December Park(38)

“Hey there, Angie.” It was Mrs. Wilber, seated in one of the lawn chairs. She smiled at me. The Wilbers’ Rottweiler, leashed to the arm of the lawn chair, lifted its head and gazed at me with something disconcertingly like contempt. “We’ve got some doozies this year,” she said, nodding toward the assortment of fireworks in the gravel pit.

“Yeah,” I said. “They look great.”

“How’s school going?”

“Okay, I guess.”

“Wonderful, dear.” She unscrewed the cap on her thermos, then poured some dark and steamy liquid into the cap and handed it to me. “Homemade hot chocolate to warm your bones.”

I sipped the drink and knew two things instantly—Mrs. Wilber was drunk, and there was alcohol in the hot chocolate. I grimaced, coughed, and thrust the cup back at her, managing a strangled “thank you” as I did so.

Mrs. Wilber laughed and her Rottweiler glared at me again.

My grandfather sat on one of the large chunks of limestone that protruded from the earth, smoking the cigar the man in the Elmer Fudd hat had given him. He wore a tweed driver’s cap and a heavy chamois coat trimmed in nicotine-yellowed wool. The tip of his cigar blazed beneath the brim of his cap as I approached and climbed up next to him.

“There were more people here last year,” I said. “Kids, too.”

“Well, it’s a particularly cold New Year’s Eve, don’t you think?”

“Yeah.”

“And people, they have long memories. They’re mostly still . . . worried . . . about things.” He looked at me. “You ain’t worried, are you?”

“No.”

“Good boy.” He took the cigar from his mouth and held it out to me. “Wanna give it a try?”

“Sure!”

“You don’t inhale it like you do cigarettes.”

“I don’t smoke cigarettes.”

“Right.” He winked at me.

I placed the wetted end of the cigar in my mouth, sucked on it until the ember burned a bright red and my mouth filled with smoke, then released it through puckered lips. It tasted like wet newspapers.

“Dad,” my father said, joining us. He tucked his own cigar into the inside pocket of his barn coat.

“What? The boy’s fifteen years old. When I was fifteen, Uncle Sam handed me a rifle and gave me an all-expense vacation to the South Pacific.”

“Give the cigar back to your grandfather.”

“Aw, man,” I groaned, handing it over. “Can you blow smoke rings like they do in the movies?”

“Are you kidding?” My grandfather gave me one of his patented movie-star smiles; according to my grandmother, it was that very smile that had earned him quite a reputation among the ladies when he was younger. “Angelo, I practically invented blowing smoke rings.”

My father laughed more loudly than I thought necessary, and I wondered if some subtle joke had just gone over my head.

After several unsuccessful attempts at blowing smoke rings, my grandfather cocked his driver’s cap back on his head and scrutinized the half-smoked stogie as if it were defective.

Again, my dad laughed, and this time I laughed along with him.

At one minute before midnight, the woman with the radio on her lap cranked up the volume. Mr. Matherson, Mr. Wilber, and the man in the Elmer Fudd hat huddled together like revolutionaries preparing to conspire. They each brought out lighters and flicked them on, casting their faces in a mottled quilt of orange light and pitch-black shadows. I supposed they were deciding who had the best lighter to use for tonight’s display. Both Mr. Matherson and Mr. Wilber tucked their plastic Bics back in their coats while the man in the Elmer Fudd hat, grinning, tapped his long-tipped barbecue lighter against the palm of one hand.

“Here it comes! Get ready!” shouted the woman with the radio.

A Beatles song had just ended, and a disc jockey was preparing to count down the New Year.

The man in the Elmer Fudd hat jogged over to the gravel pit where the fireworks were arranged.

Someone called out, “Don’t set yourself on fire, Fred,” and this was followed by a chorus of laughter.

“Ain’t that the truth?” my grandfather mumbled, leaning close to my ear. “Old Fred there looks like he’s got pure hundred-proof whiskey coursing through his veins. He might go up like a Roman candle.”

“Ten . . . nine . . . eight . . . ,” the crowd chanted along with the radio announcer.

My father and I chimed in with them, “seven . . . six . . . five . . .”

My grandfather removed his driver’s cap and twirled it around.

“Four . . . three . . .”

Fred was on one knee in the gravel, the flaming tip of the barbecue lighter igniting the wick on a particularly nasty-looking cardboard rocket ship.

“Two . . . one . . . Happy New Year!”

We all cheered and applauded.

My grandfather tugged the driver’s cap down over my ears, stood up off the chunk of limestone, and shouted, “Bravo! Bravo!”

A sparkly asterisk of fire ran the length of the rocket ship’s wick as Fred retreated toward the crowd of onlookers. A moment later, on a cloud of black smoke, the rocket ship launched high into the night sky. I lost sight of it before it even cleared the tops of the trees.