“I almost feel sorry for the guy,” said Kevin as he sawed off the bottom of another can. He tapped the can over the bucket and a foamy white cylinder fell out. He tossed the empty can into the cardboard box and started working on the next can with his hack saw.
“This is war, Kevin. No sympathy for the enemy,” I said, dropping another foamy cylinder into the bucket.
The cans were so cold we both wore heavy gloves in spite of the hot weather. We had sweat on our foreheads and our arms and shoulders ached after hacking for so long.
“How many cans?” said Kevin, slightly out of breath.
“We bought four dozen.”
“I mean, how many left?”
“Five.”
“You think we have enough?”
“Let’s do them all. No sense having any left.”
“I was worried maybe the first ones are beginning to melt.”
“They are at the bottom of the bucket over the dry ice. They’ll last another while.”
“If he wasn’t such an asshole…” said Kevin, hacking through a can.
“The way he slammed that door,” I said, “nearly caught Mei’s fingers, I mean, she’s a piano student, right? He could have hurt her.”
I cut through another frozen spray can and dropped the white content into the bucket. Kevin nodded while cutting away.
“What gets me is that he kept bugging her even after he found out she was my girlfriend, then after he realized that he had no chance with her, none whatsoever, he started on that racist crusade of his…”
He cut through another can and knocked out the white cylinder into the bucket.
“… total douche.”
“He deserves this,” I said.
“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” He picked up another spray can, frosted on the surface. “Are you sure about the window?”
“His side of the dorm has lousy air conditioning. He sleeps with his window open every night.”
“What if he wakes up when we throw these in?”
“Then we run. Abort mission.”
“Let’s hope he doesn’t.”
We hacked away in silence for a while. A soapy smell was rising from the bucket already.
“How long does it take for these things to start melting?”
“Once out of the bucket, an hour, maybe two.”
“These spray cans were never meant to be frozen. We’re lucky they didn’t blow up or something.”
We emptied the last of the cans into the bucket.
“Okay, we better hurry. Let’s go throw these into his window. If it works out as planned, he will wake up in the morning swimming in shaving cream.”
“This is war, dude. This is war!”
“Let’s do it!”
Samurai Novelist 