Chapter 13

Faye’s feet were getting soaked with dew. A mat of freshly cut grass clumped around her bare heels and between her toes. When she’d gotten dressed that morning, she wondered if it was fashionable to wear socks under her sandals—she honestly had never paid any attention to people wearing sandals. Now, she was glad she’d decided to go sockless. This squishy sensation around the balls of her feet and the ticklishness on her nude arches were new to her.

Walking away from the rising sun, Faye could feel its warmth against the backs of her calves and on the sensitive skin behind the bend of her knee. The cargo shorts that she’d bought from Walmart slipped around her hips, so every few steps she hoisted them and tugged on her belt. It had not occurred to her until she was rummaging through the bargain bins that she didn’t know her waist size. She’d never purchased a pair of shorts in her life. They fit fine when she tried them on in the store, but when she took them home and started walking, they sank to her hip bones. She was so annoyed by having to stop and pull them up repeatedly that she untucked her tank top and let its bottom dangle to cover her belt line. It was kind of titillating to wear her shorts so low that they might fall to her feet with any step.

Faye debuted her new look to the dead. She walked her familiar path across the Amity Valley Memorial Gardens, past the final resting places of friends, neighbors, and family who wouldn’t recognize her if they could see her now. She hadn’t exposed so much skin since she was a tomboy who went shirtless climbing trees with the boys. In fact, when she’d posed in front of the mirror that morning, she hardly recognized herself. She hadn’t realized that her legs were so hairy, and in a sleeveless shirt, the unruly thicket in her armpits looked like a bird’s nest in an oak tree hollow. All of her bras looked like flak jackets beneath her tank top, so she wore none. She thought of her new look as unkempt chic. It felt liberating.

Same as every morning, she got up at the crack of dawn to raise the American flag. Same as every Fourth of July, the particular flag that she ran up the pole was a family heirloom, for it had once flown above the Capitol Building in Washington, DC. Again, same as every Fourth of July, she attached the flag of the state of Ohio to wave beneath Old Glory. But unlike any Fourth of July, or ever in her life, she also raised a third flag below the others, a brand new flag that had never flown anywhere in Coon Creek, but which, she hoped, reflected and complemented her change of attitude. After securing all three flags aloft, Faye saluted them.

A string of firecrackers blasted a reveille that abruptly fractured the morning calm. Faye covered her ears. The good old boys were getting an early start this year. It would probably get a lot louder before the end of the day.

The labyrinth in the Peace Park of Golden Springs was modelled after the one in the cathedral at Chartres. A local sculptor had assembled it with black rocks, river-polished pebbles, multicolored crystals, and geode halves. According to the bound ledger in the weatherproof box at the labyrinth’s entrance, pilgrims had come from spiritual communities as far away as Findhorn, Christiania, Tamera, Auroville, Ananda in Assisi, and the Finca Bellavista treehouse community of Costa Rica to walk its circuits. On every American national holiday, as well as Earth Day, May Day, Darwin Day, International Friendship Day, World Oceans Day, Pi Day, Johnny Appleseed Day, May the Fourth (Be With You), and other minor feasts, including birthdays and bar mitzvahs, one or another of Golden Springs’s civic groups sponsored a walk-thru of the labyrinth. However, in recognition of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” the Fourth of July was the labyrinth’s biggest annual event.

Standing at the entrance to the labyrinth, Pax Oglesby addressed the long line of perambulators: “Welcome to our community. We’re all friends here today. We come from near and far to gather at the spiritual center of our community, to celebrate the birth of an idea—that all people are free and equal, with the right to live as they please and to be true to themselves in the manner envisioned by this nation’s Founding Fathers, and also its overlooked Founding Mothers, Founding Sexual Minorities, Founding Persons of Color, and those Founders with Special Needs. It’s about time they all got some of the love, gratitude, and recognition they deserve, too.”

Cheers, shouts, and whistles erupted from the crowd. Pax allowed the ovation to die down before continuing. “Today, we are honored to have Doctor Roscoe Alolo—a tireless crusader for truth and justice—as our grand marshal.”

Roscoe tipped his Mao cap and flashed a peace sign. “Unity!” he declared, triggering a chant of “Unite! Unite! Unite!”

Roscoe led the queue of walkers on their circuitous stroll. Person after person shuffled along, taking slow, cleansing breaths with each step. There were so many pilgrims that some finished when others were just starting, and the people in this unbroken procession inched along at a synchronized pace, careful not to inadvertently step on toes, shoelaces, or any sentient creature. Within the sphere of the labyrinth, all adhered to strict silence and flowed as one, in hushed deference to their collective consciousness. Upon completing the journey, though, some wept, some whooped, some beat their chests, and others shouted joyous exclamations straight from the depths of their purified souls. Those who had finished gathered around a table where they refreshed themselves with fresh fruit, vegan pastries, and Darjeeling tea. Vendors sold commemorative T-shirts, refrigerator magnets, and bumper stickers that proclaimed, “I walked the Golden Springs Labyrinth.”

At once, a deafening explosion thundered through the air. People scrambled to escape, ducked for cover, or hid behind any solid object, including each other. When a second bomb went off, panic set in. People ran in all directions.

But in Golden Springs, where pyrotechnics had been banned since the twentieth century, nobody had ever heard a firecracker, so a cherry bomb might as well have been a hydrogen bomb.

“Who dares to sully our holiday with such a terrible thing?” Pax Oglesby asked the sky.

His answer came in the form of bottle rocket whizzing so close as to part his hair.

Toad tried to reassure the terrified dog by talking baby talk. “It’s okeydokey, Dixie Wixie.”

Thwarting her efforts, another ballistic firecracker detonated nearby. It sounded like it came from the alley behind Joe’s Sunoco. Everybody, including local law enforcement, knew that Joe made annual excursions to the Indian reservation in Michigan to acquire his arsenal. So long as he reserved the munitions for use only on the Fourth of July, New Year’s Eve, and Ohio State University football victories, nobody complained. A lot of people around Coon Creek considered his artillery a community resource. Although it rattled her ears something awful, Toad was loath to ruin everybody else’s fun by making a fuss.

