How We Spend the 4th
When the kids were younger, we used to pack them up and fly somewhere that didn’t celebrate the 4th. Or, if they did, it was in a less percussive fashion. But that got expensive.
Now we lock down. Even though it’s usually a gorgeous summer day, we stay inside with the blinds drawn. The kids want to go outside and play but we tell them it’s too dangerous. We tell them we’ve lost our jobs. We tell them we’ve had to move to the rough part of town, the part they’re always hearing about on the news. They’re way too dumb to realize they’re in the same house. They’re excited about the loud sounds outside. We tell them that’s the sound of people shooting other people. They believe us because they don’t even know what a calendar is. They still want to go out and see until it starts to get really loud.
We tell them to get to bed right after dark, saying “It might be the last night you ever get to sleep. And trust me, if that happens, you’ll be thankful you’re not awake.”
They stare at us with blank eyes.
“What we’re trying to say is … we just hope they don’t make it inside.”
It takes them a while to get to sleep but we don’t go into their room to quiet them because they’re already being quiet, speaking in hushed, terrified whispers. All we have to do is walk by the door and they’re immediately silent, fearing we might be intruders. Hopefully they end up with decent survival skills, at least.
We pour some wine and laugh and bitch about the fireworks the way we used to bitch about the kids and we wonder what it’s like to live in a bad area. When it’s finally quiet, we get a little sad.
We both remain mysterious to one another.
