Fireworks

The coals were cooling and filled stomachs had little room for fruit salad and home made chocolate chip cookies, but we made some. Afterwards, we climbed out the window onto one roof, then a ladder up to a second and one more up to the third. I stuck a sweaty bottle into a cargo pocket for the assent. At the summit we stood and squatted between the paired chimneys to watch the distant fireworks bursting above low red haze, while the Puerto Rican kids shot bottle rockets at each other in the Roman candle and sparkler fog rising from the street below. Rain started shortly afterwards, and washed the sulfur from the air.