There are Fireworks and There are Fire Works

There are fireworks and there are fire works. Sammy Dan knew that, and knew the difference, literally and figuratively. His knowledge was first hand and cultivated over a lifetime of events he could not forget. The fireworks and fire works were highlights that punctuated the continuum with exclamation points.

In the summer he’d travel all the back roads to every carnival in the county to catch the fireworks on Saturday night. It was the penultimate night of the carnival but it was the ultimate night for him. Sometimes they wouldn’t start until past midnight, but he didn’t care. By then he was loaded and prepared with anticipation and other stimulants. Each time he’d compare the display to the time at Crabtree when they didn’t start until 1 AM and he, armed with booze and dope, had a close up position in the back of a Chevy pickup with his head leaning against the back of the cab. The grand finale was a time stopping long string of bombs, high on pounding noise and a pounding strobe light like sight that pounded his head and in turn his head pounded the back of the cab. The next day he had a champion headache and couldn’t wait till next year. As he got older and the personal enhancements became scaled back, he’d find a hill to park on and catch the big picture leaning against his car smoking a cigar. If he knew any of the others in the field, he’d talk with them, otherwise he’d mind his own business. Each summer, between the carnivals and the 4^th of July celebrations, as sure as thunderstorms, he’d catch at least a dozen and a half fireworks. No matter how many he saw he always wanted to see more.

Sure he’d experienced the other kind of fireworks. Friends, lovers, wives, bosses, drunks and people he’d hardly knew, launched prominent displays which gave him headaches, gut aches, sleepless nights, wasted days and an excuse to return fire his own self. He was sure that you could fight fire with fire, and even if the fight wasn’t successful or even satisfying, they’d at least blaze together to produce an exciting display. Sometimes he wasn’t sure what detonated things, like he was in the wrong place at the wrong time or the outburst had origins unrelated to his presence and doing, most times his choice of people to know had to be blamed. Wanda G’s were the measuring stick in this regard. She would get so agitated and red mad, he’d think if a person could explode into little pieces scattered for miles and miles, she would do it. If someone could come apart, she was pieces waiting to happen. After ten years of intermittent excitement, he kept her around for another five; more out of entertainment than a chance to repair the marriage. One time she acted up over at the Claridge fireworks, and he’d had enough Iron City to let her go as if she was giving an accompanying performance of the 1812 Overture. It was the next day when he was all hung over that he decided all she was good for was repeats of side shows he’d seen too many times and that it was time to cancel her. The fireworks commenced again, but this time she didn’t have an audience for long.

Yes, Sammy Dan knew fire can work. It was very skillful at demolition, destruction and killing. All he ever killed with it though was the tent caterpillars that got in his fruit trees. He never minded dodging the falling dead, dying or soon to be stomped to death, caterpillars after he incinerated their white tent with a gasoline soaked rag on a stick. The sight of a no longer stricken cherry tree almost watered his mouth with the taste of a pie. He’d burned down his share of old buildings on his farm and the neighbors. They never were meant to be permanent and when the roofs leaked too much or the sides bowed, a fire was the best way to make room for the future. Old man Smith stopped raising chickens when he couldn’t do the work and when his boy inherited the place, the decrepit coop had to go. He had sense enough to light it with snow on the ground and it went up like a fierce, violent vacuum, sucking all the air nearby into a rampaging, run away inferno that he had to lean back against to avoid being pulled into as fuel. The flames shot up to the treetops and that caught the attention of someone driving by. When the local volunteer fireman arrived they just started to roast wieners on embers at the edge. It was a good thing they had a supply of hot dogs and beer to give them for their trouble. Years of caked and compressed chicken dropping had the ground still smoldering and glowing the next evening. It was a hell of a sight.

Without a doubt his favorite fire was the big bonfire behind the school in town where everyone brought their apples and kettles to make butter. While the ladies did the stirring, he and the men would keep the fire going and run the press making cider. After the kids turned in for the night, someone would break out the moonshine. A few sips from that jar and he didn’t have to stand near the fire to keep warm. It was always such a good night that he wouldn’t waste any of it on sleeping. Long about daylight he’d advocate for letting all the cider ferment and go over to a special sweetness. That was just the alcohol talking, he knew better.

The fire he kept going from October to April was beyond useful; it was necessary. There was a sustained feeling of security that the heat from the woodstove gave him and the colder it got outside the stronger the feeling. There was no better feeling than sitting by the stove, book in hand, supported by the knowledge of a heaping pile of oak in the woodshed. An exception might be, the warmth gained from standing by the stove in the morning after a shivering scamper from a cold bedroom. But all the work to keep that fire going began to be too much for him.

He had gotten to an age when the end was in sight and thus that event entered his thoughts with increasing frequency. How to leave? That was the question that he had to answer as his infirmities got the best of him and brought out the worst. Big Ralph, who for years has done the Crabtree fireworks, was there for him in his time of need. Sammy Dan decided his life would not end with a whimper. Ralph would help him go out on his terms. When the neighbors, fireman and town folks arrived at his flaming house, they would be greeted by a fireworks display they’d never forget. His life savings went into purchasing all the explosives, rockets, bombs, flares, and fuses that would proclaim his passing. Even if he wouldn’t see or hear it, the last knowledge he’d know would make it all easier. And as he worked on the plan with Ralph, he thought of all the fires and fireworks of his life and the fire and fireworks of his upcoming death. It was a lot of thinking and it all made more and more sense to him.