Fireworks Are Evil

One fine day, my best friend and I were sitting around with nothing to do when we hit upon the idea of setting off a few old firecrackers and bottle rockets we had left over from the Fourth of July. Not wanting to get caught doing something ‘dangerous’ by our overprotective mothers, we decided the safest place we could go to enjoy ourselves was the roof of our six floor apartment building. We started off innocently enough. A few firecrackers and some sparklers. Nothing dangerous, just two boys having some fun with gunpowder and fire in the big city.

We were kinda like Bo and Luke Duke, only… not.

Well, after we had exhausted our supply of the ‘weaker’ mini-bombs and poppers, we decided to play with the bottle rockets. For those of you who don’t know, a bottle rocket is a slightly more powerful firecracker attached to a thin red stick. You’re supposed to put the stick into a container or bottle, light the fuse and watch as it flies into the air for a couple of seconds before it blows up with a satisfying BANG!

Bottles! As if Bo and Luke would ever use something so wimpy.

Instead of using ‘un-cool’ bottles we came to the conclusion that we could avoid harm by simply holding the stick in our hands, lighting the very dangerous explosive (which was obviously made with care by an overworked, underpaid sweatshop employee in some third world country) and then throwing the lit rocket into the air. Of course, not knowing our physics as well as we might have, it never dawned on us that perhaps a ‘rocket’ made of gunpowder and cheap paper might not have the best aerodynamics in the world and could possibly double back, imbed itself into our anuses and explode in a very painful ball of fire.

Damn. Now that would’ve made one hell of a story.

Anywaste, I don’t recall which of us came up with the idea but somehow we found out through experimentation that if we threw the rockets horizontally, they would fly great distances before exploding with a bang both loud and satisfying enough to make us smile. Soon enough we were throwing these tiny, self-guided missiles all over the roof and we were getting pretty good at learning how to aim them properly.

That’s when the bus honked its horn on the street below.

Our eyes lit up like the flames of hell and we both ran to the edge of the roof. The bus was just sitting there at the light, waiting patiently for someone, anyone, to strike it down with tiny, hand-guided, flaming pieces of death wrapped in cheap paper. Should we? Could we? Dared we? This, we decided, was a gift from Loki, god of mischief, and we were not about to insult him by letting this golden opportunity pass us by.

We really were little bastards, weren’t we?

The first rocket exploded long before it reached the bus. The second fell to the street and died in a futile attempt to reach its target. Numbers three and four exploded underneath the bus, but the fifth, ah the blessed fifth, managed to outdo its brothers and sisters by not only reaching the drivers side window but actually bouncing off it. Of course, it exploded on the street with nary a sound and doing no damage, but we were too busy rejoicing to care. In our minds, the bus was a flaming, blackened heap on the street with people running from the wreckage trying in vain to put out their flaming clothes and burning flesh.

We pretended our principal was one of the passengers.

When the bus pulled away from the intersection, completely unscathed and unaware, I’m sure that no one on board realized anything at all was amiss. In fact, if we ourselves hadn’t known what to listen and look for I don’t think we would have seen or heard anything out of the ordinary. As the bus was rolling away though, we saw something approaching in the distance that instantly became our next target.

A bike messenger. Oh. My. God.

To be honest, I don’t believe either of us actually thought we could hit him. I mean, a man on a bike is a much, much smaller target than a big, city bus. Plus, he was pedaling hard, moving fast and all the way across the street. All in all, a seasoned Green Beret with a sniper rifle on a windless day would have had a tough time hitting this guy, but somehow I knew that I could do it so I lit the fuse and let the rocket fly.

It exploded somewhere between his rear wheel and his puckering anus.

I’m not sure that some of you understand exactly what just happened, so let me slow explain this in a little more detail for you. A man on a bike is minding his own business, pedaling through a relatively safe neighborhood in Brooklyn on a beautiful summers day. Suddenly, he hears something that sounds like a gunshot directly behind him followed by howling laughter.

Ah. Now you understand.

To say this guy pedaled for his life would not do the scene justice. Imagine this poor guy, who had moments before probably been enjoying his day, suddenly taking off as if he had all the hounds of hell on his tail. I’m not positive, but I think he may have screamed in terror as he made his escape down a side street.

He may even have soiled himself.

I know what you’re thinking and yes, looking back I agree wholeheartedly. We were evil, mean and nasty little deviants and should have been spanked like naughty monkeys to within an inch of our lives on a nightly basis just on general principles alone. But back then, Mr. Hentai and I just fell to the floor of the roof laughing like demons on crack as we each told the other in great detail, over and over again, how funny the whole thing was. In fact, it still makes us laugh to this very day.

Fshshshshshshssssss… BANG! “HOLY SHIT!” Pedal, pedal, pedal, pedal. [evil laughter]

Oh boy, somebody spank me.