The drizzle didn’t keep the family away; they gathered in the backyard of his home, eating grilled chicken, rice and beans, seafood and salads, drinking beer and juice, and sodas and plenty of water. It was drizzling, but it was still hot.
July in Providence doesn’t offer much relief from summer’s heat, and a little rain didn’t cool things off, but the party went on. and everybody had a good time, and when the sun set it was time for the fireworks.
He made sure the kids had sparklers, and made sure they stayed away from the big ones, the ones he and only he could light off, and he did so, and the thirty or so people left watched, and cheered a little, and oohed and aahed when the big ones went off.
When the show was over, and the party had run out of steam he cleaned up the spent fireworks. He saw that one of the biggest ones hadn’t gone off, and looked into the tube to see why.
Just like that, his face was gone.
It must have seemed forever, waiting for help to arrive. We got there quick, about four minutes from the first call, and those four minutes must have been agonizing for those waiting, hearing the sirens in the distance closing in.
Somebody had wrapped a towel around his head, and some little boys were standing a dozen feet away, and his mother screamed from inside the house, where she had been carried, anguished wails, mournful sobs, shock and fear all together in one long inarticulate and endless expression of grief.
One of the women scooped the boys away, and they disappeared into the house as well, and the rain grew heavy, soaking us, blood mixing with the water as it ran down the gutter.
I peeled the towel away. He would be blind if he lived.
We applied oxygen where the remains of his nose and mouth were, monitored vital signs and sped to the ER, six minutes away. Two IVs were established enroute and there was not a damned thing more could we do.
His skull was exposed, his face was in the towel, and there was nothing left on the street but some blood and a scattering of fireworks, damp, burned cardboard, empty shells, spent casings and burn marks on the pavement.
The trauma team did all they could, but it wasn’t enough. He died on the fifth of July.
