The city council said no one could shoot fireworks on July 5th. Since a torrential rain showed up outta nowhere on actual Independence Day and hosed us all for five hours straight, everyone in Sioux Falls, Harrisburg, Tea, and Brandon said to themselves, “The city can’t stop all of us,” and shot fireworks anyway. Including my dad.
My dad is many things, as most dads are. A man of logic. An engineer. A frugal breadwinner. But a really big one is a patriot. He loves America and the freedom it stands for. So much so that when July rolls around, his frugal nature makes sure to put aside at least 200 bucks just for fireworks. When my sisters and I were in our early and mid-teens, he’d take us out to a dubious pop-up tent on the outskirts of Harrisburg. We’d walk around in a sweltering shaded canvas, ogling at all the bright reds, whites, and blues on boxes that read in bold yellow triangles “CAUTION! HIGHLY FLAMMABLE!” while Dad haggled for smoke bombs, bottle rockets, and little pop-its for Mikey. We’d follow him as he walked out of the tent and hopped into his white pickup, 200 bucks less in his pocket but enough explosives in his arms to blow a hole in a bank safe.
This year, Dad had to buy the fireworks by himself. I had a board meeting, Beth had work, and Angie had a date. “But I’ll come by to help you set them off,” I’d told him in a quick text. A thumbs up was his reply. Another thing my dad is? A dry texter. He uses periods sometimes for “okay” or “that’s fine,” and it freaks me out a little still.
July 4th rolled around, and after a slow yet entertaining shift at work, I drove to my apartment, changed into clothes that weren’t covered in salad dressing, and headed to my parents’ house. I parked on the grass instead of the long, half-concrete-half-gravel driveway, knowing full well the night’s itinerary would need as few vehicles on the driveway as possible.
We had just started running around with the sparklers, crackling and almost blinding us, when the first raindrops hit. Before we could blink, the sky opened, and God’s tears blanketed us. Bethany and I sacrificed ourselves to grab the fabric lawn chairs and lug them into the garage before they floated away. Mom said we looked like we’d just been baptized. She was right—our hair and clothes stuck cold and wet to our colder and wetter skin.
After twenty minutes of standing under the porch awning, Dad determined the rain wasn’t letting up.
“Guess we’ll have to take a rain check,” he said, winking at me. I refused to give that awful dad joke a full laugh, although a puff of air did escape my nose. We went inside, and as Mom searched for some spare dry clothes I could borrow, Dad asked if I’d want to come back over tomorrow night to shoot off the fireworks.
“Sure,” I said. “I don’t have anything else going on.”
“Good,” he said with one of his thoughtful nods. “’Cause I was hoping you could help me shoot them off.”
The double-take I gave him could have come right out of a Looney Tunes episode. “Like, the big ones?”
“Yeah, the big ones.” He smiled.
He never let us kids help him shoot the big ones. And we were okay with that. The big ones were the last ten or so fireworks that came in these huge cardboard boxes to hold all the powders and cords and other rocket innards and when Dad set them off, they’d launch a clear mile up into the night sky and explode with enough force to set off a car alarm if the wind blew it two inches too far to the left. The big ones were why we watched Dad set fireworks off from the top of the driveway—any closer and a kid couldn’t get out of the way fast enough if something went wrong.
“Uh, sure. If you trust me with that,” is all I said. Because my parents don’t like it when I curse.
Dad patted my still cold, wet shoulder. “You’ll do great.”
Don’t you just love it when your parents have such unjustifiable trust in your capabilities? You almost wonder where they get the audacity.
Now it’s the next day, July 5th, and I drive back to my parents’ place, park on the grass, and help Mom and Dad set the fabric lawn chairs up. Then we put the lawn chairs back because they are still sopping wet, so we break out the plastic ones. Not as comfortable, but at least we won’t be sitting on the concrete.
The four of us kids use up the last of the sparklers, bottle rockets, and pop-its, and after taking turns launching Roman candles like we’re wizards casting Fireball, my dad looks at me and tilts his head towards the garbage bin that the big ones are sitting on.
Angie and Beth scamper up the gravel and plant themselves in those silly plastic chairs—they vehemently expressed their disinterest in setting off any of the big ones last night, so as the oldest, I’m taking one for the team. Mom helps Mikey secure his noise-cancelling headphones, and I follow Dad up the driveway to the garbage bin. He hands me a cardboard box the size of a large Tupperware container with a small green wick poking out of the top. It’s decorated with a cartoon of a panicking Revolutionary soldier juggling a round, black bomb with a lit fuse and angry eyes. The Rocket’s Red Glare is the apparent name for this one.
