Let’s see… how to best record the Fourth in lieu of remembering it, the paradox here being that if I had come through in any condition to recall the day’s events, it would not have been worth remembering.

Many days in advance, I was informed by in-town contingent of former smalltown friends Monkey Boy and sig. other (designated as Mb) that KC, who I have been friends with since my mother was a small child, would be arriving into Chicago in the Notorious B.U.S. and looking to do some all-American grilling (KC and companions designated as K). Thus I immediately rang my Mexican cohort Kabuto (Mk for he and gang) and asked him to get crackin’ on the task of acquiring illegal but all-American busters of the block. They themselves were looking to grill and so I suggested our home base as the place for flames to be set to flesh.

I also, in preparation, called my Guy to obtain a small quantity of an all-American cash crop, and in the process, offered to do same for neighbor C, who accepted my proposition.

The night before, Mk were having a party at their parent’s restaurant and bar, and I spoke to Mb in regards to K’s ETA, which K had claimed would be sometime around 10 but that group K would be much smaller due to a failure to achieve critical mass to split not atoms but rather the cost of shlepping the 1-mpg bus across Indiana. Mb estimated that K’s arrival time would actually be midnight. I placed my money on 1AM, recalling the last time that he came into town, arriving a full 36 hours after he said he would. This time I was right on the money, as K arrived exactly when I predicted they would (too late to go to the party), and consisted of KC and sig. other along with one sibling and one former coworker of both he and Mb and their respective sig. others. I describe the group this way not to diminish the personhood of the sig. others, but to explain that this group knew each other because they had all hawked shitbox computers to rednecks back in 1996 right at the time when schools were firing teachers and buying more computers and every American family began to feel that they were somehow being left behind by the Joneses if they did not rush right to Sun TV and buy a shitbox $500 computer with an $899 P.O.M. warranty and thus feel like their children would not be Left Behind since they had spent $1400 on a paperweight that also played solitaire. It is a testament to KC’s scamming abilities that he was always their top seller, even though he worked two eight-hour shifts on weekends, while other (much more honest) middle-aged fellows arranged win-win situations with customers full time. KC made $30k in three months working weekends until a particularly attractive young lady and her father came into Sun to buy a $1400 boat anchor/doorstop, and did so, and that night KC called the number listed on the fellow’s credit application and left a message asking out the young lady, who turned out to be quite young (14) and whose father did not appreciate the use of confidential information from his credit application being applied in the pursuit of the statutory rape of the fruit of his loins. He expressed this lack of appreciation through his lawyers, who achieved a settlement with Sun that involved the firing of KC and no doubt contributed to Sun’s subsequent folding, achieving the impossible feat of making those $899 P.O.M. warranties even more worthless, so that they began to bring down the property values of houses around the ones where they were stashed in file cabinets.

Around noon on the fourth, contingents Mb and K arrived en masse, carting a variety of meats and liquor, a watermelon, and a large quantity of fireworks. We set to grilling and quickly learned that the watermelon had been purchased for the express purpose of blowing it up, regardless of how delicious it would have been to consume on this 100-degree day. It is a testament to the destructive skills of KC’s bloodline that his brother eventually, after a dozen false lights and cautions reapproaches, eventually fashioned a means of lighting off a firework that is located in the center of a watermelon. KC remained on the porch, a professional who was far above something so simple as the vaporizing of fruit.

During one of the false lights, neighbor C arrived in search of the herbal dietary supplement and I invited him to grill with us. He said that he might, but that he couldn’t possibly stay without running home and whipping up some macaroni salad. I chuckled at this and indicated towards the alley where Monkey Boy and KC’s brother were running as fast as they could away from a flaming watermelon.

I had expected the explosion to send chunks of watermelon rind hurtling in every direction. It did not. Instead, there appeared in the area surrounding ground zero a sort of watermelon mist, which blew away in the wind before we all recovered from the noise of the boomer.

C left, as that evening he was working, his job being handing out free samples of Maker’s Mark in bars. Contingent Mk arrived, having been unsuccessful in the pursuit of busters of the block, bearing instead a bag of mulch, for it was Mulch Day. (If you knew Kabuto you would find that this made perfect sense and you would accept the mulch with a nod and a smile.) His lack of success was probably a good thing, as I was hit twice by fireworks, once in the neck by a bottle rocket that K were firing off by hand, and once in the head by a thrown firework of the same type that vaporized the melon but fortunately(?) exploded a nice safe two feet from me after bouncing off my head. I would be angrier about this if being hit by bottle rockets wasn’t the least of the consequences I have suffered from KC’s friendship. I have received upwards of twenty stitches from his “fun” before (sutures free from Doctor Dad, who always worked pro bono when the wound was his son’s work) and so far this weekend I have not had to bail KC out of jail/been cuffed and stuffed for being with KC at the time of his arrest. In terms of injury to body and/or dignity and/or wallet, a little burn on the collarbone and a narrow escape from death are way low on a list extending back through our lifetime “friend”ship, which, much like a Bert and Ernie sketch, often involved me suffering the consequences of KC’s lack of responsibility. So in retrospect not having handed over construction-grade dynamite to this person probably saved my life, though the weekend is still young.

Then some coworkers and friends (Cw) arrived to pick up Brookyn, who was heading with them to a huge 4th party called the Ripper. Mk left to go grill at their house and another group of friends of Brookyn (fB) arrived to join Cw. C showed back up toting macaroni salad, as it turns out he was serious, and it was very good macaroni salad. I had to assure him that if it had tasted like poo I would have said, “It’s not really for me” or “I’m not a big fan of macaroni salad” and thus my telling him that it was really tasty was genuine.

Cw and fB left. Mb and K headed to Mb’s home to change into swimsuits for the beach, leaving Singular and I all alone. We found ourselves suddenly at peace with a number of options available to us: Go to C’s promo and drink free likker, go to the Ripper, join Mk at their grillout, or head to the beach. We decided to do the last of these. When Monkey Boy and KC arrived with Mb and K at the beach, the two fellows ran into the water like David Hasselhof, not noticing that noone else was in the water, and were immediately yelled at by a number of frantic lifeguards due to “high surf” which would make a resident of an oceanfront town scoff with disdain. Regardless, the surf was high enough to allow the coast guard speedboats that were patrolling the area for possible terrorist attacks of the two-lanterns-in-the-belfry sort to show off their horsepower and leave the water in the act of horsecockery that is expected of every mulleted trailerbait at the wheel of a speedboat.

We watched the fireworks. Fireworks are getting much more Gandalfian than I remember them as a child. There were giant smiley faces. There were those explosions that, just when you think they’re fading out, change color and zip off in different directions. There were giant stars encased in circles. My favorite were the green planets with red rings. No dirty nukes were set off.

Then we adjourned to Mb’s loop penthouse to drink more and order pizza. I don’t recall anything past the pizza’s arrival. This morning, upon awaking, I felt fine. And I’ve got some leftover meat and macaroni salad waiting in the fridge.