I am wondering if any of you would consider reviewing the book. It will be released on Amazon/Kindle on October 18th. I need reviews posted to amazon on the release day, if possible. You get a FREE pdf, word.doc or .mobi (Kindle ebook file) copy and plenty of time between now and mid-October to read it. Let me know, friends!
Chapter ten was a hoot to write. We're still in flashback mode and it's the continuation of Chapter nine where Mike is fired by GM for embezzlement but let off the hook, and then him driving from Michigan through Indiana back to Chicago (in a later chapter we find out what happens when he arrives back in Chicago- it's a shocker).
So it was a hoot because I have Mike visiting one of those goofy fireworks warehouses they have in NW Indiana. The owner is a weird old geezer, and then Mike takes his fireworks purchases and sets them off in an Indiana field at dusk. As a new writer it was a challenge to create the rhythm and colors of the fireworks and paint that across the expansive Indiana sky and relate it all to Mike's situation. I must have tweaked that passage 100 times!
CHAPTER TEN
Speeding west across Michigan at ninety miles per hour, Mike realized a strange feeling was overtaking him. What was this new thing? Perhaps absolute, newfound fricking freedom? He had thought the next ten or fifteen years of his life had already been mapped out, but now look. Funny how his mind had put certain things in boxes, like the embezzling. He had compartmentalized it, shut it away, didn’t think about it. That money, that gross error in judgment—it was as if someone else, some other Mike Burgess had done it. And maybe it was some other Mike Burgess. That version got caught by the IRS, forced out of his job—the Mike driving the shiny Olds 88 heading back toward Chicago was a free man—with a brand new canvas for the future and a helluva lot of dollars’ worth of fresh paint to play with.
By early evening he was about to say good-bye to Michigan and roll back through Indiana—good ol’ Indiana. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad place. A flood of feelings—happiness, melancholy, confusion, nostalgia—swept over Mike. What would he do now? What was out there for him?
A few minutes before the Chesterton exit he noticed a big billboard: “Johnston Brothers Dy-no-MITE Fireworks Superstore, Buy One, Get Five Free!” Well there’s a deal if I ever saw one, he thought. His lucky day just kept on getting better and better. Mike turned off 94 and rolled up to the front of the big sheet-metal building. It was almost six p.m., the posted closing time. Mike hopped out of the car and walked in. There was only one person there, the owner it looked like, lazily tallying up a poor day’s worth of sales. He was an older fellow, sporting a completely illogical comb-over and some snazzy red suspenders, which almost distracted your eyes from the greasy food stains on his shirt. He might afford a nice toupee and some new clothes if he didn’t give so many fireworks away. It had always amused Mike how these Indiana fireworks joints always tried to one-up each other with their hokey old bait-and-switch advertising tactics.
“You still open?”
“Sure, fella. Slow day, maybe you can make it better. Name’s Tucker J. Johnston. I’m the owner.”
“Pleased to meet you. I’ll just wander. You got a bag I can put stuff in?”
“There’s carts over there. Fill it on up. I’ll stay open for as long as you like. Got some great new aerial cakes in aisle three.”
“Thanks.” Mike grabbed a cart and started down aisle one in no hurry. Heck, no place to go but home and no work for tomorrow. He picked a few things out from aisle one and two, then got to three. There they were, the item the owner had suggested, with a special banner proclaiming their awesomeness:
NEW! Junk Dawg Thumpers $19.95
10 shot 500 gram aerial cake
Double breaks of glittering mines
Strobe willows/timed mines w/3-shot finale
Well, look at that! Mike had no idea what any of that meant but it sounded pretty spectacular. I better get at least two of those. And these and these over here. Heck, fill up the cart, make the old man at the register happy.
“Well, look at you, sir! You got yourself a full cart, don’t ya? You just made my day, big fella. Just watch your fingers with all those. Take a lookey here,” Johnston said, holding up his right hand, which was missing two fingers. “So you got a celebration comin’ up?”
“Oh yeah, I just got fired. Time to celebrate.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, that’s a shame. Wait, you’re celebratin’ you got laid off?”
“More like celebrating the money they gave me to get out. Seven hundred fifty grand.”
“Cash or check?”
“It’s a check. You wanna see it?”
“No, sir, I meant cash or check for the fireworks? We don’t take no plastic here, that’s not real money.”
“Oh sorry, I thought you were asking about my big payday.”
“Well actually, it would be interesting to see a check like that. How much did you say it was for?”
“Seven hundred fifty thousand real US dollars. Here, take a look.” Mike pulled out his wallet and showed the certified bank draft to the old codger.
“GM, huh? You build cars of the future for them or somethin’? Flying cars, mebbe?”