But she was incensed on Dixie’s behalf. “Those fiddle-faddle fireworks are janglin’ poor Dixie’s wits,” she complained to Boog.

Beer in hand, Boog drawled, “Awww, for shit’s sake, Ma. It’s all in good fun.”

“Fun! That’s easy for you to say. You ain’t a pregnant dog with very sensitive ears.”

“It’s just for one day. She’ll get used to it, same as I did in Afghanistan. Fireworks clear the head. They’re patriotic.”

“Baloney! They just make noise. Ain’t no more patriotic than yakking out loud.”

Justin entered the room and said, “It’s right there in the ‘Star-Spangled Banner,’ Meemaw.” He started singing in a cracking adolescent voice.

And the rocket’s red glare

The bombs bursting in air

Gave truth... la, la, la

That our flag was still there.

Toad went “pffft” and returned to comforting her dog. “Here’s your blanket, Dixie. I’m a-gonna wrap it all around you like this.” She tucked the blanket under Dixie’s haunches and forelegs. Dixie let her do it without moving.

Boog’s patience vanished with the last gulp of his beer. “C’mon, boy,” he said to Justin. “We don’t wanna be late for the start of the parade.”

Toad wasn’t sure how to answer that question. Missing a Fourth of July parade was unthinkable and downright unpatriotic. It would pain her to leave Dixie behind in such fear and dismay, though. Buying time, Toad turned away from Boog and Justin and looked down the hallway beyond them.

Boog answered, “He’s been in the toilet ever since me ‘n’ Justin got here. I think he’s constipated.”

Toad knew that Zeke was never constipated, and especially not since he’d been drinking gallons of beer and cranberry juice cocktails every day.

Zeke rarely closed the bathroom door. Generally, he had no qualms about moving his bowels with the door wide open for anybody to see, hear, and smell. Toad thought he took pride in it. Under other circumstances, she would’ve walked right in. Something told her that she had better knock first, though.

“What’re you doing in there?” she asked, then added for levity, “Writing a book?”

Toad opened the door a crack and peeped in. Zeke sat on the toilet, pants at his ankles, while cupping his dick and balls in both hands.

“It huuuuurrrrrttttts, Toad. I feel like I’m pissin’ out the fuckin’ Rock of Gibraltar instead of some dang kidney stone.”

Zeke looked pathetic with his eyes smeared with tears and snot, his face flushed pink, and his chin hanging like dead weight.

Zeke squeezed his package, bawled, and ground his teeth. “That damn quack‘ll just tell me to drink more juice.” There was a thirty-two-ounce Big Gulp full of cranberry juice cocktail on top of the toilet tank.

Zeke complained, “If I drink any more of that stuff, my nuts will turn into cranberries.”

Toad wished she had some helpful advice to give him, but Zeke was very sensitive about any problem that involved his manhood and not likely to listen, anyway.

“I’m going to the parade with Boog and Justin,” she informed him. “I’ll check up on you when I get back.”

Toad thought, If he thinks that hurts, he should try having a baby. She had a lot more sympathy for Dixie than she did for him.

Nobody could pinpoint the source of the unlawful, inconsiderate, and potentially lethal fireworks that had broken out like a plague in Golden Springs. Whoever was responsible kept on the move. People sought shelter. Citizen guardians patrolled the streets, armed with notepads to record any suspicious activity, or to issue citations if they caught the culprits in the act. They aimed to make the streets safe in time for the parade.

“It is a celebration of war,” Taara Ali griped. “Very much like Americans—loud and bossy, not caring what anybody else thinks.”

“Back in the hood of East Cleveland, people were relieved if the bangs and booms were only firecrackers,” Rufus said.

Apart from the effect the noise had on Shabazz, Mazie really didn’t mind it too much. The blasts distracted her from thinking about things she didn’t want to think about. Poor Shabazz, though, was spooked and had been hiding under the chessboard table in the alumni house parlor ever since the first explosion.

Mazie tried to console him with a beef jerky. “Here you go, buddy.” When Shabazz sniffed but refused to take it, she knew he was seriously terrified.

Rufus bent down next to Mazie and reached under the table to rub Shabazz behind the ears. While continuing to pet the dog, he said to Mazie, “It’s almost time for the parade to start. We have to go now if we don’t want to miss it.”

“I can’t wait to see Professor Alolo on his float,” Quang said. “He brought Hershey’s Kisses to throw to people.”

Mazie kind of wanted to see that, too. But she felt guilty leaving the dog alone. Together with Rufus, she caressed Shabazz, as if apologizing for abandoning him.

Taara tsked and went with him, followed by Quang, who shouted, “Wait for me.”

Rufus and Mazie looked at each other, then at Shabazz, before getting up and jogging to catch up with the others.

The Coon Creek Grand Old USA Independence Day Parade was a passionate display of patriotism and a rip-roaring blowout of a good time that did America proud. Boog wore his T-shirt with Born Free on the front and USA on the back as his small contribution to honoring America. He met the Galoots, just back from raising a little hell in Golden Springs, as the parade got started.

Boog had reserved a prime viewing location by cordoning off a section of the sidewalk in front of the Belvedere for Mayor Headquarters with police tape. He had lugged a cooler to the spot; it was full of enough beer to tide the Galoots over until the Drink Here Tavern opened.

His mother didn’t approve; she took one look and volunteered to take Justin “to a better spot,” although Boog clearly understood her to mean that she wished to shield the boy from the drinking and carousing he intended to do.

Obedient if not appeased, Justin let Toad lead him to another block, where a clown made balloon animals. Justin asked for a crawdad.

Boog never missed the Fourth of July parade, and every year he remarked it was just as good as the last year. That’s because the parade was almost identical from year to year. In fact, that’s what he liked about it. Familiarity, consistency, regularity—all in all, it was what folks in Coon Creek called “tradition.” In good times, the parade celebrated success, and in bad times it provided diversion. Tradition absorbed every contingency through the filter of selective memory.

