I chugged my beer and said hey a lot because I knew every Dawnella and Preston in this place. Mash Jolly, one of the rough kids I rode the bus with long ago, pounded me on the back and said “Damn, man, tight end! I totally fucking called that one.” I said yeah, he totally fucking did. He said some of them later were driving over to that waterfall place with the swimming hole in Scott County, Devil’s Bathtub. The hair on my neck stood up. But I just said Sure, man, knowing full well they’d be shitfaced and doing no swimming in the dark.
I watched the smile and curly head of Fast Forward moving through the crowd like the slick fish he was. Guys were pushing in to speak to the famous QB. Girls, more so. I saw Emmy hand him a piece of cake, arching her back in that girl way, where you notice the ass. Him laughing, her laughing, the little bow he made, taking the cake. So much starshine between those two, sunglasses needed. I wondered if she knew I brought him here. Well, that he’d brought me.
“Demon! Where the hell you been hiding at?”
I racked my beer-lubed brain for the name of this girl that had popped me too hard on the arm. One of the Peggot cousins I’d not seen in dog’s years. Jay Ann. Ruby’s daughter, Hammer Kelly’s stepsister. I was still working through this while she told me she heard I’d moved away, and then I turned up on the football field, what the hell and so forth. I filled her in.
“Coach Winfield? In that house that looks like the frickin Disney Castle?”
I told her the house wasn’t that big on the inside, which was a lie.
Ruby was the oldest of June’s sisters, and those kids were the crustier end of the lot. But good as gold, like all Peggots. I thought of Hammer sitting up with his rifle, protecting June and Emmy. Jay Ann asked me did I know about Hammer and Emmy, which everybody did: he’d been wanting to go out with her ever since they moved back here. Maggot always teased Emmy about it. She always threatened to rip out a nose ring, or geld him. “Hammer’s a brave man,” I said.
“He has done swallowed the rubber minner, hooks and all. Slow and sure wins a race.”
“Points for trying,” I said.
Jay Ann said the party had started at noon as a family picnic with some aunts and cousins. Then June’s nurse friends showed up after their shifts, and then the rest of the county, so this wingding was officially out of control. Right on cue, June came walking down among us with a metal first aid kit the size of an overnight grip. Somebody cut the music.
“Y’all listen here. I am off work today, so if you’re intending to blow a hole in yourself, there’s some gauze and Betadine in here. Help yourself.”
Somebody up in the woods lit a string of firecrackers, tat-tat-tat. Everybody laughed.
“If the damage runs to eyes or limbs, you can come in the house and call the ambulance. That’s all. I love ya and I mean it, try to keep what you came here with. I’m talking to you, Everett.” She aimed a finger pistol at her brother.
Everett raised his Solo cup. “No problem. I’ll find me one of your pretty nurse friends.”
“No sir you will not. They’re here to wind down after twelve-hour shifts, so if you ask them to doctor you, I will personally ruin your life. Got it? Happy Fourth. Have a big time.”
Everybody cheered like she’d given the speech of all ages. She walked back up to the house waving one arm, not in a bad mood, just being June. I had yet to say hello, so I swam through bodies to the house. It was almost as crowded as outside, mostly with Peggot kin. Aunts standing close in the kitchen like cigarettes in the pack, uncles splayed on furniture like butts in the ashtray. Ruby could always be found under her smoke cloud, hair sprayed to moderate fire-hazard level, sporting on this occasion a top made out of a bandanna that probably mortified her kids. Old homecoming queens never die. She and June were standing with Maggot and Emmy and, it took me a second to realize, Hammer, that was with Emmy. I’m saying with her. He had his arm draped around Emmy’s shoulders. Looking sure enough like the fish that swallowed the rubber minnow. I made my way over, shooting Maggot a look, wondering what the hell I’d missed here.
“Demon, hey,” Emmy said, leaning forward to give me a hug, then holding out her droopy hand like I was supposed to kiss it. “Isn’t it precious? It’s a garnet. My birthstone.”
I stared at Emmy’s hand. June laughed at me. “The ring, hon.”
“Oh.” A garnet must be a tiny chip you’d sweep up after breaking a glass that was red in color. “So you two are what,” I said. “Engaged?”
Emmy laughed, the aunts laughed, Hammer’s fish smile got wider if possible, and June clarified they were just going out. The ring was a birthday present. Was this a birthday party? Ruby in her gravel voice said, “Hammer’s been stuck like a tick on this gal for years. I reckon he finally done wore her down.” More laughing. Maggot shot me a look like, I have told you this.
