I was around 9.
“Get your ammo and come on!” my brother said.
“Where we goin’?”
“Tanya’s house. She broke up with me.”
And I knew exactly what was about to go down.
I grabbed my “Bag of ammo:” a brown paper bag full of Bottle Rockets, Fire Crackers, and Roman Candles, and followed the fellas to the train tracks.
“This better be good.” I say to my brother. “I won’t be able to get any more fireworks until the next Holiday.”
My brother, myself, and a handful of friends walked the train tracks to “Tanya’s” house, which sat right off the tracks. In fact, we wouldn’t even have to leave the tracks.
We arrive and stand there looking at the back of her house: Five boys in ragged clothes and on a mission.
“Everyone, get your ammo ready. Lynn, you shoot Bottle Rockets at the porch.”
“You know, after we do this, there is no chance of making up with her,” I say to my brother.
He puts his lit cigarette up to the fuse of a Roman Candle. “There’s no chance of making up with her.”
“Everybody, start firing your ammo,” he shouts.
I begin shooting my bottle rockets. My brother shoots Roman Candles. And I remember hearing someone’s “ammo” make a squealing sound as it whizzed by me.
Yep. We gave that neighborhood one of the weakest fireworks shows it’s ever seen.
After it was over, we stood there. All of us looking and feeling tough.
“Tanya,” who had walked outside to see the spectacle, screams, “See! This is why we’ve broken up! Grow Up!”
—We were dumb when we were kids.
