Mason pulled two beers from the six-pack on the workbench, tossing one to Woodrat and keeping the other for himself. It still felt a little weird to be drinking with Woodrat, he thought as he cracked his open. Hell, it felt weird to not be calling him Uncle Woodrat. That was how he’d known the man all his life. But now Mason was a man too, eighteen and tall and strong, and Woodrat had insisted he drop the Uncle.
“What d’you think?” Woodrat asked as Mason took his first sip.
“It’s… weird,” Mason said. The beer tasted like someone had poured one of his mom’s flowery air fresheners into it.
“Yeah, that’s that microbrewery craft shit for you,” Woodrat chuckled. “But I’m not about to let you drink some cheap-ass gas station beer, either. This is the lesser evil, trust me.” He took a swig of his own, then collected the remaining cans into a plastic cooler that he hoisted up under his arm. “Come on, we gotta get to the pit before they start. Grab the chairs, will you?”
Mason wrangled up the old aluminum-and-polyester lawn chairs. Neither one folded right anymore, because of bent frames and corroded joints, but he’d learned how to carry them. Sitting on those faded red-white-and-blue straps was as much a Fourth of July tradition as the fireworks show itself.
They headed up out of Woodrat’s cul-de-sac, then jaywalked across Keeley Street, leaving behind the shitty-bachelor-pad part of the neighborhood and passing into the shitty-family-home part. The sun was going down, and nobody was out driving. In the evening quiet, they could hear Lady Ruth, the Carmody kids’ border collie, barking even before the Carmody house was in view.
“We oughta get that dog outta there,” Woodrat said, shaking his head. He’d said pretty much the same thing every day since the Carmodys had gotten the dog. Mason had never seen Lady Ruth outside; she just bayed and whined from somewhere inside all day long.
“It ain’t right,” Woodrat went on, quieter, more to himself. He slowed down, glancing at the house, listening. “Nobody oughta get a dog they ain’t gonna let run around. They’re tormenting that girl. I really oughta have a talk with Bill Carmody. His kids don’t even play with her.” He stopped completely, and finished off his first beer, crumpling the can in his hand as he glared daggers at the front door. “I really oughta take her away. She’d have the run of my yard.”
Mason waited. Sometimes Woodrat got like this, especially about Lady Ruth, and it was best to just wait until he settled down.
They heard a distant tinny echo, the sound of the announcer’s voice booming from the speakers at the fairground over the hill. The show was about to start; that pulled Woodrat out of his fury. “Come on,” he said, shaking his head, then turning on his heel and picking up the pace.
They passed the last house on the street, and there, like an idiot’s wide-open mouth, was the pit. The space had once been occupied by a little grove of poplars and hickories, but now there was only a big, rectangular hole in the ground, lined with a few slabs of concrete and an unfinished chain-link fence. The county had claimed the land decades before and dug the pit, saying it was necessary for drainage or soil retention or something-or-other; it didn’t seem to do much of anything, really, except slowly fill up with stiltgrass and chickweed. But it did make for a good spot to watch the fireworks without any trees in the way.
Mason set out the chairs, and Woodrat dropped the cooler into the dirt between them, opening it up and pulling out another for himself. They sat down and settled in just as the first firework streaked up into the darkening sky. It bloomed into a big flash of red and white, and a split second later they heard the boom.
“Happy Fourth of July, man,” Woodrat said, taking another beer and clinking the can against Mason’s. Mason smiled and took another sip. The weird flowery taste got a little better the more he drank.
More fireworks shot up, most of them in various red-white-and-blue combinations. Some burst and faded; others crackled and sizzled and sent streamers of light down towards the ground.
“Your dad and I used to do this every year,” Woodrat said, raising his voice over the thunder. “Sat right here, in these same chairs, drinking beer while the big show lit up the sky.”
Mason let him talk. Woodrat pretty much gave the same speech every year.
