Fourth of July
Photo by Chris F
Thump. Thump. Thump.
“For the love of God!” Mom hollered, trying her best to grab my snow cone. Sticky rainbow syrup splattered her white Bermuda shorts and dribbled down her legs.
My heart pounded in my chest, echoing the distant thump of mortars. I knew flashes and explosions would follow soon and buried my face in Mom’s bony lap, syrup sticking my cheek to her thigh. My fingers were stuck so deep into my ears they nearly touched my eardrums, and my eyes clenched so tight that red light danced on the inside of my lids.
Kaboooooommmm!
Red chrysanthemums, green peonies, and yellow diadems exploded in the moonless sky over Memorial Stadium.
Every summer, when the Fourth of July got close, I dreaded the holiday more than a dental visit.
It all started when Red Devil Fireworks booths sprouted across Oildale after school let out for the summer. Mom took us to the Beardsley Elementary’s PTA booth in the Alpha Beta parking lot on Airport Drive, next to the baseball field. That’s where Brother played Little League. He only lasted a couple of weeks; he threw like a girl.
I stood with Mom and Brother at the booth window, feeling skittish. I kept worrying that if some kid set off a firecracker behind me, I might jump out of my skin.
“Mom, I know what I’m talking about,” Brother argued. “I’m telling you, buy the Super Deluxe All-American Patriotic Pack! It has EVERYTHING I need!”
Brother had studied the Red Devil Fireworks flyer for weeks. He knew just how many rockets, fountains, cones, screamers, witch’s cauldrons, sparklers, and firecrackers he needed to put on a memorable Fourth of July show for the residents of Happy Acres Trailer Park.
“The only thing I’m paying for is sparklers,” Mom interrupted.
“But Mom…”
Honestly, Brother probably would’ve set Happy Acres on fire.
“We’re going to Memorial Stadium to watch the fireworks show, like we always do,” she said.
I felt that familiar knot in my stomach tighten. The Fourth of July was coming fast, like a freight train.
Mom bought two boxes of sparklers and tucked them in her purse. She said she didn’t want us sneaking to light them off unsupervised, so she’d keep them hidden in her bedroom.
Brother wadded up his fireworks flyer and threw it on the ground.
Litterbug.
Leaning into the booth window, he asked the lady, “How much for a box of black snakes? Gimme a couple rolls of gunpowder caps too.”
Didn’t even say please.
A sweaty man opened the cash box, took Brother’s lawn-mowing money and counted change.
I didn’t mind black snakes. They were quiet and didn’t really do anything. When you lit one, the little plug turned into a long snake of ash, wiggling on the sidewalk and leaving soot trails for Mom to wash away with the hose. But gunpowder caps were what really bothered me.
Brother had a cap gun collection. His favorite, a replica of the Lone Ranger’s silver Colt pistol. He kept it loaded in a brown, tooled leather holster under his bed.
I had to be the Indian or the robber when we played together. Brother liked to chase me inside our tiny fenced yard, shooting his cap gun at my head, and saying it was all in the name of the law. He was relentless like that. Sometimes I think he enjoyed torturing me. I’d bolt up the trailer steps, go inside, and lock the sliding glass door behind me.
“What’s going on out there?” Mom peered over the guppy tank from the kitchen, slapping hamburger patties between her palms as she made our dinner.
“Nothing.”
She poured me a glass of tap water, and I drank it in one breath.
“Would you like a little meat to tide you over until dinner?”
I nodded right away. Mom pinched off a piece of raw hamburger and rolled it into a ball. She always called it steak tartare, a French delicacy, and I liked it much better than Spam.
“Now either go outside or play in your room,” she said. “There’s too much commotion around here.”
Mom couldn’t see Brother, but I could. He stood outside on the steps with a loaded pistol, his slobbery lips pressed to the glass like a suckerfish, mouthing, “I’m…going…to…kill…you!” I went to my room.
Brother also had cap bombs, which were like tiny atom bombs, just like the ones from World War II. He would put a gunpowder cap in the warhead, stand on the trailer steps, and drop it right next to me on purpose while I played jacks. Every time one went off, my heart almost stopped.
On the first of July, Mom brought out the sparklers she’d bought at the PTA booth and turned off the porch light. It was a warm, quiet evening in Happy Acres. Brother and I put on a sparkler extravaganza while Mom and Dad sat in their director’s chairs, sipping martinis and smoking cigarettes.
I didn’t mind sparklers. They didn’t make loud noises or flash suddenly. Sometimes the sparks stung when they landed on my bare skin. Dad always lit mine with his silver lighter so I wouldn’t burn my fingers with a match. While crickets chirped in the ivy, I drew figure eights in the dark until it was time for bed.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
I felt the mortars go off in my bones and got ready for what was coming.
“You’re the biggest, whiniest baby I know,” Brother said. His voice was muffled, but I heard him all right. I turned my head and peeked and saw him looking up at the night sky for the rocket trails, smacking his bubble gum with his mouth wide open.
Kaboooooommmm!
The explosion jolted me, startling Mom. That’s when I spilled my snow cone.
“I’ve had it with you!” Mom said, shoving me aside. “Sit up! This is absolutely ridiculous! If it’s not fireworks, it’s thunder, lightning, or sonic booms! I’ve told you a thousand times, there is nothing to be afraid of!”
Right then, I felt exposed and helpless, sort of like that mole dug up on Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom. My stringy hair was a tangled mess of sticky rainbow syrup, tears, and sweat. My cat-eye glasses dangled from my snotty nose. And just like that poor little mole, everyone was watching, and there was nowhere to hide.
That’s probably when my nervous blinking habit started.
Millions of fiery stars fell from the sky onto wooden shake rooftops behind the stadium. Fire trucks screamed in the distance as the audience clapped from excitement, and the air was thick with smoke tinged with the stench of rotten eggs.
And then the stadium went dark.
And silent.
A sparkly shape of George Washington’s head illuminated. It whizzed on a high wire across the football field as “America the Beautiful” blared over loudspeakers.
I didn’t mind ground fireworks so much. There were no explosions, and I could squint just enough to get the gist. But my favorite was Niagara Falls, a spectacular ten-foot pyrotechnic cascade of silver sparkles pouring onto the Renegade football field like an unbridled waterfall. That was the only time I opened my eyes all the way.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
I cowered during the grand finale of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The stadium cheered, and the sky exploded with vibrant colors, perfectly in sync with the music.
And then it was all over.
“That was the best fireworks show I’ve ever seen,” Dad said on the drive home. “It made me feel proud to be an American!”
“Glad you felt that way,” Mom said.
I looked out the car window and watched the streetlights go by, trying not to cry. Why couldn’t I feel proud like Dad or unfazed by it all like Brother?
“Let’s plan on doing this again next year,” Dad said.
“Over my dead body,” Mom said, her voice barely rising over the hum of the engine, but I heard it and knew what she meant.
After that day, we never went to another Fourth of July fireworks show. And that was perfectly fine with me.
