Fireball

It was the summer of Fireball, a Pitbull song that Edward wanted to listen to over and over again. The camp counselors played it as they drove their vans across the city until it became stuck inside of all of us like the fog.

It was the summer when my father tried to grill on our trip to Cape Cod that he didn’t realize that over the winter the squirrels had chewed through the propane gas line. The whole structure erupted in flames. He tried to smother it with a towel, but that only trapped the gas underneath. When he lifted the towel, the flames bursted out. I quickly got a hose which doused the flames. Only the grill and the grass were singed. My father didn’t grill again.

It was the trip to the cape when David jumped to the fire pole at the Falmouth playground. This summer he has pushed his limits whether it be traversing rocks or climbing into forts. He was not undefeated - there was a stumble down a hill and a splinter in a foot - but the only way to climb is to learn to reach.

It was the time that Edward and my mom first played tennis and Crazy Eights. Edward once gave her a two minute monologue on why cooked carrots are better raw. They tossed seaweed that had washed up on the shore back into the sea and laughed on the porch afterwards while still hearing the sounds from the harbor.

It was the battle of the upstairs television. My sons wanted to watch PBS cartoons; my father wanted CNN. Ultimately we got a small set in the garage for the boys.

But the news couldn’t help but seep in.

There is no good way to explain El Paso to a five year old. There is no way to explain the rage. No way to tell a kid it won’t happen again. No way to talk about death at that scale.

It was the summer I saw the plaque remembering my cousin Claxton behind the altar at St Dominic’s church. He was a born a few months before me, and for the first years of our childhood was always more advanced than me - both brighter and more athletic. It was no wonder that he started elementary school at Cathedral.

It was just over twenty years ago he lost his life to heroin.

We have this notion of the innocence of summer, that the only dangers are sunburns and stings, that there might be a place where things are safe.

When Edward tried the Cathedral uniform on for the first time, it reminded me when I saw it on Claxton. There is the formalness to it - a tie makes anyone look older and responsible. It projects a possible future. But in the end, how things wear down is unknown.

It is the last little bit of summer before Edward heads into kinder camp on Monday, and he will learn how to make s’mores, how to play on a roof, and how tor raise his hand. In a few weeks he starts the actual school and gets a team to help as he tries to learn by reaching. The hope is that he can grasp and climb. That he stays protected from the fire.