The parade began, of course, with the Coon Creek High School marching band. They played “25 or 6 to 4” so loud and fast that it sounded like an alarm clock on amphetamines. Boog sort of sang along, and when he didn’t know the words he belted out:

Ba da ba da bum

Ba da da da da da da bum

The band major was a cute girl whose costume was tight and glittery; she kept dropping the baton, but every time she did, she got a sympathetic ovation.

Next came the classic cars, each one an American-made gas-guzzler. None of them were in what you might call mint condition—some seemed held together with superglue—but they were all clean, down to the gleaming grilles and shiny tires. Paddy drove the same 1960 Corvair that his father had told him he’d been born in. The slow rolling motorcade included several extinct models: Packards, LaSalles, DeSotos, Studebakers, and even a Tucker 1948 sedan. Their bygone era was before Boog’s time, but even so he felt a weird nostalgia for them, like a déjà vu for something that had never happened. Coon Creek was a lot like those old automobiles—obsolete, beat up, but still running.

The town’s one and only firetruck followed the cars, washed and waxed for the day, and accompanied on foot by members of the volunteer fire department sweating in their slickers and helmets, each one carrying a boot and soliciting spare change to support the cause. It’d been a bad year for fires, and they looked tired. When he got back from Afghanistan, Boog wanted to join them, but somebody mentioned urine tests, and that discouraged him from trying. Not one to hold a grudge, though, he put a dollar in a boot when they marched by.

Then came the floats, Boog’s favorite part. Joe of Joe’s Sunoco led the way as usual, driving his hook-and-chain wrecker, draped with red, white, and blue streamers, with its windows wide open and its sound system blaring a continuous loop of “Ragged Old Flag,” “American Soldier,” “Some Gave All,” “Where the Stars and Stripes and the Eagle Fly,” and “God Bless the USA.” Missing that year was “Born in the USA,” which Max used to like until he read the lyrics. Ms. Nixon’s middle school class contributed its usual oversize American flag made entirely of Lego blocks. The women of the public library’s book club dressed as Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, and Lincoln, and sat around an overturned barrel on a flatbed trailer, passing a paper and scribbling on it to simulate the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The Coon Creek Diner sponsored a float with a giant cherry pie made of crepe paper, chicken wire, and tennis balls spray-painted red, pulled by a milk truck. The Drink Here Tavern’s float featured Buzz wearing an Uncle Sam costume complete with a top hat and billy-goat beard; he sat on a stool in front of a bar, raising a glass of beer to toast Old Glory.

Annually, the AMVETS sponsored the last float, which they dedicated to America’s warriors. On it, actual veterans of World War II reenacted the flag raising at Iwo Jima. Owing to their age and fragility, though, the men were seated, and the flag was borne by bungee cords. Usually Faye Pfeiffer walked alongside the float and handed out peppermint candies and miniature copies of the US Constitution, but this year she was strangely absent. Boog was disappointed because he’d misplaced the copy he’d picked up last year, and this year he intended to actually read it to see what it said about the right to bear arms.

Finally—and anticlimactically as far as Boog was concerned—Very Important Persons rode by in convertibles to schmooze and be seen. Mayor Ball received jeers and cheers in nearly equal amounts, all the while keeping the same fake smile frozen on his face. The Coon Queen hugged a bouquet of roses and blew kisses to admirers. Burl Slocum drove a tractor bearing a giant Reverend Belvedere for Mayor sign, and he was followed, on horseback, by the reverend himself, wearing American-flag and Jesus-fish lapel pins, and a Make American Great Again baseball cap, while tossing fun-size candy bars from his saddle bag. To show his approval, Boog saluted him with one of his famous two-fingered whistles.

After the parade was over and most of the crowd had dispersed, Boog and the Galoots reconvened at their corner, finishing the last of the beers in the cooler to lighten it before they proceeded to their next destination. Toad returned with Justin and asked Boog if he minded that she took him to the Coon Creek Baptist Church of God’s ice cream social for a treat.

“Of course,” Toad agreed, then asked, “Will I see you at the fireworks this evening?”

Boog looked down and shook his head sideways. “I don’t think so, Maw. We got something special planned.”

Boog was relieved that she didn’t press for details. If she knew, she wouldn’t approve.

Marveling at the sight, Mazie sputtered, “Whoa. This is so... I don’t know. It’s sure different from the Fourth of July parade where I come from.”

Damn, she caught herself telling the truth again. Ever since Professor Alolo called her bluff, she feared she was losing her touch. She sometimes forgot who she was lying to, and why.

The Golden Springs Peace and Love Parade had no clear beginning or end. Anybody who felt so inspired was welcome to step off the curb and become part of the fanfare. The Team of Strangers had come to watch it together, but quickly separated into other pursuits. Quang got into the spirit right away, joining a gang of undergraduates tossing Frisbees and doing trick catches. El Jefe accepted a joint passed to him and fell in with the cannabis-rights crowd, who chanted: “Stop the lies! Legalize!” When Taara Ali saw a bunch of white ladies from a belly-dancing class moving and shaking in the streets, she called out, “Cultural appropriation!” and, knotting together the loose ends of her shirt, jumped in to show them the proper method.

Mazie felt like an anthropologist doing fieldwork. She locked her arm around a lamppost so she could watch without getting swept into the fracas. She appreciated Rufus for staying with her, to serve as a second set of eyes to confirm what she saw.

It was more of a mob party than a parade. Instead of a marching band, there were buskers, wandering minstrels, bongo drummers, a barbershop quartet, and bagpipers. Square dancers do-si-doed in the fire lane and swung unwitting partners who just happened to pass by. A lawn mower drill team executed complex maneuvers in the street. Dominatrixes in leather led middle-aged men wearing diapers on studded leashes. Zombies and mermaids walked arm in arm. Mazie had to do a double take before she realized that the body-painted people riding unicycles were, in fact, totally nude.

