Scribbles and Bits

Title: Fireworks
Prompt: ‘Independence’
Note: Thomas’s family is distilled awesome, which is what happens when you get an entire family with nigh-angelic even-temperedness.  I am sad that I haven’t written anything about them until now, because they don’t get nearly the screen time they deserve in this one.




Raige comes home from marching band practice to find his dad at the dining room table, reading the Wall Street Journal.

“There’s a phone message for you,” he says without looking up, turning a page with more force than necessary. “It’s that Mexican kid.”

“Thanks,” Raige says, and leaves the room as quietly as possible.

The message has a bit of static—Thomas must’ve been using the cordless—but the words come through well enough.

“Hey Raige, my folks are having a Fourth of July barbecue. You should drop the drumsticks and come out and be social with normal people for once. The babe’s already coming, and you don’t want to disappoint her, do you? We start at five; I got work till then. Be there? Be there. See you Friday.” Click.

Raige bites his lip. He looks at the answering machine, then back towards the dining room. It’s a holiday. Holidays are for family. Sure, his dad hasn’t said anything—he doesn’t even know if his dad will be home on Friday—but still, he feels like even considering going to Texas for the holiday is just… it’s just…

But M.D. will be there. And she hasn’t been having an easy time of it lately. You don’t want to disappoint her, do you?

He takes a deep breath, wipes his palms on his jeans, and returns to where his dad sits at the table.

He doesn’t look up from the Wall Street Journal.

Raige shoves his hands in his pockets to keep himself from drumming or fidgeting. “Thomas’s family is having a party for the Fourth of July.”

His father turns to NASDAQ. “You’re mumbling.”

Raige clears his throat and tries again. It’s just a party, he tells himself. No big deal, so it shouldn’t feel like one. “Thomas. My friend. He’s having a barbecue for the Fourth.”

“And I suppose you want to go.”

Raige says nothing. He twists the fabric of his pockets through his fingers.

“Do you?”

“Yeah,” Raige says hastily. “I mean… we don’t have anything planned.” Then, “Do we?”

“No. I suppose not.”

In movies, the amount of silence in Raige’s house would be considered deeply meaningful. In life, it’s just empty.

His father lowers the newspaper so he can see over it. “We haven’t spent much time together lately.”

Raige isn’t sure what to say, so he shrugs. He has marching band; his dad has big company business. And neither of them are that great with each other.

His dad puts the paper down and clasps his hands in front of him. Even though he’s wearing normal clothes and sitting at the kitchen table, it still feels like he’s in a suit behind the big desk. “We could do something. You and me. I can take the day off.”

“What would we do?” Raige asks.

“You’re staring at the floor. Stop it. I’m not going to bite you.”

Raige swallows and pulls his eyes up from his shoes, but he can’t manage it for long and hastily looks down again. He doesn’t get it. He’s best friends with M.D., who is ten times louder, and ten times as pushy, and he never has a problem keeping eye contact with her.

“We could see a movie,” his dad says.

“If we watch a movie, we won’t speak to each other,” Raige says.

“You’re mumbling again. And I’m trying to be productive about this. Give me something constructive to work with.”

Raige feels an odd flare in his gut, and his fists clench in his pockets. He wrenches his eyes up, and he says, louder than he intends, “Thomas invited me first. If you wanted to make Fourth of July plans, you should have done it before. Right now, I feel like you don’t want to spend time with me; you want me not spending time with them, because that makes you realize you didn’t have plans with me, you were working that day, and you just assumed I’d be around anyway.” His pitch is getting dangerously high; he cuts himself off before his voice cracks.

“That’s not what I meant,” his dad says.

Raige stares down at the floor again, the sudden courage gone. He’s never been that rude before, even if that’s how he feels. He’s selfish, ungrateful, because his dad is CEO of the third biggest beer company in America, and he’s offering time out of his busy schedule to try and patch things up, and hell, he should’ve said sure, they can see a movie, it’ll be fine.

Even if it’d just be three hours sitting in a room full of strangers, not looking or speaking to each other. Even if they wouldn’t actually enjoy a single second of it. Even if…

“If you want to spend time with me, I’d rather we just talk. Really talk.” Raige says. “And I’d rather go to the party.”

His father’s face is expressionless. “Fine, then,” he says. “Have fun.”

He picks up the newspaper again. Raige slinks out of the dining room, goes up the stairs to his room, and releases a breath he didn’t even realize he was holding. Under his arms, his shirt is soaked.

He should feel bad about this. He just acted like a spoiled brat to his dad.

But he’s also going to get to spend the Fourth of July actually enjoying himself with people who he knows want to spend time with him. And he’s perversely relieved.

…

The pale figure at the corner knocks on M.D.’s door. “There’s someone on the line for you from Earth,” it tells her. “The name is Thomas Rodriguez.”

M.D. has spent most of the morning having the corpses of old memories dredged up, and most of the early afternoon throwing up everything she’s eaten. She’s in no mood for talking. “Tell him I’ll call him back.” Maybe tomorrow. Maybe next week. Maybe in a year, when she’s fit for human company again.

The figure vanishes, then returns. “He told me to tell you that you never call him back, and that he knows you’re not busy.”

M.D. makes a face, then gets to her feet. “All right, all right, I’m coming.”

