Fireworks

FIREWORKS

     It was late afternoon, on the Fourth of July, but still too early for any festivities. The path off the Costa Grande Boulevard was easy to find, if a person knew where to look, and Dimple knew where to look. He walked his bicycle in the soft sand, threading his way between the thick, green and tan walls of palm trees and palmettos on either side, up the gently rising slope toward the sand dunes and blue-green Atlantic Ocean.

     Much further down the zigzagging path, out of sight of the boulevard, and beneath the dark, shaded canopy of the palm tree fronds, several other bicycles were leaning against tree trunks. Dimple leaned his bike against a tree, also. He then unstrapped a cold eighteen-pack of ice beer from the rear bike rack. Continuing up the path, between the large, white mounds of sand and countless palmettos, he now heard the faint murmur of unseen voices, blended with the liquid, whispering hiss of ocean waves.

     Cresting the peak of the incline, and following the foot path down to a vast sandy clearing, several scruffy, but harmless-looking men were now visible. They were seated on various over-turned milk crates and palm tree logs, in a circle around an unlit campfire. In numerous out-lying locations there were small tents and lean-tos tucked into ravines of sand and shrubs.
     One of the men, a Cuban, was the first to glimpse Dimple. "Hey, who goes there?" Chico called out.

     In the softly gathering twilight, occasional pops and whistles of distant fireworks were now becoming audible.

     "Only me," Dimple responded, flamboyantly. "Just another unfortunate traveler on the road of life!"

     "Another unfortunate drunk, you mean," somebody sniggered, sparking muffled, but good-natured laughter.

     "Look, guys!" George, another old acquaintance, exclaimed. "It's Dimple! You remember Dimple?!"

     "Hey, man!" Chico gushed. "Where you been? We thought you went and dropped dead someplace!"

     "Damn near did, little brother," Dimple said as he neared the circle. "Here, pass these around and help me celebrate!"

     "What you celebratin'?" Chico asked, taking the eighteen-pack. "You get laid or somethin'?"

     The circle of men laughed again.

     "Not yet . . . I mean, not lately, anyway. No, I'm celebrating that I finally got one of my stories published! I even made a few bucks off it, too!"

     "So that's why you've been gone so long?" George asked.

     "Yeah," Dimple replied dryly, settling down on one of the improvised camp stools. "Evidently, for me, it takes a while."

     He then retrieved one of the beers navigating the group.

     "So, Dimp," George said, opening one of the passing beers, "what's this story of yours about?"

     "Yeah, Dimp, tell us," one of the others prodded, a grizzled old man called Peanut, because of the shape of his brown, wizened head, and who was also appreciative of Dimple's generosity.

     "Well," he began, "in a way, I owe it all to you guys . . . it's about a bunch of no-good, homeless scalawags, much like yourselves, who society gets tired of putting up with, so they sic the police on them, and, to get rid of them, once and for all, the police kills them off!"

     Dimple's synopsis was greeted by only a few confused and half-hearted chuckles.

     "That's kinda a bummer, man," Chico said softly.

     "Yeah, man," George murmured, "that doesn't sound too good."

     "I didn't say it was good . . . I said it was published!" Dimple quickly knocked back the contents of the beer.

     Fireworks were now exploding more frequently in the distance, and the visibility of the group of men was beginning to gradually fade into only shapes and silhouettes in the deepening gloom.

     "Where'd your story get published?" George resumed, hesitantly.

     "The 'Misfits and Miscreants' magazine," Dimple boasted. "It's only been out in the book stores for a little while now, but hurry up and go read it before they change them out. . . . Hell, better still, go buy a copy!" he added, laughing.

     "Hey, do you guys still save the empty cans?" Dimple asked, as he fished out another full one.

     "Damn sure better!" Peanut burped. "Whitey picks 'em up and sells 'em. He says it beats workin' for a livin'!"

     "Hey, Whitey--where are you?" Jocko called. Jocko, who used to be an athlete until rescued by drugs, alcohol, and homelessness, peered into the gathering dusk. "He's around here somewhere."

     A short, stocky figure separated itself from the descending twilight.

     "What is it?" the shadow groused as it lurched from the vicinity of the tents.

     "Have a beer, you old grump," George teased. "Dimple's here with some more contributions to your livelihood!"

     "Hell," Chico said, "Whitey's the only one who makes any money anymore, sellin' cans."

      "Yeah, unless you like hangin' around the boardwalk, panhandlin' off the tourists all day," Jocko griped.

     "Some of the guys can do that, you know," Chico shrugged. "Don't make no attempt to try to work, just stand around with their hands out. Why should they work when people just give them money?"

     "What about the day labor pools?" Dimple asked. "Don't they still hire?"

     "Oh, yeah," Jocko sneered. "You can hang around there, too, if you want, until they run you off."

     "Yeah," Chico said. "Hang out at the boardwalk and maybe get money for standin' around, lookin' pathetic, or hang out at the labor pool, and just stand around."

