 7:00. a.m.” she said as she walked away. And that was that.

I drove down one of those barren Midwest roads. If not for the occasional marker, it easily could have been any other country road in the state. About 20 miles outside of town I took a right onto a dirt road, the name of which I’ve long since forgotten. Eventually tall cornstalks eclipsed the horizon off to my left and right, they swallowed all hints of civilization...


Down this winding path I continued, until abruptly I slammed on my brakes in the gravel driveway of a farmhouse. I went to the front door and knocked, there was no answer. Out behind the house I could see an enormous dump truck. It was releasing a big black pile of what I hoped was not manure. There were two men there, so I headed in that direction.

The farmer was a gruff angry looking man. Thin wisps of grey hair gave way to the etched wrinkles of a perma frown; dressed in weathered, dirt caked denim from head to toe.

As I approached the farmer handed the driver of the dump truck a large wad of money and told him thanks. He got in his truck, wheeled it around and drove away; not hesitating for a second to count his payment. Clearly they shared that unsaid bond common to men of Midwest blue collar roots. A bond that had undeniably passed me up.

The farmer turned to me, and in that deep hollow rasp of a man who has spent a lifetime smoking he said sternly, “You the city boy?”

“Uhhhh…yeah.”

“Boy I’m gunna put you to work.” He reached into the inside of his jacket and pulled out what appeared to be a stick of dynamite. He unwound a twist tie, and a long silvery wick dropped to the ground.
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Second rule of light’n a stick of dynamite…always assume your sparks have a 1 foot radius. So…let’s pretend you have stick of dynamite with a one foot wick, and you light it up. Good chance you aren’t going to get two steps away and…BOOM!!!

I jumped back a bit, my heart pounding.

“Heh heh…you city boys sure are twitchy.” He chuckled a bit as he shook his head.

“Now third.” He said, “Always estimate that each foot of wick you have is 4 seconds of time before she blows. But, never…NEVER include that first foot in your estimation. Understand me boy?!”

“Yeah. I think so.”

“I don’t want ya to think! I wantcha ta know! Now how much time we got?!!”

So far I wasn’t liking this job so much. The wick appeared to be roughly 3 feet long. “Uhhh…8 seconds?,” I replied.

“Good enough…not bad for a city boy. Alright then.”

I followed him towards the hill released by the dump truck, which to my relief was composed of dirt, not manure as I had earlier supposed. Next to the mountain there was a rusty iron disk in the ground, about an inch thick and roughly two feet in diameter. The disk was split down the middle, the two halves resting on a circular concrete base.

“Now here.” He said, and out of his coat he pulled a wad of cash, saturated in dirt and grime. A rubber band held the money in a tight spiral. He handed it to me and I stuffed it in my pocket, later I would discover it was twenty-five $20 bills.

He then slid away two iron plates and we were staring down into the blackness of a deep dried up well. I barely had a second to ponder what my job may be when I realized the farmer had lit the dynamite stick, and gently tossed it into the well. I could hear its harsh sizzling sound dissipate as it vanished into the pit.

I turned around and realized the farmer had already begun running. Sheer panic threw me into a desperate sprint, I ran as hard and fast as I could.

From behind me I heard a hollow, “BABOOOM!!!” The ground trembled and I dropped to my knees and instinctively put my hands over my head. A few moments passed, then I looked up. The farmer was on his feet, arms folded; a grim, serious, look on his face. He faced the direction of the well, a plume of smoke rising from its depths.

A few moments passed before he spoke again, I used this time to regain my composure as he looked towards the smoldering pit and seemed to be in deep thought. And then he said, “Ya see that well there.”

I nodded my head, “uhhh…sure do.”

“I’ve known her for a long time now, as long as I’ve been here. A couple weeks back I almost fell in.”

Again, silence descended. His thoughts seemed to trail off. So I replied, “And you want me to fill it in with that big pile of dirt there?”

“I want you to make it like she was never there. In fact…as of this moment…she never was.” And as he said this he handed me a shovel, then he turned around and began walking away.

As he was leaving I shouted, “If you don’t mind my asking sir…what was the dynamite for?”

He paused for a moment, and looked over his shoulder with a crease in his brow exclaiming curiosity. “Dynamite?!”

“Yeah. The stick of dynamite you just tossed down the well?”

He turned around and kept walking, and replied without looking back to me. “Well? I don’t know anything about a damn well?! No well on this property!”

I stood there with that shovel, watching him walk away. Thoroughly fucking confused. There was no sound except the wind blowing through the stalks of corn. After a few minutes I walked to the well with my shovel, and slowly began scooping loads of dirt into its depths, still smoking from the dynamite. It took me almost 2 weeks. I never asked why he didn’t rent a bulldozer or use the snow plow attachment for his pickup I saw in his garage; as after that moment I never saw the farmer again. Not once in the two weeks I worked.

And when I finished I knocked on his door one final time. And per usual, there was no response. I had my money and my job was done…so I hopped in my car, drove away and didn’t give the old coot a second thought. As far as my parents were concerned I used the money to buy a new pair of soccer shoes and get a set of winter tires for my car. Though mostly it went towards funding another month of bonfires, mad dog 20/20, and a tent for those summer nights on the banks of the river snuggled in a sleeping bag with my girlfriend; until school began again and those little white razorblades started falling from the sky.