4th of July

I'm a sucker for fireworks. I suppose this is not a terribly revelatory statement--but I have it bad. At the end of the my first marriage, I took the boys to Denver where my dad lives, without my soon to be ex, for a week. I drove straight through to Green River the first day, through Barstow, Vegas, Mesquite and even St. George, where any sensible person would stop on the first day out from L.A.. The boys were tired, and I had pushed them too hard. I was clearly getting the fuck out of Dodge with the two things that mattered most two me, one of whom convinced his brother to put a half-full juice box on my seat while I pumped gas at one of our "leisure" stops. I sat down in the car and felt a lukewarm rush of shitty apple juice hit my face and cascade down. This was a low point in my life, but I was surprised to find that I wasn't pissed. I laughed, Riley laughed and Spencer has never stopped laughing. If they were happy enough to fuck with me without real fear of physical harm, then I must be doing something right and life would go on.
Fireworks, sorry. We made it into Parker the next day on July 2nd and passed a hundred fireworks stores on our way to the Pinery. The kids noticed them. The next day, I took the boys back into town with my father's blessing and spent $150 on fireworks, which is a lot. I bought everything they had, not because I was trying to make the kids happy (juice boxes are cheaper), not because I wanted to drown my pain, not because I can't find anything to do with my massive teacher's salary, but because I like to blow shit up. I like to see colored fire, hear dog-deafening whistles and know that I lit the match. It just feels good.
On the way back from Denver (there were no juice boxes involved) we stopped at a Paiute Indian reservation between Mesquite and Las Vegas for one reason. These Indians don't have casinos, they have fireworks, and not the kind of "safe and sane" crap that we had in Colorado. The Paiute know how to party and must have a vacuum transit system to China, because this place is the final scene of Citizen Kane crane shot, only with fireworks instead of statues. We bought bottle rockets, M80's, and a brick of Black Cat firecrackers. When we got back to California, about a week before I moved out of the house I bought and painted and crawled under, replaced the toilets and killed the rats in, we had a little fun. I blew some shit up, illegal style. It was a final fuck you to my neighbors, my ex and the life I thought, at the time, was surely coming to an end. The juice box incident taught me that the kids would be fine, but it would take longer for me. As each Black Cat exploded, so many that the neighbors threatened to call the man, I blew up a little more of the dream.
It's been 7 years since that day, and therapy, age, a new (decidedly better) wife, have made things better. Look, we all have these stories. The fucked up times even outnumber the good for many of us, but, I swear, as I lay under the fireworks last night and watched shit explode with my second wife, my mother, her mother, my sister, her "dude who fathered her children", their kids, and not my children,who were two miles away with their mother, I know that it gets better. I'm happier today than I have ever been in life. Now if I could just stop people from wanting to play Lee Greenwood, but that will take longer.