They commented on every float that went by them. Mazie noted that the queen bee on the Save the Bees float was a man in drag. Rufus wondered what, exactly, was the point of Mother Earth and the Grim Reaper riding on the same float. When women tossed condoms from the Planned Parenthood float, Mazie caught one and put it in her purse. She and Rufus both agreed that the six-foot-tall vagina riding a motorcycle was way over the top.

At the finale of the parade, the master of ceremonies, Roscoe Alolo, rode by in a float decorated in Ndebele patterns. Instead of his Mao cap, he wore a kufi hat. A spear-wielding crew of Zulu warriors marched alongside him. The crowd loved it. They chanted “A-lo-lo, A-lo-lo.” Periodically, the float stopped and, from his pedestal, Roscoe declaimed, “Dawa ya moto ni moto.”

The parade continued long after it ended. Since its momentum was going in their direction, Mazie and Rufus fell in behind a group of rodeo clowns playing kazoos, which they followed to the edge of town. There, the parade turned back on itself and returned in the direction from whence it had come. Suddenly alone, Mazie and Rufus doubled over with laughter, as if until that moment they had been struggling to keep straight faces.

“Un-fucking believable,” Mazie said when she finally recovered control of her diaphragm.

They continued sporadically giggling as they walked back to the Antaeus College campus, although the more distance they put between themselves and the melee in town, the more their silliness dissipated. Mazie began to feel awkward, in a way that reminded her of waking up next to somebody after a one-night stand. Rufus was breathing through his teeth; he seemed to desperately want to say something.

“Yeah. I was thinking about that.” Rufus turned, and they were standing face to face. “Are you in?” he asked.

She was about to tell him to forget that she’d ever mentioned it, but when she hesitated, Rufus answered the question she really wanted to ask.

Meredith did not want to walk the labyrinth and was in no mood to participate in that Woodstock reenactment Golden Springs called a parade. She didn’t feel like doing anything, but needed to do something, because doing nothing made her antsy. Of course, she had Vanessa at the forefront of her mind—how she felt hurt, angry, rejected, betrayed—but her feelings expressed themselves in just one word: so. So what? So what went wrong? So what was she supposed to do? So what was she supposed to feel? So... just so. There were no obvious answers to any of her so’s.

Meredith sat at her kitchen table in front of a plate of pecan pie and her third glass of Ohio River Valley Pinot Gris. She figured that drinking and eating were two time-tested methods for dealing with a breakup. But she didn’t feel heartbroken, exactly. Not heartsick, either. Instead, Meredith felt heart empty. Void. Numb. Hollow inside and dead outside. The alcohol wasn’t providing relief from her symptoms. The more she drank, the more it drained her.

A firecracker going off somewhere nearby made her jump. She felt her heart beat furiously, from her fingertips to her temples. The sound shook her head enough to temporarily distract her from self-pity. Then it hit her: that’s what she wanted to do—blow something up. She wanted to surround herself with deafening blasts of munitions, feel the backlash of their explosions, see pyrotechnic flames combusting all around her. Burn, baby burn.

And she knew just where to go to experience those things. Pulling on a pair of jeans and a tiger-striped Cincinnati Bengals T-shirt that she’d bought for a Halloween costume, she grabbed her keys and the bottle, and drove to Coon Creek to see the Boom-a-Thon.

It was late afternoon by the time Toad got home. She’d enjoyed the ice cream with Justin, even though hers melted before she could finish it. Justin said a beer ice cream float sounded good, and when Toad asked him how he knew, he sputtered, “I mean root beer.” She let it drop. The boy was clearly excited by “the plans” that his father had for that evening, whatever they were; he gave no details other than to say that “it’ll be the bomb.” Toad didn’t know if she should take that remark literally. She hoped there wouldn’t be actual bombs.

After dropping off Justin, Toad mingled for a while with friends around the town square, where the statue of Philander Fink wore an American flag draped over its shoulders. Folks gathered there for a picnic and free bluegrass concert at the gazebo. The band never showed up, so eventually folks started singing and dancing on their own. Toad sang along with everybody on an a capella version of “Wabash Cannonball.” Those with food shared it with those who had none. Toad wasn’t even a little bit hungry, but even so ate a hot dog and some deviled eggs. She lost a game of cornhole to Edith Doody, but won the rematch; they didn’t keep score for the rubber game.

Toad would have been content to stay there the rest of the day, but she worried about Dixie. The poor dog hadn’t been outside all day, and Toad assumed it was the same with a dog as with a woman—when you’re pregnant, you have to piss a lot. Poor dog. Thinking about Dixie hiding and trembling in the laundry room made Toad feel guilty about having so much fun. She went home to check in on her.

“Dixie!” she called out when she came through the door. “I’m home, girl.”

“Ooooohhhhhooooowwwww,” Zeke sobbed. “Damnit, Toad. Leave the dog be. I’m hurtin’ something awful.”

Toad found Zeke sprawled on the sofa, his robe open at the front, with a tray of ice cubes on his genitals.

“Look here.” He held up his thumb and index finger, pinching a tiny mote smaller than a grain of salt between them. “It felt like a chain saw coming out.”

Toad refused to look at anything that had passed through Zeke’s urethra. “Where’s Dixie?” she repeated.

Zeke blew the mote off his fingers. “She ain’t here,” he said. “Somebody lit up a firecracker in an empty garbage can, and it sounded like a stick of dynamite. It spooked the dog something awful. She pawed the back door open and dashed away.”

Toad huffed and informed Zeke that he was a useless turd, then left in search of her dog.

For the next few hours, Toad looked high and low, all over town. She combed Coon Creek from the welcome sign on Main Street, up and down the numbered streets, to the alleys and back streets. She looked in the trailer park and where they dumped their trash. She circumnavigated the old Hercules Mill three times, calling for Dixie over and over. She sniffed the bushes where Dixie usually pissed, trying to catch a scent. She peeked into vacant houses and boarded up storefronts and looked in dumpsters. She traversed the paths in the Amity Valley Memorial Gardens and looked down into open graves. Lastly, she walked the grounds of the high school stadium, where folks were already laying blankets to secure their spots for viewing the fireworks. Everybody that she asked said they hadn’t seen Dixie but wished Toad luck finding her.

