Bottle Rockets Page #2

• Short story

								

“They let you see your kids yet?” She asked.
“Well, they’d let me but my wife won’t bring them here to see me.”
She moved her chicken breast around with her fork.”You’ll see them soon.” 
“Listen, I get out of here in a few weeks and it’ll be the Fourth of July. Do you want to barbeque with me and the kids at the ponds out in Three Forks?” 
“Sure. I’d love that.” 

I met her in the dusty parking lot of my cousin's firework stand at the intersection of Main Street and the highway that headed out of town, winding up onto Interstate 90. When she approached, I was leaned up against the white counter that was adorned in American flag colored ribbons, the detailed images of bald eagles on either side of the stand, clutching firecrackers in their talons, their wings spread out in flight. Seeing her for the first time out of uniform and in civilian dress made me feel like the luckiest man in the world.
“Hey. Happy Fourth of July.” I said. 
“Hey. You too.”
We hugged and I introduced her to my cousin, 
My kids were behind the fireworks stand playing in the century old bedraggled tree, the same tree  I had played in when I was not much older than them.
Popping open his cooler my cousin offered us each a drink. The perspiring beverages floated, bobbing together in the water and ice, their labels turning upright in anticipation of my selection. “No thanks, I’d rather not end up running down Main Street naked tonight.”
“Oh, I’m planning on it.” my cousin said as he smiled that smile I knew so well, slamming the cooler lid shut. 
I told the young lady peace officer how my cousin and I used to go out back and rip lines in his camper and come back into the stand and sell like old war dogs on Wall Street, pushing fireworks like blue chip bonds, convincing customers that the ten shot cake would be the best investment they’d make in a lifetime. That firework stand was a symbol of commerce and freedom, a running tradition in my family, passed down from my aunt to her kids. I was like one of her kids. I’d mixed a thousand rum drinks in that turn-around parking lot, the stand nestled up against the ancient bedraggled shade tree, a different camper out back each year. I’d spent a hundred drunken nights in the camper with friends and family and strangers. We’d walk down to the bars after dark, after the stand was closed, bringing whoever was ready to party along, and then back to the camper when the bars, and the town, went quiet. Quiet–until we got to lighting off fireworks in the middle of deserted Main Street at midnight or later. ???

We took up our position along the bank of the ponds amongst the other families that were celebrating the holiday on the marshy shores. A golf course stood on the other side and I watched as a few golf carts circled around the next hole, golfers playing out their game in the setting sun. My boy grabbed a pack of bottle rockets, resting them in the weeds amongst a rock, lighting the fuses and running back towards us in anticipation of their lift off. We’d shout and guffaw over each exploding rocket and slowly she and I drew nearer to each other and began to lightly hold and play with one another’s hands. Holding on. Not too tightly as to crush, but not letting go, either.
A spark went up within me.
The last moment of the day came, when twilight and full darkness intertwined. My kids had run off with another pack of kids to run free and wild and watch fireworks explode all around us. That was the moment when I took my shot, using her hand still entwined in mine,to spin her around in front of me. 
“What would you do if I kissed you right now?”
She didn’t respond with words, she pushed her lips up into mine. The sky lit up all around us, the pond variegated with the blue’s and the red’s, shimmering purples, making forms like shooting star flowers. Immersing myself in the grappling of her small, athletic body, I thought – From now on I want to live like one of those bottle rockets. Not some big space shuttle, slow to rumble and lumber, threatening to leave the launch pad with plumes of smoke and showers of sparks as the count down commences over the loudspeaker and then blasts up past the stratosphere into black oblivion, but a bottle rocket, baby, with that stupid fast fuse, so fast it burns your thumb after you light it and whizzes by your ear before you have time to pull away and it shoots up into the air faster than your eye can track and within seconds it’s burning high up in the air and it makes a loud beautiful pop that everyone can see, just begging you to light the next one.
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