     The wraith called Whitey opened one of the proffered beers.

     "Well, thanks to guys like you, I can stay in the recyclin' business for a while," Whitey said. "There's never been much money in it, but at least there's no competition, either. Most people, like you guys, are too damn lazy to mess with it."

     "Hey, man," someone whined, "the recyclin' place in Atlantic Beach is a long way to ride a bicycle!" 

     "So what else have you got to do? You got a hot date with Brooke Shields, or somethin'?"

     "Whitey got a write-up in the 'Beaches Shorelines' a little while ago!" George bragged.

     "Not by name, thank God," Whitey muttered.

     "Yeah . . . seems like while the Jacksonville Beach police were running homeless people out of their camps, and givin' 'em tickets for tresspassin', they were also takin' notes on where the camps were located. Later on, the cops bring out the local Boy Scouts, everybody all wearin' their cute little uniforms and plastic gloves, so the scouts can pick up all the cans, make some money recyclin', and earn their cute little 'environmental preservation' badges, or whatever, but guess what?!--Whitey had done beat 'em to the camps, and to the cans!"

     "Yeah, well," Whitey said, sheepishly, "I felt kinda funny about the whole thing. The mamager of the recyclin' center told me that the Boy Scouts were really pissed off, since there were so few cans left, but nobody ever told me that I was 'plunderin', or anything. I mean, I thought that I was doin' the woods a favor, you know, cleanin' out some of the trash, and makin' some beer money, too.

     "There I am, everyday creepin' through the woods like some damn explorer, then riskin' my life ridin' my bike past all the cars and traffic, carryin' dozens of pounds of alumnum, and then, come to find out, they think I'm some kind of thief!"

     "Yeah," Stumpy, a squat, troll-like man chortled, "Whitey versus the Boy Scouts!"

     "Everyday I'd pass police cars, and with me loaded down with huge, heavy plastic bags on my bike, on my way to the recyclin' center, everyday passin' the same damn police cars--what the hell did they think?--that every day I was washin' the same load of clothes?!

     "And riskin' my life, too! All those drivers out there, most of 'em talkin' on cell phones, so they're not even watchin' what they're doin', anyway, not usin' their turn signals 'cause they're only drivin' with one hand. . . . Why do you think I'm called 'Whitey'?! 'Cause my hair turned white from dodging all those damn cars every day!"

     "Settle down, Whitey, settle down," George soothed. "Here, have another beer."

     It was now dark enough that Peanut began gathering sticks and dead palm fronds to light the campfire. Stray streaks of brilliant, multicolored light now soared more often over the ocean to the east; dull thuds and pops vibrated across the faintly glowing, moon-lit sand dunes.

     "Don't make the fire too big," Stumpy joked. "Them Boy Scouts have put a price on Whitey's head!"

     "Don't laugh," George admonished. "At least he's makin' some money."

     "Not much," Whitey grumbled. "All the recyclin' money's downtown."

     "The labor farm camps have been in the news again," Peanut said, as he dropped off a load of wood for the campfire. "Go to work for them jerks all day, pickin' lettuce or somethin', and end up ownin' them money!"

     "Yeah, that's always good," Jocko said, stonily. "My favorite is when some 'suit' comes by with his briefcase and Starbuck's cappuccino, and he wants to help me out, so he says: 'Get a job!' Yeah, thanks, dude! I'll just walk across the street over there to the 'job orchard' and just pick one off a 'job tree'!"

     "I think all the low branches have already been picked already," George laughed.

     "Hey, I don't mind climbin'; just give me a ladder!"

     "I think the illegal immigrants have all the ladders, already," Stumpy interjected. "I read that, up north, people will pay twelve dollars an hour for illegal immigrants (no offence, Chico), but here in Florida, through a labor pool, we only get minimum wage, if we get hired out, for the same work."

     "'Cause they got to carry your ugly butt out to the job site!" Chico joked.

     "Yeah?" Stumpy retorted. "Well, some guy who was interviewed said that he preferred hiring illegal Mexicans to us Americans 'cause them aliens would just keep right on workin' even after the job's finished!"

     "Hell," Jocko spat, "them Mexicans prob'ly couldn't speak American good enough to even know that they was finished!"

     "They ain't never gonna learn to speak American, neither," Peanut declared. "The way some of them Mexicans act, they think they're gonna take over the whole shootin'-match, anyway."

     "Well," Jocko muttered, "if they're the only ones who can get work anymore, they prob'ly will."

     "Hey, it's not nobody's fault that you a bum, man, and nobody want to hire you," Chico chided.

    "I'm not a 'bum'!" Jocko flared. "I'll go any goddamn job I can get . . . just let me get it! I mean, don't hide the work from me, and tell me there ain't none, but then go and give it to all the foreigners just 'cause they'll work cheaper!"

     "An' then go and screw it all up so it's got to be done over again 'cause they don't understand American in the first place," Peanut added.

     "So, Jocko," Dimple asked, "what kind of work do you want?"