Toad saw a strange woman working in the cordoned-off blast zone, loading shells into cylinders on the launchpad. When she called “hey,” the woman turned, and Toad did a double take when she realized the woman was Faye Pfeiffer, looking like she’d just been released from a women’s prison.

“Oh, hello Gertrude,” Faye replied nonchalantly. “It’s going to be a great show tonight.”

By then, Toad had exhausted every possible hiding place she could think of within the Coon Creek metropolitan area. She sat down on a curb and scratched her head. At a loss, Toad asked herself, If I were a scared dog, where would I go?

Toad weighed the facts. Evidently, Dixie had left Coon Creek, so she needed to look farther afield. The quickest way out of town was around the stadium, beyond the fence line, and to cut through the farmers’ fields to the state highway. She thrashed through uncut hay and dodged gopher holes as she tromped along, calling “Oh Dixie, Hey Dixie, Dixie Girl” nonstop, like an auctioneer. At length, she emerged from the brush and onto Route 343, at the point where the road turned to face the giant billboard on the outskirts of town.

A truck approached. Toad flagged it down by waving her arms like a windmill. “What’s going on?” Burl Slocum asked her when he pulled over and rolled down the window.

Burl jawed on that question for a few seconds, then answered, “I think maybe I might have. A dog that looked a lot like her was roaming that old dirt road just beyond the steel bridge, on toward the hills.”

“That’s it! I know where she’s going,” Toad cried to Burl. “Can you take me there?”

“Wait a minute there, Toad. I was just on my way into town to see the fireworks.”

Toad burst into a deluge of tears. She sank to her knees, blubbering. “Please, I’m begging you.”

“Stop that. I cain’t stand to see a woman cry.” Burl squeezed his fingers into the notches on the steering wheel. “Oh, what the hell. Get in. Let’s see if we can find that mutt of yours.”

“Glory will be ours,” Taara said, heaving the hooks and ropes into the back of El Jefe’s van.

“No, it is civil disobedience,” Taara corrected him, unwrapping her hijab and stuffing all her hair into a baseball cap that could barely contain it all. “That is what makes it glorious.”

El Jefe checked the list to confirm they had everything they needed, then slammed shut the hatch on the van. He checked his watch. “Where’s your girlfriend, Rufus?”

“Mazie is not my girlfriend,” Rufus asserted, although El Jefe thinking so pleased him. “She should be back from walking Shabazz by now. Maybe I should go look for her.”

“No,” Taara said. “She knows the plan. If she is not here in ten minutes, we will have to leave without her.”

“She’ll be here,” Rufus stood up for her, even though he was not at all sure of her intentions.

Quang said, “We might as well listen to some tunes while we’re waiting. He turned up the volume on his Bluetooth speaker; “American Idiot” started streaming. The song moved him to embark upon a spastic air guitar solo. He lip-synched, thrashed his imaginary instrument, and strutted around in a Jaggeresque manner, urging the others to join him. Taara huffed and turned her back, but after a while she peeked over her shoulder at him, and with a faint smile on her face, began strumming an invisible bass. El Jefe tapped his foot and started drumming on the hood of his van. They looked unworried about the felony act of terrorism they were about to commit. Rufus didn’t share their smugness.

Walking around the van, Rufus stopped behind a maple tree to take a piss. Nothing was coming out. It felt like someone was watching him. Peering around the side of the tree, he saw his teammates; they were too busy acting like fools to notice him. Then he looked up, where from a branch just above his head, two beady raccoon eyes gazed down upon him.

“Help,” he heard Mazie’s voice carry over the music. She ran toward them, arms and legs flailing, hair flying everywhere.

Rufus hurried to meet her. She bent over, hands on knees, panting. “Shabazz,” she said.

“He’s gone.” Mazie righted herself and caught her breath. “When I went to take him on his afternoon walk, he was missing. He’d clawed through the screen door, probably scared by the firecrackers.”

El Jefe reassured her, “It’s nothing. Loud noises make dogs panic. He will hide until they are done, and then go back home. You’ll see.”

“No. I’m responsible for him. There will be hell to pay if something happens to him.”

“I can’t,” Mazie said again. She stood up straight, as if behind a line drawn in the dirt.

Taara kicked the ground and shook her shoulders so hard that the baseball cap flew off her head, and her mane of kinky hair sprang loose. “No, no, no, no, no. You cannot back out now. We need both of you to do this.”

“Naw, we don’t really,” Quang disagreed. “Fuck ‘em if they don’t want to join the party.”

El Jefe started the van and Quang hopped into the seat next to him. Before she got in, Taara spoke: “You are no longer part of our team.”

Mazie and Rufus watched the Team of Strangers drive away for their date with destiny. “We might regret this,” Rufus said.

Rufus only had to think for a second before he said, “I think I know where Shabazz went.”

Rufus pointed toward the darkening woods. Mazie nodded that she understood. The grateful expression on her face removed any doubt Rufus had about his decision. Fuck making a moral statement, he thought. I’ve got a date.

Tank couldn’t resist lighting a cherry bomb and tossing it into a culvert. When it blew, thunder resounded out of both ends, like an explosion in surround sound. People sitting in the fairway ducked and covered their heads with their arms. Tank chortled in delight.

Boog was not amused; he grabbed Tank by the collar and snarled “asshole” in his face.

“Your fun is gonna give away our location,” Boog rebuked him. “And ruin the element of surprise.”

The town of Golden Springs prided itself on its expansive, multiuse green spaces. Among the most prized tracts of undeveloped land was a five-mile-long strip alongside Elixir Creek, which was named the “Boulevard of Verdant Dreams.” In addition to providing townsfolk with paths for walking and biking, a fitness trail, a safe playground, an outdoor amphitheater, and a chanoyu tea house, there was a world-class Frisbee golf course, where the spacious grounds around the eighteenth hole and clubhouse provided a perfect viewpoint and launch pad for the town’s Fourth of July festivities.