“Of course, we were drinking cheap-ass gas station beer,” the big man said, chuckling. “But only because I couldn’t afford anything better. I’d have treated him to this craft shit if I could. I’d have done anything for that boy…”
He went quiet, then raised his can as another firework shot off. “To you, Donny Elster. At least you left a damn fine boy behind.” He finished his beer, then grabbed another, looking over at Mason as he did so. “You look just like him, you know,” he said. His voice had fallen to a weird whisper, like he wasn’t sure if he meant to say the words aloud or not.
Mason just nodded. Woodrat told him all the time, especially when he was drunk, that he looked just like his dad. From old pictures he’d seen, it was true, but it had never meant all that much to him. Kids looked like their parents, it wasn’t anything special.
“I mean it,” Woodrat said. He took a big swig and leaned over in his chair. The beer was starting to get to him, his eyes a little glazed, his movements ungraceful. Mason was still on his first can, but there was a growing pile of empty cans on the ground between them. Woodrat stared at him, until Mason turned to meet his gaze, which made him glance away. But it was only a moment before he started to ramble again, undeterred. “I remember the first time we came out here,” he said, looking up at the sky but not seeming to see the fireworks. “They’d just dug the pit, and it was your— it was his idea that it would make a good spot to watch the fireworks. It was perfect. Not a cloud in the sky, the starlight and the flashes of red and blue lighting him up like he was glowing…”
He trailed off, shook his head, and finished another beer. Mason didn’t say anything, just turned to watch as another round of fireworks started up. He could feel Woodrat’s eyes moving back to stare at him again, but he tried to ignore it. The old guy was just drunk and sentimental.
For a while, Woodrat mumbled to himself, and Mason tuned it out. He found himself wishing he hadn’t agreed to drink this year. When Woodrat glanced away for a moment, he poured the rest of his beer out into the grass. He’d barely taken more than a few sips, but he really didn’t want any more than that. He’d decided he didn’t like the taste after all.
The fireworks continued. The show was never more than ten or so minutes long—nothing like the enormous displays that would be thundering over DC or Baltimore— but it felt like it was taking forever.
He heard Woodrat call something out to him, though he couldn’t make it out. Before he could look at the old guy, ask what he’d said, he felt rough fingers intertwining with his own, and he stared down at his hand as Woodrat took hold of it.
“Donny,” Woodrat said. His voice was shaky. “Donny, I should have—”
“Woodrat,” Mason snapped, cutting him off. He really, really didn’t like the way Woodrat was looking at him. He pulled his hand away from the old man’s.
“What?” Woodrat asked. He had the wide eyes of a church lady listening to a sermon.
“I’m not my dad,” Mason said, slowly, emphasizing the words like he was explaining something to a child. “He’s dead, dude.”
He wasn’t sure how Woodrat would react— angry, maybe, or hurt, sad, any number of things— but the old guy didn’t seem to react at all. He just went quiet, and his eyes seemed to unfocus, like he was seeing something else. Mason waited, grateful for the noise of the fireworks filling the awkward silence.
Finally, Woodrat seemed to come back to himself, his face red and ashamed. He cleared his throat, looked down at the beer in his hand, swirled the dregs around in the bottom of the can.
“‘Course you ain’t him,” he said, barely audible behind the bangs and fizzles from over the fairgrounds. “Sorry. Sorry, man. I just wish I’d had the chance…”
He trailed off, shook his head. “We all miss him,” he said, finally. “Everyone who knew him, everyone around here. We all liked him, and we miss him. That’s all.”
The final barrage of fireworks went up, and the sky was daylight-bright for a moment before the colors and sound faded. They could hear a few distant cheers. Mason didn’t say anything. He wanted to go home.
Somewhere off behind them, Lady Ruth started barking again. The barks were sharper, higher-pitched and desperate. The thunder of the show had scared her and riled her up.
Woodrat raised his beer, as though he was going to finish it. Instead, he chucked it down into the pit. It bounced once, twice, and then it fell into the stiltgrass and vanished out of sight.
“I really gotta get that dog outta there,” he said.
