Fireworks in the Rain Read Free Page B

the fireworks weren’t cancelled, there is an emotional difference between watching fireworks on a nice night, and getting wet while you watch. And if everything you’re doing is based on emotional subtleties, you can find yourself in trouble just from a bit of rain.
    I watched the sky.
    It wasn’t hard finding the park. From what I could tell, it was a nice park: they had a dog area that made me miss Susi, which made me miss Ren; they had a baseball diamond that was, at present, occupied with fireworks preparations; they had a lot of what I’m sure they called “natural terrain;” they had a picnic area; and they had a parking lot that was filling up fast. I was looking around for a good vantage point from which to see as much of the lot as possible, when a light green 2011 Acura pulled up. And there he was.
    How many of these had I done? Certainly it was in the tens of thousands. And still, my heart still gives a flutter when I first set eyes on the Focus. I was about to meddle with him, to change him, to alter him. If I messed up, not only would the project fail, but I’d leave him worse instead of better. If that sort of thing didn’t matter to me, I couldn’t have been the sort of person who’d have been recruited to do this work in the first place; I’d have been a shoemaker in Judea, lived a life, and died.
    In exchange for the possibilities of immortality, you get the possibility of fucking things up, and having to live with that the rest of your lives. Yeah, it’s a good trade; but never think we don’t care.
    He got out, stretched, and removed a lawn chair, a blanket, and a cooler from his trunk. He still looked in pretty good shape—tall and sort of lanky; a bit like me, now that I think of it. But my hair is longer.
    The lawn chair had a sort of ribbon on it, so he could haul it over his shoulder, put the blanket over the other shoulder, and use both hands for the cooler. That’s the sort of guy he was. He set off, and I followed him. He was wearing dark blue shorts, a sleeveless white T-shirt, and a hat that made me think of Colonel Blake on MASH. It was not, let us say, his usual outfit.
    There was a big field between the parking lot and the baseball diamond, and he found a spot in it as close to the diamond as they were letting people. I walked up to him as he was spreading out the blanket, put a somewhat puzzled, hesitant look on my face, and said, “Slippy?”
    His head whipped around—pleased, then confused. “I—”
    “Phil,” I said, smiling and extending my hand. “Kansas State. I’m a track fan. Saw all of your meets. We never met, but I’d recognize you anywhere.”
    He took my hand, smiling. His handshake was strong, and I liked it that he didn’t pretend to know me. “You live in Vegas?” he asked me.
    “I do. Near Arville and Trop. You?”
    “Right here in Providence.”
    “Nice!” I said. “You must be doing well.”
    “I worked for Wachovia. Wells Fargo now.”
    “Ah. That’s gotta keep you busy.”
    “Reminds me of the Las Vegas cocktail waitress joke. You know it?”
    “Too many cocktail waitresses,” I said.
    He grinned, and I put my hand in my back pocket and turned on my iPhone. It was soft. So soft, you could hardly hear it: John Denver singing “Rocky Mountain High.” The hardest part of this job is when you have to deal with things like that. But one man’s slap is another man’s switch; what can you do?
    “Beer?” he said.
    “Love one.”
    He opened the cooler and got me out a Coors Light. I popped it, held it up like I was toasting him, and drank. The things I do for the world that the world will never know.
    The temperature had crept up a bit, but was still a quite tolerable 90 or so. Meanwhile, the place was filling up, and his friends might be along any minute.
    I got out my hip flask and held it out for him. “Like rum?” I said.
    “If it’s good,” he said, but accepted it. He tasted, and a delighted grin came over his face. I had some