Sparks
Windows down and I can hear the kids playing before we pass them by along the side of the school, the buildings flat then tall, loose gravel crunching under the tires. A whistle in the distance and I pull onto the yellow line at the square head of the long thin carpark and Julie and I climb out.
She heads for the canteen at the front of the shed at the bottom of the hill as I slide the doors at the back of the van open and haul out the first of the boxes. I carry them down towards the fields with the doors still open because no one will take any and, even if they did, they wouldn’t know what to do with them. I pass by the canteen as Julie slips behind the counter. She sells soft drinks and hot fried food to children too young to play and adults too obligated to watch.
The fields host two games at a time with parents watching either left or right from a median strip. Forty-four children playing football to varying degrees of success. They’re all trying their hardest, I suspect, and even on finals day some of them just can’t muster it. But it’s little league. And I’m judging. A ball goes wide past the net ahead of me and the goalkeeper dawdles out to fetch it. I nod as I pass by. He throws it to number fourteen to kick from the penalty line. Straight out.
I rest the first of the boxes in the grass on the far left of the fields, near the fence against the farm. The hill reaches up and away behind me and I look back to the parking lot as a family passes the van and a little boy points to the van. I can’t hear him but I suspect he is asking if I can park there. The body language of children coming to understand the rules of belonging. His family tugs him along. Another whistle and a young captain groans.
I walk back up to the van, keeping an eye on the box near the fields, and begin to unload the smaller crates and take them down to add to the growing pile for later this evening. As I pass the canteen Julie tells me when people have been eyeing the boxes off and I tell her that I saw them too and I ask if anyone touched anything and she said no, they’ve just been looking. Julie runs back to the trestle table as someone stands before it peers at the bains-marie behind her.
The fireworks business on the southside is small and there are only a few of us. On bigger events we work together pretty often, on the stuff the State Government has to regulate, and last year’s New Year’s took all of us. It’s been steady business since. I’m told we trended online, whatever that means. Thousands of clicks don’t help me carry these boxes and we decided to keep the business in the family so I’ll do this until my back protests. Well, protests more. A boy runs past with an old jersey tied like a cape around his neck. His Coke can shakes and fizzes in his hand. A midfielder clears the ball from halfway on the pitch next to me. The linesman waving his yellow flag away from the box. They took team photos this morning.
Whistles. The match on the far field ends and the teams coalesce with the goalkeepers meeting, shaking hands, last. A thin player from the winning team opens a soft drink he’s been shaking to celebrate and the can explodes and rains down upon all of them as the losing team slink off back to their parents without fanfare.
Tonight’s display is preprogrammed. I will find it familiar but to the families and friends of the South District Football Association it will be marvellous. Julie will scold me for being lazy. I will tell her the small rockets are never lazy and that I am always safe instead of ambitious. This is, in the fireworks business, a good thing. I hope that not too many of them ventured an hour out west a few weeks ago for the Beaudesert Show. They’ll have seen the show there. Not that people remember fireworks shows with any specifics in my experience. But the Durry brothers will probably find out.
The van is now empty. Detonators and switchboxes in my arms. I pool it by the stacked crates which I open and from within which I pull the show — the rockets. I spike them into the familiar pattern, one I’ve practiced at home many times, and it looks unmeasured from a distance I suppose but I promise you that it is. In the process I catch myself wondering which teams I saw play. To which club did the tired goalkeeper and his aimless number eleven belong? The last rocket slides into the earth and I rest the switchbox by the stack of empty boxes.
A whistle and a cheer. I turn and see eleven dancing players. Two substitutes and a coach rush onto the field as the other tries to fade away off the pitch. Passionate parents turn at the canteen and cheer. An angry captain kicks the ball from midfield. It sails right by the referee and towards me.
In the event of a fireworks emergency, the best choice is always to run. I watched the ball fly but I did not stop it in time before it hit the switchbox and flicked a toggle. The first rocket whistles and the sizzling stops. Jubilee turns to fear as the rocket whines across and then soars high, up, and explodes. Raining down yellow. Sparks wash down over the acrylic of the net on the northern side of the closest pitch.
Silence holds for a moment as the colour fades away and I walk back towards the boxes. The captain of the Rusthill Devils runs to me in a panic to apologise. I tell him not to worry, that it happens all the time. It doesn’t. Well, it does happen but not all the time. I can already hear the Durry brothers calling me to laugh.