The Galoots were hiding on a little knoll in a copse of lilac trees overlooking the eighteenth fairway. Boog trained his binoculars at the clubhouse patio. It felt like being back in Kandahar, scoping out the enemy.

A string quartet was playing some la-de-da music that sounded like something he might hear in a dentist’s office to calm a person facing a painful procedure. Surrounding the stage were hundreds of people preparing their luminaries for ignition and liftoff. Inconceivably, nobody was drunk or even a tad disorderly—Boog wondered what was wrong with these people; they looked to him like congregants in some kind of weird liberal cult, ready to drink the Kool-Aid. He almost felt sorry for them.

“Let’s go over the plan once more. You gotta act like you belong here. Right?”

Buzz didn’t wait for Boog to answer the boy. He cracked open a can of Blatz and handed it to him. When Boog scowled at him, Buzz grinned and said, “He’s doing a man’s job. He deserves a man’s drink.”

“Just one,” Boog said, then continued strategizing. “So, you’ll walk through the rough, keeping your distance, but not so much that you attract attention. If somebody looks at you, wave like you’re just another idiot. Walk around to the side of the clubhouse. There are three little steps onto the patio. You have to make sure you’ve got a clear path, all the way to the speaker’s podium. As soon as that asshole gets ready to talk, I’ll light off an M-80. When you hear it, run as fast as you can, and don’t slow down. Do it, then skedaddle off the other side of the patio, behind the clubhouse, through the pines, around the duck pond, and meet up with Paddy, who’ll wait for you in the pickup on the other side. Meanwhile, we’ll rain down a whole javelin missile’s worth of fireworks, to let them know what a real honest-to-goodness American Fourth of July is supposed to sound like. Kaboom. That’s the sound of freedom, boy.”

“Yeah, yeah. Sure, sure,” Justin cut him off. “And after that you’re going to give me my first tattoo, just like you promised.”

“Oh, I want it, alright. On my butt, where Momma will never see, a great big pair of lips, so I can tell everybody to kiss my ass.”

Meredith had never experienced a homespun, small-town Fourth of July; it felt to her like being an extra in an episode of The Andy Griffith Show. The whole town had turned out to frolic and cut loose, and for that one day in the middle of the summer, incited by patriotic fervor, neighborly goodwill, booze and junk food, Coon Creek was an idyllic place.

She found a parking spot just large enough for a miniature pony, perfect for her Smart car, right up front near the stage and adjacent blast zone, close enough so that she could’ve tossed a ping-pong ball into one of the mortar tubes. She walked in circles through the crowd, going nowhere, brushing shoulders and offering a cheery “hiya” to everybody she passed. While waiting in line to buy a sno-cone, she chatted with an elderly couple, who told her they hadn’t missed a single Boom-a-Thon in their forty years of marriage. When she couldn’t decide on what flavor of sno-cone she wanted, the stringy-haired teenager at the booth suggested that she try “dragon fruit,” because even though its name sounded like something awful, everybody who tried it liked it. Dogs played off leash. A boy was carrying his girlfriend piggyback. A speaker on the stage encouraged people to purchase raffle tickets by promising them a chance at winning a freezer. Meredith sucked on her sno-cone, and when an oldies band took the stage and started playing “Pour Some Sugar on Me,” she surprised herself by letting out a whoop, which earned her a tip of the beer bottle from an old-timer sitting on a lawn chair nearby.

Meredith leaned against a tree and watched the crew of workers in the cordoned off area checking cables and making last minute adjustments to the array of pyrotechnics. In the middle of it all, seated at a card table in front of a computer console, a woman who looked like a chubby Deadhead ran her finger across the screen with one hand and jabbed at the mouse with the other. Workers occasionally accosted her to ask a question or to show her something. Clearly, she was the person in charge. The woman’s aura of authority intrigued Meredith so much that she did not immediately recognize her. In fact, she had to mentally undress her before she realized that, sans her black three-piece suit, the Good Samaritan from the Coon Creek Diner and the fireworks lady were one and the same. Faye.

At length, Faye pushed back her chair and cracked her knuckles with satisfaction. She had a paper plate on her lap, and on the plate was a piece of pecan pie with whipped cream. She took a bite with a plastic fork and washed it down with a bottle of hard cider. Meredith decided to stay close and, after the show, introduce herself. Sharing some hard cider and a piece of pie with her seemed like an excellent way to end the day.

When darkness settled, the final speaker of the evening squared himself in front of the podium. “Bless you, friends,” he said into the microphone.

Spare me your prayers, Meredith thought. Turning her back to him, she watched Faye flip a toggle switch next to her console.

At once, the man of God recoiled from an earsplitting wave of feedback. He tapped at the microphone; it issued a shrill ringing sound that made people cover their ears. Reverend Belvedere tried to speak over the distortion, but the sound swallowed his words. He looked to the sky for a sign. The sound system went dead silent. The spotlights illuminating the stage went dark, and shadows swallowed the reverend.

With a boom, the first firework sped shrieking high into the sky. As it burst above the crowd, music started playing—“Come to My Window” by Melissa Etheridge, of all things. Meredith sang along.

Whatever words the reverend intended to say, he didn’t get that opportunity, and although his lips kept moving, nobody listened, nor could they have heard over the fanfare.

Justin crouched like a sprinter waiting for the starter pistol. He cradled the Boston cream pie in the nook of his arm like a football. He kept a close eye on the stage and checked his watch. The speaker was walking toward the stage, right on time. He started counting down slowly.

Ten one hundred, nine one hundred, eight one hundred...

During his approach, Justin kept his distance by moving through the bushes and tall grasses. Once he nearly tripped over lovers making out on a blanket; the woman laughed and said to him, “Nice looking pie,” just as casually as that, even though her bare titties were hanging out.

