Taking care of the ones you love by avenging them, however directly, is always too late. The reason for vengeance isn't prevented. Sometimes it has to happen anyway. Someone might be saved; it's an act of independence.
Fireworks by Jay Butkowski
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The moment the plan entered Frank’s brain,
he was certain of one thing: It had to happen on the Fourth of July. The rest
of his convictions may have wavered like the giant flag that he and his
granddaughter used to hang over the garage door to celebrate Independence Day. But
the date was an absolute certainty.
It had to be the Fourth.
Frank spotted two in the living room as he
approached up the walk. No need for “covert intelligence” – the grimy bay
window was bare, and the assholes were visible from the street, glued to the
flickering light of the TV, probably already tripping balls. The drug-dulled
response time definitely worked in his favor.
Independence Day used to be a big deal for Frank’s
family. There was a parade in town in the morning, and his granddaughter used
to come by to visit him. She would cheer him on from the front porch while he
marched with the local contingent of veterans from the Korean War.
Frank’s granddaughter, Fiona, was something
special: spunky little personality, strawberry blonde hair done up in pigtails
accented by silver and blue ribbons. A smattering of freckles crossed the
bridge of her nose above a wide, gap-toothed smile which could barely contain
all the wonder and joy in the world, confined to a sweet little giggle that
rang like wind chimes.
Frank wedged the barrel of his over/under
against the paint-chipped wooden door, just above the tarnished doorknob. He
lit the M-80 with the Zippo Helen had given him for their tenth wedding
anniversary and started counting down from 7.
The image of his granddaughter –
perpetually young and happy – flashed in his mind once more. Fiona Firecracker,
he used to call her. Born on the Fourth of July.
Alright,
Fiona Firecracker, he
thought to himself as he took a deep breath. It’s time to go boom.
Frank pulled the trigger and breached the
locking mechanism. He kicked the door the rest of the way open and strode
through the shattered portal.
With one second left in his count, Frank
flung the M-80 into the lap of the nearer pile of human garbage, frozen in his
seat by the front door on the shit-brown couch. He raised the shotgun in a
fluid, practiced motion, and unloaded the second barrel into the further of the
two. The shotgun and M-80 went off almost simultaneously, ruining the face and
manhood of the two in the living room.
Frank dropped the shotgun onto the coffee
table and reached for the Colt Peacemaker that hung down on his hip.
He had loved that little girl. Doted on her
the way a grandfather only could. She rekindled a happiness in him that he
thought was buried when his beloved Helen died of cancer.
Fiona lit up the room when she came to
visit. When he noticed the hand-shaped bruises on her arm, Frank broke her daddy’s
arm in three places. The fucker left the family after that, never to be seen
again. Good riddance.
Another junkie came whirling around the
corner from the kitchen into the living room, two-liter bottle of Coke in hand.
Frank put two rounds into him as soon as he came into view – rather, one into
the junkie, and one into the soda bottle. They both dropped to the ground,
blood mixing with high fructose corn syrup on unmopped linoleum.
Fiona Firecracker lost a bit of her spark
after her daddy left. She became quiet, detached. Strawberry blonde hair was dyed
jet black. A smattering of freckles was joined by an ugly nose ring and black
eye make-up. She started hanging with the wrong crowd.
Enter the Scumboys.
Frank started up the stairs, Peacemaker
drawn and at the ready. He’d seen lights from a second floor window on his
approach to the house and wanted to investigate.
The Scumboys were a gaggle of braindead
losers who had names like Rat and Scythe and Puke. Dope peddlers, carjackers, and
a couple B & E’s rounded out their collective rap sheets.
It was through the Scumboys that Fiona was
introduced to pills. She tried to fill that Daddy-sized hole in her soul with
them. Then she moved onto needles. After she started shooting up, little was left
of the spunky girl with the wonderful, joyful giggle.
Frank shoulder-checked a door on the second
floor, sending it flying open. Inside, a teenage girl was writhing on top of an
older, tattooed boy. They were startled when Frank came through the bedroom
door.
Frank sighed and tossed a discarded Misfits
t-shirt from the floor at the doped-up girl. “Go,” he said, deflated. “And quit
it with the drugs.”
Frank kept the Colt trained on the tattooed
kid while the girl ran down the stairs, out the busted front door and down the
sidewalk. The punk’s immediate reaction of fear was replaced with pissy
defiance once fight-or-flight kicked in.
“I don’t know you, Old Man, but you’re
dead,” he snarled at Frank.
“Yeah, you too,” Frank shrugged, and put a
bullet between the kid’s eyes.
Fiona Firecracker was born on the Fourth of
July in 1981, five months after her Grandmother died from cancer. She died
eight months ago from a heroin overdose, on November 13, 1997 – two days after
Frank’s lung cancer diagnosis.
Frank searched the rest of the house, but
no one else was home. He went out to the trunk of his car and brought back a
couple gas cans. The rest of the town was down at the football field to watch
the fireworks, so it would be a few minutes before the fire trucks arrived.
Frank finished his work and went out onto
the front lawn to see if the police or volunteer fire squad would show up
first. At the other end of town, a sky rocket erupted in the night sky, sending
multi-colored embers back down to Earth.
“We did good tonight, kid,” Frank said to
himself.