Dad grabs another big one and two of the punk sticks we use as lighters. “Let’s go,” he huffs with a grin, and we hike back down the driveway and onto the street. He hands me one of the thin, wide planks of wood we’ve been setting the other fireworks off on.
“With these big ones,” Dad says as he leans down and repositions his own plank, “you really have to be paying attention to your surroundings. Which way the wind’s blowing, any potential flammable objects nearby. If your plank is slanted, then the firework won’t go where you want it to.”
Another thing Dad is? An Eagle Scout. But I think Dad forgot the part where I am not an Eagle Scout. But I position my plank on the asphalt and set the firework on the plank. Once Dad inspects my placement work and nods, he hands me one of the punks.
“We’ll set them off together. Ready?”
No.
But then Dad smiles at me, and I change my mind.
I lean down, hold the punk to the fuse, and at the flash of flame I run like hell, dashing up the driveway, Dad on my heels. Mom and the siblings are laughing, most likely at how comedic my horrified face is. I don’t stop running until I’m pressed against the garage door, and only then do I turn and look at the fireworks.
There’s a pop, a whistle, and a BANG! as my big one launches a split second before Dad’s does. A brilliant flash of red lights up the whole street, followed by a mix of blue and white from Dad’s firework going off. It’s quite dazzling, and knowing I set one of those off makes it even more exciting. The rest of the family applauds, and Dad grins at me.
“Good job. Let’s get the next one.”
We make several more trips up and down the driveway, each firework getting bigger than the last. Some shoot off just one giant ball of fire, others have multiple shots that pop one after the other. One of Dad’s tilts a little too far right, and when it explodes, some of the particles almost hit my car, to which Dad says, “Whoops.” He continues giving me small tips on trajectory, angles, and adjusting for the wind. Each time we light a firework off, and I sprint as fast as I can, Dad chuckles and reassures me that I don’t have to run that far or that fast. I keep doing it, though, mainly for the comedic effect.
It’s when we get to the last two big ones that my mind makes one of those abstract connections between unrelated topics, and I turn to Dad with a stupid grin.
“I think this is what learning how to fish is like!”
Dad, of course, is baffled by that non-sequitur.
“You know, like how other dads teach their sons how to fish,” I elaborate as I lug a neon green box called The Nuke down the driveway. “The movies show him coaching his kid in the boat, giving him all the tips and tricks on how to catch an actual big one, a fish.” I plop the box down on my plank, check where the fuse is, and tweak the box’s placement a little more to the right. “It doesn’t even matter if they catch anything or not. It’s the concept of passing knowledge down. Spending time together. That’s what we’re doing right now, yeah?”
Dad is silent, moving more slowly as he sets up his last firework. I don’t think I should have said that.
My dad only has one son. A son with higher support needs autism. A son who is only a year younger than me physically, but mentally is still about three years old. Dad loves my brother, of course. But I know a small part of him wishes he could have had the chance to do the same things with his boy that his dad did with him. Things like fishing, soccer, and hunting. Things my brother doesn’t have the cognitive functions for. Things that my sisters and I never really had passion for, though we supported our dad’s interest in them.
“You ready?” I ask. He nods, still silent. My stomach curls. Now I know I hit a nerve. “Three, two, one, go.” My punk ignites my fuse, but this time I don’t start running until Dad does, and I follow him. He stops partway up the slope, standing on the lawn and looking up to observe our handiwork. Our fireworks rocket out of their boxes at the same time, mine a gaudy lime green, his a bright purple. The branches of our fireworks intermingle with how close we set them off, and our street is illuminated by a green and purple Venn Diagram.
I look up at him, and in the colored light bathing his face, I see Dad’s eyes shine with unfallen tears.
One more thing about my dad: He’s very sentimental. I got that from him.
As the fireworks fade, I slide my arms around him, and he wraps his around me. We hold each other tight, and we let our breathing be the only thing we hear for a few moments.
“Thanks for letting me help with this,” I say, as I pull out of the hug.
He’s not crying anymore, but he speaks in a whisper to ensure his voice won’t fail him.
“Thanks for wanting to spend time with your old man,” he smiles, soft and tender, and the look in his eyes tells me he’s not mad about what I said—they hold pride, joy. Almost gratitude.
“Of course,” I reply with my own smile. “Anytime.”
It’s only when I drive home that my brain processes what the look in Dad’s eyes meant, and I get all sentimental about how, in our own father-daughter way, he finally got to teach one of his kids to fish.
H. E. Dunkle is a page and stage storyteller, writing poems, plays, and everything in-between. She’s been writing non-stop since she graduated from the University of Sioux Falls with a B.A. in English and Theatre, and she’s had two of her plays selected for production at local theatre companies. Her current big project is tackling her first novel, which she works on alongside at least five other short-term projects.
Featured image by Designecologist on Unsplash.
