Jack's blog: "stories from the 4th"

so about 10 years ago i was on a neighborhood street near my buddies house with close to a dozen other kids/teens out and about, setting off firecrackers, etc. the kids down the street came home from the indian reservation with a goddam FOOTLOCKER full of explosives (which was cool) but all 4 of them were completely trashed out of their minds (which is foreshadowing).

they pile out of the car, and drop the crate on the pavement next to it. one of them grabs a 4ft string of firecrackers and, visibly swaying, tries to light it. he misses the long fuse, catches one of the first short ones, the first couple firecrackers go off in his hand, so he jumps and drops the whole string.

....right into the crate of other stuff

i look over at the first few pops, and see all 4 of these guys scatter. theres a couple bigger bangs, a few rockets shoot out, and i'm just starting to realize something is amiss when theres a fucking thunderous boom. turns out they had almost 2k worth of quarter sticks of dynamite, artilery shells, rockets, you name it. anyhow, something huge went off, shattered the box, and threw dozens of lit explosives into the air. EVERYONE scatters. theres m500s blowing up in the air around us, shells blowing everywhere, my buddy got hit flat in the forehead with a chunk of wood the size of his hand from what was left of the crate, a few exploded on the roof of the house nearby, etc etc.

everything comes to a stop, we all look around, the drunk guys dive back in their car and speed off. the rest of us realize no ones hurt, theres no fires, everything is fine, and the front door of the house opens. the man walks out on his front step in a ratty brown bathrobe with a beer in his hand and says "no more of that now" and goes back inside. we're all totally stunned, he had no idea at all what had just happened out here.

so yeah, rain of explosives, comedy, suspense, pretty amazing in retrospect but fucking terrifying when it was going on!