After dinner, Jake and Rachel walked to the football field, passed the gutters riddled with the red waxed paper of a week’s worth of firecrackers, paper cones that had once been fountains, burned at one end, spent. Jake knew that the storm drains would soon be choked with the thin wires of sparklers, blackened and bent. The streets were littered with the carcasses of family packs of Bumble Bees, pyrotechnic insects that lit up and flew in circles toward the sky. The Bumble Bees left burn marks on the asphalt.
People were already gathered at the football field, even though the firemen’s show wouldn’t start for hours. Jake and Rachel paced around the track, and it sounded like Beirut. Jake’s mouth tasted like metal, the acrid smoke of sparklers.
They found Laverna in the beer garden. She sat with Red Mabel, and they were surrounded by empty plastic cups. Laverna frowned as they approached.
“Bastards,” Laverna said, and Jake knew immediately.
“Pig fuckers,” added Red Mabel.
“Second place,” said Jake. “I kind of figured that would happen.”
“The Rotary Club won again,” said Laverna. “We should’ve kidnapped that goddamned Peggy and put her on our float.”
“It’s okay,” said Jake. “It was totally worth it.”
“Yes,” said Laverna. “You did me proud, kid. It was worth every penny.”
“Thank you,” said Jake. “It all seems like a dream.”
Rachel and Jake navigated the cacophony of the north end of the track, where ten-year-olds shot bottle rockets at one another, launched out of empty pop bottles. The parents just sat in lawn chairs and watched their children form small armies and use garbage cans as bunkers, engaging in ground warfare.
Soon it was ten o’clock, but the sky wasn’t black, not with the constant explosions. The volunteer firemen had not mounted their own expensive display; these were airborne flowers from the fireworks-obsessed denizens of Quinn, who weren’t celebrating America’s independence as much as celebrating other countries—their close proximity to legal firework stands in Canada, and cheap explosives manufactured in China.
Jake and Rachel rounded the bleachers and cut behind the dugouts.
Winsome Shankley clutched the chain link, barely hung on, vomited, and swung from the fencing with one hand. It was an impressive trick, doing this at the same time. Winsome was so vain and so well practiced that he did not vomit on himself, the regurgitated alcohol spewed through the fence and onto the away team’s bench.
“I can’t believe I had sex with him,” said Rachel as they walked away.
“He had a hot tub,” said Jake. “I’ve heard that chlorine kills sperm and diseases.”
“That’s comforting,” said Rachel.
The firemen began their show, and housewives clapped at each explosion in the sky, screamed as the booms flowered into tails of color, fire powder transformed into bloom. The wives called out the names of their husbands, the brave volunteer firemen who tended to the tar barrels and shot paper cartridges shaped like pigeons into the sky. The volunteer firemen carefully monitored the makeshift cannons, set up the firing line in the long jump pit. Through all the smoke, they were barely visible as they scrambled around the sandy graveyard and sought protection behind the piles of hurdles, stacked and put away for the year.
Rachel and Jake watched all this from the far end of the football field, sitting on a picnic table and looking up at the sky. Rachel lit a cigarette and smoked it silently. Jake knew she was thinking about Winsome.
Rachel threw her cigarette toward the goal post, not caring that children leaped out of the way.
Above them, the sky over the football field glowed with the colors of a summer storm, trembled with the reverberations of the fireworks.
The Flood Girls versus the Ellis Talc Miners
The final game of their regular season play was against their stiffest competition, the best team in the county league.
The Ellis Talc Miners were rough and raucous on and off the field. Like the Flood Girls, they had a reputation. On top of all that, Shyanne was done for the year. Her ankle was still severely injured, and Ginger would not let up about it.
In the dugout, she harangued Laverna: “Do you know how much college costs?”
“Of course not,” said Laverna.
“Do you realize how much her scholarships will be worth?”
“Right now is not the time to run your menopausal mouth,” said Laverna. “I’m sick of hearing about it.”
Laverna walked away and brought her roster to Jake, who sat in the bleachers, Frank leashed and lying beside him. She didn’t say a word to Jake, because she was nervous. This game meant more to Laverna than she was willing to let on.
Laverna returned to the dugout and clipped the lineup to the chain link. She watched Rachel, warming up with Della for the first time. This also made Laverna nervous so she eavesdropped as they threw the ball back and forth in front of the dugout, and Della chewed on her giant wad.
“I heard you fucked Winsome,” said Della.
“It’s none of your business,” Rachel said, and threw the ball at Della as hard as she could.
“He gets around,” Della said, and caught the ball with ease. Laverna was proud that they had both improved.
“You don’t have any eyebrows,” said Rachel. “Doesn’t that bother you?”