He quickly realized that nobody was paying any attention to him or cared what he was doing, so, curious to see hippies in their natural environment, he altered his path through the crowd. Several people were busy inflating paper bag luminaries in preparation for release. Everywhere, the haze of wacky tobacky was as thick as exhaust from his old man’s pickup truck. Justin figured that it wasn’t cheating if he got a secondhand buzz, so he snorted every breath for maximum impact. All it did was make his mouth dry. A piece of that pie would taste really good, though.

Seven one hundred, six one hundred, five one hundred....

Despite the many illicit temptations, Justin was resolute. He had a mission. True, he really wanted that tattoo his old man promised to him if he did this. He’d be the envy of the seventh-grade locker room. But his determination went deeper than just that. This was his chance to go down in Coon Creek history, creating a story that father would tell son for generations to come. He’d be as much of a celebrity as Burl Slocum, who ten years after playing high school football was still a hero around town for scoring the winning touchdown against Xenia back in ‘06. Justin hoped that his deed would merit an equal measure of fame. Maybe he’d even get a girlfriend.

Four one hundred, three one hundred, two one hundred....

A frail old black dude with a funny hat and a colorful shirt that looked like a blanket stepped across a patio and onto the stage. That was his target. “Professor Ass-hole-o,” as the Galoots called him. Justin’s pa told him that the professor was a terrorist and a communist who hated America. When people in the crowd saw him, they started whooping and hollering, and he raised both arms to embrace their accolades. He stood next to a skinny dude who said he was the common facilitator, or something like that, and accepted a key to the city. Afterwards, the common facilitator stood aside, leaving the spotlight to the professor. He settled in front of the podium and cleared his throat, then said something that sounded like “Asante.”

Justin vaulted the steps and flew pie-first across the patio. Professor Ass-hole-o turned to see what was going on.

Justin caught the professor full in the face with the Boston cream pie. He gave it a quick turn to smear it into his eyes and up his nose. Then he kept going, off the other side of the patio and into the stunned stillness of the night.

Boom! Fireworks exploded in rapid fire, echoing through the open space. It sounded like a war had broken out in Golden Springs.

People hit the ground. They let go of their luminaries and ran for shelter. The untended sky lanterns slowly wafted above the bedlam. The blasts continued and panic ensued, while tongues of flame ascended heavenward.

Once he was safely away from the fracas, Justin stopped to look back at the chaos he had wrought. This ought to be worth two ass tattoos, he thought hopefully.

As soon as the first flare sprayed across the sky, the Team of Strangers went to work. As they’d anticipated, Main Street in Coon Creek was bereft of any living soul, save for a drunk passed out in the alley behind a dumpster. Everybody else was at or around the high school stadium to watch the Boom-a-Thon. Even the Drink Here Tavern had closed for the event. This was their chance to fix history, and in doing so blow off some righteous indignation. El Jefe nailed their manifesto, entitled “Everything You’ve Been Told Is a Lie,” to a tree. It was signed, The Victims.

In the dark, empty park, the statue of Philander Fink looked like it had a worried expression.

“Are you seriously talking to a statue?” Quang asked, handing her a grappling hook.

“I am savoring the moment,” she said as she tied the hooks to the ends of three long ropes.

“Make them tight,” El Jefe said. “I don’t want one of those hooks to boomerang back at us.”

They stepped back to examine their work. There were three hooks—on a leg, around the hips, and around Philander Fink’s neck. Taara tugged on the ropes to satisfy herself that they were secure. Meanwhile, El Jefe twisted the ends of the ropes together and strapped the entire tangle to the trailer hitch on the back of his van.

“This is going to be so cool,” Quang said. He took his cell phone out of his pocket and held it in front of himself and the statue in bondage behind him.

Before starting the van, the three of them stacked their hands atop each other’s and the gearshift. As a team, they shifted into low. El Jefe floored the gas pedal.

In their mental rehearsals, the Team of Strangers had anticipated that the statue of Philander Fink was as spineless as the man himself, and that the force of the van pulling would snap it off its pedestal with the first tug on the ropes. They planned to drag it out of town, then take it to a hole they’d dug in a pasture overlooking the gorge, where they’d bury the evidence and cover the grave with dirt, topped with cow patties.

But the statue stood firm. Inside the van, the Team of Strangers felt an abrupt jolt. At the end of its ropes, the van’s tires started spinning, and it began to sway from side to side, but it didn’t move an inch forward.

“Fuck me,” El Jefe cursed. “I knew this old beater wasn’t much stronger than a lawn mower, but I still thought it’d get the job done.”

She and Quang scampered out of the van and hopped onto the pedestal. Quang put his hands on Philander’s butt, and Taara braced herself against his shoulders.

Again, El Jefe floored the accelerator. Taara and Quang put all their weight into pushing. Just as before, the van got only as far as the extent of the ropes before it stopped dead in its tracks, like a dog at the end of its leash. The statue creaked, but still resisted.

El Jefe shifted back and forth repeatedly, while Taara and Quang shoved in time with the vehicle’s motion.

They put everything they had into one final, Herculean push. The ropes were so taut they hummed. The wheels of the van were burning rubber. The combined forces of push/pull, push/pull built in intensity.

At once, Philander Fink’s head broke away from its body, bounced off the base of the pedestal, and landed in the grass like a fallen apple.

The Team of Strangers looked at each other, as nonplussed by this turn of events as if their own heads had snapped off.

From a distance, a crescendo of back-to-back fireworks signaled that the grand finale of the Boom-a-Thon was starting.

They scrambled into the van and made their getaway, with Taara cradling Philander Fink’s head on her lap. When they passed the town limits, El Jefe checked the rearview mirror to see if anybody was following them, then cast a quick backwards glance over his shoulder. He abruptly pulled over to the side of the road.

The Team of Strangers got out of the van, stood side by side by side, with Taara holding the Fink head, as if so that it could also see, and together they watched in awe as explosions of brilliant colors spread across the sky, forming iridescent bands as they drifted downward. The entire sky seemed to ripple and wave with a glimmering banner.

Mazie pointed the flashlight at a fresh heap of dog turds. “He’s gone this way,” she deduced.

