I’m lying on the grass in Beverly Park. It’s mostly dirt, beaten in by little league games and cookouts. The smells of charcoal, cigars, and sparklers, the way they sizzle like a cheering crowd. The heat, the humidity hugging my body. The cool stickiness of watermelon on my face and hands. The boom. The crackle. The whispers. Everyone whispering like the fireworks are sacred. Neil Diamond in the distance. “On the boats and on the planes, they’re coming to America.” Mom and dad, close by. Chasing my brother. Chasing with sparklers.
“Don’t touch that side,” dad told us. I touched it. It seared my skin. Seared. That’s what that means. The hiss. I didn’t make a sound. Everybody laughed at the face I made. Dad lifted me up to the water fountain. The cool water was so soft. I felt it on my hand but not where I had burned it. I felt safe, held up at the water fountain that runs endlessly from spring until fall. Later, after all the pinks and greens and blues clapped and spidered and chandeliered across the great big Southside sky, I cried. Only smoke and the smell of sulphur remained. Sulphur always smelled yellow-green to me.
“See the stars?” Dad asked me.
“No.”
I really couldn’t. Then the wind blew and the smoke cleared and I could see a few, far away and blinking in the galaxy. I rubbed my eyes and they were brighter.
“I see them.”
They were so bright now. All of them. Fearless.