     "Damned if I even know anymore," he admitted glumly. "Seems like if I can't fit in a slot or be fed into a computer, I'm not even supposed to exist. . . . Sometimes I wonder if maybe I was born in the wrong century, or somethin'; like everything's all wrong, screwed up somehow, but I just can't seem to be able to figure it out. . . ."

     "Well, whatever the hell you 'figure out,'" Whitey growled, "stay away from my cans!"

     A moody silence had settled on the circle of brooding men, their chiseled, pensive faces etched by the growing shadows, and, now that it was almost dark, Peanut got the campfire started. The Fourth of July fireworks had already become louder and more frequent, with luminous bursts of red, green, yellow and blue pin wheeling across the fading horizon.

     "The city's gonna set off some fireworks from a couple of barges out on the ocean," George said, and the group shifted to face the east.

     "Anymore beer?" someone asked.

     "There's still a few floating around . . . so, Dimp," George asked, "where's your camp now?"

     "Further to the south, over the county line . . . I've already got a warning against me here in Duval County for 'sleeping in the woods.' The next time I get caught, I get checked in at the Downtown Hilton."

     (The "Downtown Hilton" is the affectionate street name for the Duval County Jail.)

     George grunted and took another gulp of his beer.

     "What about you guys?" Dimple asked, beginning to feel vaguely uneasy as the night quickly encroached. "Have the police ever bothered you here?"

     "Nah," Chico said. "We're quiet, don't bother nobody, clean up our trash. . . ."

     "What about your fire? Can anybody see it?"

     Although the flickering flames were small, the deepening, surrounding darkness, to Dimple, seemed to dance in the diminishing fringe of sand dunes and palmettos, as if alive and taunting; ominous, writhing shadows, lurching and swaying in the twilight.

     "Don't see how," Peanut mused. "We always keep it low, anyway. Mostly for show, you know?"

     "Hey, drink up, boys!" Whitey exclaimed. "I want to make a good can run tomorrow, and this camp is about the only game in town, anymore."

     "Why's that?" Dimple asked.

     "The police, I reckon," Whitey shrugged. "I find some camps that have been raided; I clean them out, but, now it seems like nobody ever comes back."

     "Then where does everybody go?"

     "Some of them go to jail, for a while, I guess. The rest?" Whitey pondered. "Who knows? . . . Maybe they move and I just can't find their camps again. . . . But what's even creepier are the abandoned camps where the tents are still standin', but they're all ripped and slashed to shreds, like in a horror movie, or somethin'!"

     "The police do that," Chico said. "And they 'posed to be our role models, and all--

     "Hey, man, what's wrong with you?!"

     Chico had caught Dimple glancing nervously over his shoulder, into the thickening darkness that had been silently and relentlessly immersing the surrounding sand dunes.

     "I'm okay, I guess," Dimple stuttered. "I just keep thinking that I see something moving, you know, just outside the firelight. . . ."

     "It's alright here, man! We done told you. It's only the shadows jumpin' 'cause of the fireworks . . . here, man, drink another beer and relax. You be okay!"

     Dimple reluctantly allowed his attention to be redirected to the scintillating display of pyrotechnics over the ocean. The fireworks were detonating steadily now, the dark horizon over the Atlantic Ocean lit by a strobe-light succession of bright, sparkling streaks and blossoms of kaleidoscopic colors, accompanied by a distant, thundering barrage of pops, whistles, and explosions.

     Faintly at first, but quickly growing louder, a rapid, pulsating, flapping noise could be distinctly heard approaching from above. Simultaneously, an intense probing finger of light was stabbing into the sand dunes, as if frantically searching, until, finally, the small group of startled men were spotlighted. The glaring light then ceased moving.

     Several of the men stood, alarmed and motionless, their cans of beer held forgotten as their anxious, bewildered gazes scanned the sky. Soon the whirling, whooshing clatter of a hovering helicopter could be identified, as the prop wash began to blow sand and campfire flames across the ground. The tents, and the men's clothing, were now flapping in the artificial windstorm like the wings of pinned, helpless birds.

     Standing also, Dimple, frozen within the piercing column of light, saw some of his colleagues twitch and spin, as gouts of blood suddenly sprayed from large holes in their bodies. They then fell to the sand, thrashing soundlessly, their faces twisted by unheard screams of fright and pain.

     From the corner of his eye, separating from the other shadows, Dimple discerned numerous black-uniformed shapes materializing from the dark, each carrying a blazing, yet inaudible assault rifle, the roar of gunshots masked beneath the cacophony of the fireworks and the mechanical rumble of the helicopter. Horrified, but no longer paralyzed, Dimple scrambled back against the swirling sand of one of the dunes. A black-uniformed, rifle-wielding figure zeroed-in on him.

     "Wait, stop!" Dimple shrieked over the din. "You can't do this to us! I wrote this! It's only a story! You stole this from me!"

     "Get a job, bum!" the faceless silhouette yelled, and squeezed the trigger.

             

THE END