Fireworks were cool. Framed metal chairs with woven nylon Americana on watered lawns on the outskirts of the edge of Los Angeles. Hairy neighbors, Miller Drafts and dog ****. Sally ****** Jim on the corner, and Jim drank, or started again and wouldn’t stop, but was good with a flat tire and chain adjustment. His kid had a glove like a vacuum. His daughter was a *****. Sally afforded a Mexican gardener.
Tim always had fireworks. He had gasoline and willed fireworks into his driveway. He had rope and a keg.
Schatzky keep her cool. She had to. She worked the 5th and taught everyone’s kids. She taught their parents too, 10 years ago.
Her son Donavan and her husband Keith lived for the 4th. Little pink houses and Jack and Diane kind of ****. So they watched fireworks on flag hill while their neighbors ****** and got ******* and burnt their eyebrows. Donavan was ecstatic.
Each year the hill was gilded in gold for Donavan and Keith and and Schatzky, because each 4th brought fire and explosives in a way they could never afford.
Keith was more patriotic than most. He waited and enlisted and became a hero. Donavan watched on TV. Schatzky watched too. We won the first gulf war and everyone knew it: https://youtu.be/4gNhs2SRacs?t=1m10...
They celebrated the fourth in baseball stadiums. They celebrated life and heroism and purpose, and they celebrated with F16s and the best explosives the peacetime nation offered.
And Keith celebrated and embraced purpose. He even became a leader in the 2nd gulf war.
Sally stopped ******* Jim. Jim wasn’t married anymore. His kid lowered Tim’s basement and didn’t steal the copper.
Tim’s house was worth a fortune but it had a radon problem.
Schatsky was accused of drowning her dog, but she didn’t do it.
Jim still drinks; he’s smarter now.
They all meet on flag hill every 4th. The fireworks aren’t as good. A lot of build up for a finale that feels like an accident.
Water seeps through my jeans and no one can see my face as I limp home with a broken rubber sandal and a bucket of ice, a dog tied around my legs, and a kid face first on the grass, a wife whose friend drank our last beer an hour ago, a phone with two-percent battery left and my mom wants to show me what fireworks look like in California.