“When you walk a dog day after day, you get to know where he likes to shit.”

Of course Rufus believed her. Mazie thought that if she told him that Shabazz shat pink eggs, he’d go along with that too. At first, his complaisance had seemed like romantic simplemindedness, which she considered a fatal flaw in writers and boyfriends; but over the past few weeks she’d come to recognize that it was more like an innocent objectivity, a willingness to listen and give her the benefit of doubt, even when doing so strained credulity. There were worse traits in a man.

In reality, despite her insistence, Mazie wasn’t sure at all of what she was doing or saying. She was more hopeful than confident.

On their ascent to Shawnee Knob, they heard booming reverberations from Golden Springs. It sounded like the placid little town had become a demilitarized zone.

“It sounds to me like somebody has sabotaged Independence Day. And I have a pretty good idea who’s responsible.”

Rufus stopped in his tracks, as if that insight was more than he could process while walking at the same time.

Mazie picked up the pace, trying to leave that subject behind them. “Shabazz!” she called.

Even in the dark, they covered the trail to Shawnee Knob in half the time they’d normally have taken. As they huffed their way up the final stretch and the clearing came into view, Mazie’s doubts clawed to the forefront of her thoughts.

“I said that I thought I knew where he was,” Rufus clarified. “It was a hunch.”

“Shit. If we don’t find him here, we’ll have to expand the search. I’ll go door to door if that’s what it takes.”

They hustled up the last, steepest part of the trail. Mazie stopped when she felt the ground flatten under her feet. The surrounding forest was so dark as to be featureless, while the open sky above and beyond the clearing was an eerie starless gray. Mazie yielded the lead to Rufus.

Mazie thought she heard something rustle in the bushes. She listened harder. Then she thought she saw something move among the ferns. She went to look. But there was nothing, just fronds stretching and leaves fluttering. Disappointed, her stomach deflated, and she felt queasy on her feet. She backed up and sat on the bench by the viewpoint, head in hands, wondering what to do next.

From under the bench, Shabazz moaned and weakly poked Mazie’s legs with his nose.

Rufus pointed his flashlight at them. Huddled beneath the bench, Shabazz and another dog curled around each other, trembling.

“What’s this?” Mazie reached down between her legs and rubbed between Shabazz’s ears. Not to be ignored, the second dog whimpered and licked Mazie’s hand.

“Who are you?” Mazie asked. “And what’re you doing hiding under a bench with Shabazz?”

“That’s his girlfriend,” Rufus answered on behalf of the dog. He lowered himself on one knee and rubbed her neck. “What are you doing here, Dixie?”

The beams from two halogen flashlights shone from the far side of the knob, illuminating Mazie, Rufus, and the two dogs like convicts caught in a spotlight. Shielding her eyes, Mazie watched two dark silhouettes—one a behemoth, and the other slight—traipsing through the rubble and brambles, then shimmying through the break in the barbed wire fence. Mazie knew those shadows all too well.

Mazie stepped sideways and backwards, leaving Rufus to buffer her from the approaching bodies.

The pair advanced into the stark foreground, seeing and being seen at the same time.

Toad pressed her hands against her chest. “My goodness. Mazie. Is it really? How can it be?”

Burl spoke to Mazie: “What in the holy hell are you doing here?” But he was looking at Rufus and sizing him up.

Mazie blinked with fearful clarity, realizing she had nowhere to hide, no plausible excuse, and no face-saving way out that didn’t involve confession and begging forgiveness, so, with nothing to lose, she surrendered to willing desperation. She pulled Rufus toward her, wrapped her arms over his shoulders, and smacked a hot, wet kiss on his lips.

Rufus liquefied in her arms, drenched with arousal, soggy with gratitude. It felt to Mazie like the only thing holding him up was the linkage between their mouths, and if she let go, he’d spill into a puddle on the ground in front of her. She embraced him tighter and supported him upright by sliding one leg between his. She wanted to make this moment last at least long enough for her to figure out how she was going to explain herself.

Mazie heard her mother say, “Mazie, darling. What in the heck are you doing? Who’s that? And Dixie! Oh, Dixie. I can’t believe this. It’s like I’m dreaming.”

Mazie slowly peeled back from Rufus. His puzzled gaze lingered over her. She felt like she was in the spotlight of a million contradictions, without a single good answer for anybody.

Mazie stifled him by pressing a finger against his lips. She wasn’t ready to answer that question. Nor was she ready to answer the questions she expected from the others. She stood looking at the ground.

The next few seconds passed in a jumbled cacophony of everybody talking in monosyllables over everybody else.

Shabazz and Dixie got the last word, though. In the confusion, the amorous canines snuck out from under the bench and padded, side by side, to the viewpoint; they barked together, as if to say, “Shut up and look.”

Rufus stepped away from the verbal melee and faced the open sky. He called back to friends, lovers, and strangers alike: “You guys. Come here. You’ve got to see this.”

Four humans and two dogs stood beside each other in enthralled silence. To the south, high above Golden Springs, dozens of paper luminaries floated like lucent ghosts in a gently spiraling pattern that unfurled across the valley. Farther, to the north, the aerial spectacle of the Coon Creek fireworks show was entering its grand finale. The volley of successive missiles soared high enough to look like comets at the peak of their trajectory, then burst, one by one, into multicolored layers that blended together as they descended to form a broad arching rainbow flag of violet over blue over green over yellow over orange over red, stretching from horizon to horizon.

Mazie stood with Rufus to her right and her mother to her left. She dreaded the questions that she knew were coming, once the fireworks were over. Then a notion popped into her head like a bombshell. The easiest thing to do was simply tell the truth. All of it. It was worth a try. What’s the worst that could happen?

For the moment, though, none of that mattered. She envisioned her friends and family—and all of the good people in Coon Creek, as well as Golden Springs—all looking toward the sky with reverence—minds blown, jaws hanging, eyes bulging, hearts racing, oohing and aahing, and, in that instant, everyone feeling downright neighborly.

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