My daughter Kay and I stood outside the front door of Al’s Fireworks Emporium and watched Al and his sons drag large wood crates across the showroom floor. They ignored us and continued to barricade the door and windows.
“Come on Al, we’re customers, not a hurricane.”
“Really? You could’ve fooled me.”
“Come on Al. Let me in. I’ve got a coupon.”
“Well, why didn’t you say so? Let me get the door for you.”
“Seriously?”
“Hell no. Now go away or I’m calling the cops.”
Kay tugged on my sleeve. “Maybe we should go.” She pointed to the roof where Al’s oldest son Jimmy stood armed with the largest bottle rocket I had ever seen.
“Hey Jimmy. How much for just that one? Think your dad would take a check?”
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“People hate change,” I said to Kay who was at the wheel, at least until I got a few minor licensing and insurance issues cleared up. “Great innovators like your dear old dad here tend to scare the hell out of them.”
“Clearly.”
“Ninety nine point nine nine percent of the world is full of your so- called ‘normal people’, your boring people, the squares, nerds and dweebs. Like Al and his boys. They look at the rebels, the trailblazers, the people like your old man and they panic, like I’m some kind of kook, a nut, a heretic, a quote-unquote ‘domestic terrorist’, whatever that’s supposed to mean.”
“Uh huh.”
“Just look at what the normies, the squares, nerds and dweebs of the past said about Newton, Copernicus and Edison.”
“Yep,” the kid nodded. “Or Rudolph, Kaczynski and McVey…”
“Exactly,” I said. “Which ones are they again?”
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I’ll have to admit her scepticism stung. But it wasn’t completely un-warranted. We’d hit a couple minor snags since we’d launched our latest business venture last weekend in a criminally underserved market as endangered species fundraisers specializing in the field of pyrotechnics.
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Our first gig, a Friday afternoon bingo bonanza, bake sale and indoor fireworks spectacle at the St. Jude Nursing Home and Nature Center. The only supermax facility in the tri-state area. The warden had called the show early on account of the weather. And a minor dustup between the Alzheimer’s-affected wing and local authorities in order to provide extra security for the show. Despite what I felt were a few unwarranted criticisms from my one woman peanut gallery I felt that, over all, the event had been a win-win for everybody involved.
For just one of many examples, we all learned that, in large groups, Alzheimer’s-affected residents, while easily confused and disoriented – apparently unaccustomed to indoor fireworks spectacles for whatever reason – are capable through slaps and loud explicit curses, of organizing an impressive impromptu parade of sorts, straight out the emergency exit of the high security ward, across all eight lanes of the interstate and right in the front door of the Whole Foods, the only minor mishap during the march occurring when the produce manager panicked, started screaming something about a zombie apocalypse and repeatedly tasered a little old lady, who, if we’re being totally honest here, kinda had it coming….
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Our next engagement, a Saturday celebration of life at Ozzy’s Austrian Ostrich Ranch and Royal Waffle House was in my opinion our most successful spectacle to date. I felt like, overall, despite a few unwarranted criticisms from you-know-who had gone pretty well, for the most part. So there was absolutely no reason for Ozzy to have panicked like he did and called 911. Kay and I had had the situation under control and the fires contained within minutes of the last explosions…
I mean really, it was clearly the kind of thing bound to happen sooner or later at any ranch where you’ve got a bunch of wild ostriches running around willy-nilly like that. If anything it was the fireworks company at fault this time when they once again failed to include a single warning about what might happen if someone maybe forgot to secure the launch tubes in a quote unquote upright and stable position. Like what might happen if said tubes tipped over and fired a whole lot of military grade white phosphorous into what’d proved to be an exceptionally flammable breed of endangered ostriches.
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Our Easter Sunday Extravaganza, to quote the family comedian, had been quite the blast.
Literally.
I’d been contacted over something called the dark web, which it turns out is a great place to find jobs when you do most of your work with kitchen sink explosives. This time it was a fundraiser for the spotted tree skink and what ironically enough would turn out to be its equally endangered habitat, something called a regional power substation located in the middle of an otherwise lovely nature preserve. Why the skinks would choose to live amongst all that metal and high voltage is beyond me. The kid had her usual running commentary, pithy remarks about my quote unquote “rapidly escalating pattern of criminal recklessness bordering on eco-terrorism.” I took the hint and doubled down on the fireworks.
When it was all over, but the pending lawsuits, a less charitable person, such as a certain little miss smarty pants legal advisor and as of yet unindicted co-conspirator slash getaway driver I’ll not name here might suggest, there was, if not quote unquote unimpeachable proof of causation, a pretty freaking strong correlation between the tree skinks’s ultimate demise, not to mention what the federal government is calling the largest regional blackout in the midwest in modern history, all linked to a certain fundraising specialist who may or may not have been encouraged by a group of spectators to rig an impromptu entertainment display, otherwise known as an I.E.D., to launch what I’d been assured at the time was a large water tank into low orbit to wow a flagging crowd of skink and spectator alike. As the kid had been plenty quick to point out the crowd had been wowed alright – wowed right out of their tie-dye, birkenstocks and clip-on gray ponytails when what turned out to be a commercial grade propane tank connected to the substation exploded and went in just about every direction possible.
All at once.
Except up.
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Endangered species. You can’t save them all. But that doesn’t mean I’m gonna stop trying. Not any time soon. What are a couple of court orders and international arrest warrants when the future of our planet is at stake…
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