I want it on record that I did not start it. It was all Brad. It was him who started it. It had to have been six o’clock, since it was still light out… A gold fountain was spraying sparks and embers all over his driveway. I gave it fifteen minutes. Then I brought out the mortar tube. A man doesn’t clap at his own work.

He’s going to tell you it was a mortar “tube.” It was a mortar cannon. My gutters are still on the roof of the Hendersons’. I lit one gold fountain. For my kids. And this man declared war.

His finale was supposed to be a flag. It looked like a demented jellyfish!

It was clearly a flag.

It was a jellyfish. I set my chair on the centerline of the street because I was here for the war, not the peace. Best Fourth in years. Somebody brought a cooler. I said nothing about the drone

By seven we held opposing positions. At 7:45 Brad unveiled his secret weapon. I’m pretty sure that “thing” had voided several warranties. I countered with a remote detonator and a printed spreadsheet, because I am not an animal. I plan my responses out.

He brought a spreadsheet to a fireworks fight. That tells you everything.

I showed up on my ATV. In shorts. Holding a beer. I live at the end of the cul-de-sac and it was my day off too. I asked what they had left. They showed me. I whistled. New rule: fire everything, together, right now, and we never speak of the debt.

Twenty years of property disputes and misdelivered mail passed between us in silence. We shook hands.

We lit everything.

For eleven seconds Buckthorn Court was brighter than the sun. Three windows cracked. The drone came down. I wept openly and I’m not ashamed.

No comment on the drone.

The fire alarm went off across all four units. Sprinklers in the nail salon. I evacuated a spin class mid-ride. Fourteen people in the parking lot on stationary bikes, still pedaling, because nobody told them they could stop. I’m told it was, quote, “a flag.”

When the smoke cleared, Brad and I stood in the street, ears ringing, best friends now.

And what better way to embark a friendship than to have a common enemy?

…don’t get me started on the HOA