“Nope, just kept all the GM cars nice and cool in the summer and toasty in the winter. I’m Mike Burgess, but I got stuck with a nickname back a few years, Cold Smokey,” Mike said with a smile, reaching out to shake the old man’s hand. “Kind of a mix of what I do, the cold part—you know, air-conditioning, and then a mix of my name, Mike Burgess, with that White Sox pinch hitter from a few years ago, Smokey Burgess. Remember him? Put it all together and it’s Mike ‘Cold Smokey’ Burgess. A guy on the line at the GM plant in Flint made it up. I thought it was dumb at first, but now I kinda like it.”
“I ain’t never had a nickname myself. Always wished I could have one,” the owner sighed.
“Well, you know since you showed me your hand,” Mike said, “there was a baseball player called Mordecai ‘Three Finger’ Brown. Born here in Indiana, I think maybe Nyesville, or maybe it was Terre Haute. He pitched for the Cubs. When he was a kid his hand was injured in a farming accident, but he still learned how to pitch. I’m a baseball nut, in case you hadn’t figured that out yet. So there’s a nickname for you, I suppose.”
“Well, I can’t take another Indiana fella’s nickname. That don’t seem right, Mr. Cold Smokey. Gotta be a fresh one picked out for me, don’t ya think?”
“Sure. Well wait, let me think. Hey, I got an idea, ready to hear it?” The old man shook his head up and down. “What sound does your best firework make? Make that sound right now.”
“It goes ka—booooom!”
“There you go! Nice to meet you, Kaboom Johnston!”
“Hey, I like that. Thanks, Mr. Smokey. You got a new friend. Come back anytime.” He gave Mike a big fat smile, exposing gaps here and there where teeth had jumped ship.
“So, I buy one and get five free, right? This won’t be too expensive, then, huh?”
“Oh, well them are over there, in that old blue garbage can in the corner. Now you pick one of them deluxe sparkler packs there, and you sure do get five more, no charge. We been running that special for twenty-five years, I bet,” Kaboom bragged.
“Ah, that’s great. Yeah, well then add that to my order. Thanks!” Mike grinned, happy to experience the scam in all its hokey glory. The old man rang Mike up, absentmindedly whistling the first eight bars of “On the Banks of the Wabash” over and over. “Well, sir, nice to do business with you today,” said Mike, shaking Kaboom’s hand.
“The pleasure was all mine, sir. G’night. Drive safe now, big fella.”
Mike loaded the fireworks into his trunk and got back onto 94. A beautiful peach-colored sunset was lingering in the sky, taking its sweet time painting some scattered clouds. Mike drove about ten miles and then saw some open space along the road, a field with no crops. He stopped the car and got out, took the boxes of fireworks out of the trunk and walked them over into the field. He went back to the car and got a couple boxes of matches he had grabbed when he stopped for a late lunch at La Cantina restaurant in Paw Paw.
Next he rigged up a few of the smaller fireworks and lit them—pow, pow, pow they went, lighting up the sky with green, red, and silver streaks. He shot off a few more, building to the larger purchases he had made. A few passing cars slowed down to watch the display, a couple of them honking in appreciation. Mike now bundled a few together and set them off. At one point, one of the fireworks had fallen loose just as it exploded and whizzed past Mike, just missing his left ear. The burnt black powder hung in the air, stinging his nose. As night crept closer the sunset’s colors intensified to a dark orange, and the fireworks showcase grew even more exhilarating. One rocket swept high in the air, exploded into an anemone shape, made little whistling sounds, and then the cinders fell toward the ground, glittery gold all the way down. Good stuff, Mike thought.
Now time for the finale. Mike set up the big investment of the day, the two Junk Dawg Thumpers. He aimed them up high and toward the field, away from his car and the road, not knowing how wild these bad boys might be. He paused for a moment, then said out loud, “Good-bye Frigidaire, good-bye GM. It was fun while it lasted. But now I’m moving on. Wish me luck!” He lit the bundled fuses and stepped back. The fuses hissed and then whoosh, the Thumpers blasted into the sky, higher and higher. Multiple explosions and a wild array of colors and patterns took over the sky. Then more glittering lights and pinwheels spun out into the darkening sky, and finally the payoff, the advertised three-shot volley (times two)—kaboom, kaboom, kaboom, kaboom, kaboom, kaboooommmm. Mike felt the heavy concussion of the volleys slamming into his chest and then heard the waves of sound bounce off the barns of surrounding farms—a series of smaller kabooms echoed on for at least ten more seconds.
Thoroughly satisfied, Mike stood and watched the waning sunset for a few minutes. It’s so beautiful, this show the sun puts on for us every night and then the sunrise in the morning—every morning. Why don’t we watch these more, make the time to see them? He tried his hardest to etch this moment into his mind forever. Not just the beauty of this big evening sky across the flatness of an Indiana field, but also the feeling of new freedom, the exhilarating opportunity to reinvent himself however he chose.
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