Bonfire

In his New England town, when Hawkins was a boy, Independence Day was celebrated by the torching of a bonfire, an immense tower of stacked railroad ties stuffed with tyres. The grown-ups set up canvas lawn chairs on the ancient cinder track or the scrub grass of the ball field, kids horsed around on bikes or edged as close as the volunteer firemen would allow, faces baking, hoping for explosions. An updraught of opaque black smoke shot skyward from the topmost tier, obscuring the last of the twilight. Miles away, you could see it, smell the creosote and incinerated rubber. It would still be smouldering the next morning, a mess of acrid debris, like where a small plane had crashed.

Years later, finished with a post-college internship and employed by a marketing firm on the West Coast, he was invited to a Fourth of July party at a co-worker’s apartment fifteen floors up in a high-rise. The city had stewed in crap air all day, but on the balcony where he stood, the onshore breeze seemed fresh, cleansed. He’d been on the job just two months, barely knew anyone, including his host, but was glad to be asked, and glad he’d actually come. The stereo was thumping out Johnny Winter, Little Feat, the Allman Brothers, people were drinking beer, wine coolers, carrying around tiny paper plates. When it was dark, everyone would cluster out here to watch the fireworks over in Los Fuentes. That was the plan.

After a while, the host ambled out, asked how he was faring, was he meeting people, etc.?

I’m good, Hawkins answered, raising his Lucky Lager.