A few bottle rocket and roman candle fights to start the night off right, and then we would wage a small scale attack on the least liked residents in the surrounding area. We had been talking about this night for weeks, and my brother had amassed a small arsenal of fireworks in his bedroom closet in preparation for the event. Our mission would involve a half dozen or so mailbox demolition projects, interspersed with an onslaught of shaving cream and toilet paper attacks. My brother was the king of mischief. He could launch a roll of toilet paper at a tree, so it would arch effortlessly at the perfect angle to expend the desired amount of paper, and leave an almost majestic stream woven through the tree. He knew exactly how long to hold an m-80 before throwing it, allowing the explosion to be heard from at least ten blocks away. He could time the throw of a snowball, so it would loft lazily in the air, and hit a passing car directly on its roof almost every time. We idolized him.
This was year he had decided that I was old enough to join in the exploits. "This was our country's two hundred year anniversary," he had said, "We're gonna blow shit up." I had my army backpack filled to the brim with all shorts of explosives and miscellany. For some reason we had an abundance of army gear in a chest out in our garage. It wasn't stuff left by my dad. He wasn't even in the army. It was old Swiss and American gear. Someone must have given it to my mom at some point thinking it would be fun for us kids. They turned out to be just the thing for carrying items such as small explosives, eggs, toilet paper and shaving cream. We had all the gear packed, and we were ready to sneak out of the down stairs bathroom window, when my mother called for me from the stairwell, "Mark, why aren't you in bed?" Damn. Just as I was about to slip out the window towards shaving cream induced glory. My brother quickly gave me up in fear of being forced to scrap the entire mission. "He's down here ma", he said, and in that instance he destroyed any chances of my ascent into manhood that evening. "Maybe next year", he said, but there was to be no next year. It was the bicentennial. The one and only. The two hundred and one year celebration would never be able to live up to its predecessor. My brother was getting too old for that kind of crap anyway. That was the year. The one year of glory, and I missed it.
It was the first occasion that I can remember where I truly felt regret. I knew then that it had been an opportunity missed, and on every fourth afterwards I have thought of the bicentennial. My brother grew older, and our relationship changed. He became a teenager, and his time became consumed with girls and acne cream.
After our father died, my brother had tried to give me the attention a father would have. It was always a bit awkward, and most times it made me sad more than anything. It just reminded me that we didn't have a dad, but he tried to be there for me when I was young. He taught me how to throw a football, how to swing a bat, and more important things like how to make your voice sound like that Black Sabbath song when singing through a fan or how to spit through your middle teeth so your spit would stream out like a fountain. He tried to shelter me from the fatherless life that he and our brother had. It didn't really work, but he always tried to make me feel special when he was around. He took the time with me. He took the time that our overworked mom just didn't have. The time that our uncles or neighbor dads would sometimes take, but always felt awkward, and seemed to say to the world, "There's that kid with no father." He was the one who taught me how to ride a bicycle, and he helped me wrap a ball up in my glove and stick it under my mattress so the pocket would break in right. Sure, he gave me my share of charlie horses, indian burns, rat tails with the wet end of a towel and he knocked me silly when he decided I needed to learn how to box, but then these are the duties of an older brother.
To this day the Fourth of July fills me with thoughts of being a kid and my older brother who gave his attention when I needed it most. I still feel a small sting of what if, a little bit of longing and regret. It makes me wish, if only for a moment, I had made it out that window.