June was tickled. Tall, polite, flop-haired Hammer Kelly that the Peggots all adored since the day he came on board with Ruby’s husband. (Now ex.) Not one of your hard boys to handle. Seeing June dote on him put me in a mood to break something. I needed to get out of there.
I saw Ms. Annie across the room, not with Mr. Armstrong but, big shock, Mr. Maldo. If there’s any less of a party guy than Mr. Maldo on the planet, pray for him. Maybe she meant to fix him up with some Peggot bachelorette. Out of his janitor coveralls, in a pink long-sleeved shirt that mostly hid his shrunken arm, it was him all right, even if I had to look twice to be sure. Then right at that minute something caught my eye through a back window, moving in the woods. People. Fast Forward and Mouse booking it up the hill with a crowd behind them, mostly older kids I didn’t know.
I slipped outside. They were all headed up to the wrecked cabin. I got close enough to see Mouse holding court in her silver jumpsuit, dealing out something from a Pringles can that was not Pringles. Small black disks. People with money in hand, Fast Forward watching over everything like he’s the Squad Master. I got a bad feeling and split.
The fireworks had started. Not Roman candle shit but the real deals that shriek up and burst. Fire flowers. I found a gap in the woods and sat on the ground to watch them crack open. Flowers making other flowers, taking turns with the colors. I wondered how you’d go about that, painting the sky. It’s Chinese people that do it. Their writing is on the boxes, with only the names in English: Waterfall Mountain, Peony Diadem Comet, Aerial Dragon Egg Salute. Maybe in Chinese they’re all called Orgasm with Lots of People Around. Because that’s the sum of it.
I had myself a moment there, against a poplar trunk, in the woods where once on a time I was happy. Fat trees with fat green leaves, fat boomer squirrels full up with the fat of the land. July being God’s month. And the end of the road for my dad. I’d spent so many Fourths mad at Mom for being a killjoy, without thinking of the man that gave me life, signing off from his. Never taking a minute to count up all I’d seen, that he never got to see. Yes, life sucks, hungry nights and hurtful people, but compared to buried in a box, floating in a universe of nothing and never? I wouldn’t trade. I watched a pinwheel of green fire swirl up over the treetops throwing white sparks. My dad, mom, and little brother were missing out on a lot of amazing shit.
I guess I took a small snooze, because a crack of fireworks woke me. It was full dark now. I went back up to the cabin, too curious for my own good, and sorry for it too. There was no more action up there, just guys lying on their backs, and girls that should have fixed their dresses before passing out. Mash Jolly and some other guys sat against the log walls with their heads slumped on their chests. I felt sick. Needles have always rattled me like that. Kit on the ground, or still in people’s hands. No Mouse, no Fast Forward.
I got back down the hill quick. Somebody had made a bonfire, and I was glad to see Fast Forward squatting on his bootheels, feeding sticks to the flames. It was the stage of a party where the keg has run dry, Solo cups roll sadly in the dirt, cans and bottles turn up from emergency supplies. The Peggot aunts must have seized the equipment because the music was oldies, Michael Jackson and Prince. People sat in lawn chairs watching the fire like a TV show. Maggot was standing by himself. I smacked him from behind, harder than I meant to.
“Damn, you spilled me brother. Beer.” He was woefully drunk, looking down at his chain pants. You have to wonder how they’d wash. Pretty sure that was up to Mrs. Peggot.
“What happened to the lovebirds?”
He cogitated. “Give it up, man. Emmy’s a Britney, and you sir. You are a SpongeBob.”
“Fuck you. I’m a General, first string.”
“’Scuse me. A SpongeBob with a number on his SquarePants whaddayacallit.”
“Jersey. Eighty-eight.”
A long pause. “Jer-sey. Ten-four.”
“Explain to me how Hammer Kelly gets to fly in the Britney zone.”
Another pause. “I have a theory. He found Aunt June’s G-spot.”
Coming from a position of solid shitfaced, that was a pretty good one I thought.
Fast Forward was watching us from across the bonfire. I didn’t wave or anything stupid, just wished. Until he stood up, flicked his cigarette butt into the fire, and came over.
“Gentlemen.” He stood between us, an arm around each. I grew a couple inches, Maggot pushed hair out of his eyes. I asked if he got the chance to meet June, that was giving this party.
“The gracious hostess that invited us to use her Band-Aids?”
