Weak Focus

Last night I was getting my son down to sleep and someone was setting off fireworks. The fourth is a big event in this neighborhood; the whole place smells like cordite for a week. I’m guessing it has something to do with the fact that it’s heavy on the muni workers. You can be sure that in Chicago, cops and firemen have the best fireworks. In any event there were what sounded like an endless series of whistles, crackles, and pops which D managed to sleep through admirably. I finally risked scooting out of bed to go see how close they were and realized that in fact they were directly in front of my house. Fireballs shooting at the windows and the roof. Uhhh… what? I go downstairs and things are finishing up and I stick my head out the door to see what’s up. Nobody is outside, and the neighbor pokes his head out and we both sort of try to figure out what the hell just happened. I tell him about a near altercation I had while trying to jump my car and he mentions his house was egged at some point earlier.

“Halloween?”

“No, after Halloween.”

We’re like Sherlock Holmes and Watson, but I don’t know who’s doing the opium.