She doesn’t have a phone of her own; she has to use the public access line at the Jaunter’s League front desk. The receptionist hands her the headset, which resembles a piece of modern art sculpture, and she sits on the floor, too tired to care about chairs.

“What do you want?” She asks.

Thomas’s voice is a wheedling croon. “Barbecue. Fourth of July. You should come.”

She rubs her hand over her face. “Thomas, I feel lousy.”

“You sick?”

It’s a fake question; they both know M.D. never gets sick. “Not physically.”

Thomas’s voice softens. “You’ll be at a party with me, my brother the Army guy, my dad the ex-cop, and my mom the still-cop. If you want, I can warn them, you’d be in a good place…”

“No, no, I’m not that bad,” and she’s embarrassed that this even has to be an issue, that Thomas feels the need to offer. Lord, she’s gone downhill. “I’m just… not all that fun to be around right now.”

“Raige will be there,” Thomas wheedles. “He stood up to his dad to get here.”

That pricks her ears up. “Really now.”

“Yup. Told him off and everything, he wanted to come so bad. I’d tell you the story, but I bet he tells it better, and he seems to think he’s evil or something for doing it, and he doesn’t believe me. But I’ll bet if it’s both of us…”

M.D. rolls her eyes. She knows she’s being manipulated, but dang it, Thomas is good at it. Sure, make it sound like he’s inviting her to help Raige out, rather than that he’s inviting her so they can both quietly check up on her and make sure she’s okay.

Which she’s not. But she doesn’t want them knowing that.

“He pulled all that so he could spend time with me and you,” Thomas continues innocently. “You don’t want to disappoint him, do you?”

M.D.’s lips twist. “You’re overplaying your hand, Thomas.”

“What, for wanting my best friends together in one place where nobody will give a crap where they’ve been, or what they do?” Thomas isn’t the best actor, but he can do heroically wounded like nobody else. “C’mon. It’s barbecue. Y’all have never had barbecue.”

“How do you know I’ve never had barbecue? My variety of diet is infamous.”

“Yeah, but you’re not from Texas. Only Texas has real barbecue.”

M.D. lets her head fall back against the receptionist’s desk with a thud and a sigh. She looks terrible, she feels terrible, and she knows that if she goes, everyone will know just how terribly she’s doing at everything. Better to stay home, crawl into bed, and sleep through the whole stupid Fourth of July. (Which is a frogging American holiday, so she’s not even on the right overlap to care about it anyway.)

But Raige stood up to his dad to come. And Thomas isn’t telling her what he said, which must be amazing.

“Fine,” she says. “I’ll be there. Just don’t expect any amazing company from me, all right? I’m far from my best.”

“Yes!” She can’t see it, but she knows that unfathomable amounts of space-time away, he’s pumping his fist. “See you Friday. Come after five, and prepare to be amazed.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” She hangs up and returns the handset to the receptionist. “God, I must be crazy.”

…

Friday comes, and both Raige and M.D. arrive in the living room in a blast of noise and the smell of burnt ozone.

“Hey! Y’all made it!” Thomas’s delight isn’t faked. He was sure Raige would come, but he didn’t put it past M.D. to back out at the last second. He knows M.D. doesn’t hug, but Raige does, so he gets one.

“Yeah,” Raige chuckles nervously. Even though he’s out of Vaygo, there’s still tension in his slouch. “I think Daddy’s mad at me, though.”

M.D. looks haggard and hollow-eyed, but that brings a spark of interest to her expression. “What’d you say to him?”

Raige turns red and he fingers nervous chords in midair.

M.D. punches him in the shoulder. “Spill. Or would you rather I snap you for it?”

Raige winces. “Actually, I would.”

“Deal.” Normally, M.D. isn’t eager to get into anybody’s head, but according to her, Raige’s brain is chocolate milk and pony rides, and this is apparently juicy enough to override the rest of her caution. She yanks off her glove and holds out her hand. Raige takes it, with shoulders hunched so high they nearly cover his ears. One second, and it’s done.

M.D. lets go and stares at him with a face like she just got religion. “That is beautiful.”

“Isn’t it?” Thomas says. “Told you it was great…”

“No, it wasn’t!” Raige says.

“Yes, it was,” M.D. says, pulling her glove back on. “Because what you said was frogging true.”

“It was not! He was trying to patch things up with me—”

“He was trying to save face. He obviously hadn’t even considered taking off work till Thomas invited you, or he would have already done it, he didn’t have a clue what you might do even if he did stay home, and then he took it out on you because he thought you’d back off. Except you didn’t. Brutal honesty is a good MO for you, buddy boy, you should try it out more.”

“But my dad—”

“Your dad,” M.D. says in measured tones, “can suck it up and deal.”

“But—”

She holds up a hand to silence him. “Suck it up and deal. Your dad will survive the ego blow. He has to learn how to deal with you properly someday; now’s as good a time as any.”

Raige goes silent, but at least he looks like he’s thinking about what M.D. said, and Thomas high-fives her, which she accepts, now that she’s gloved again. “Thank you! He wouldn’t believe me…”

M.D. still looks like crap, but her face is properly animated again. “Well, can you imagine Raige being purposely unpleasant to someone?”

Thomas mimes having his entire worldview annihilated.

Raige rolls his eyes, but the tension goes out of his neck, and he starts smiling again. “There’s always a first time…”

“Sure there is…”

Then Thomas’s older brother comes in, and there have to be introductions, because Marcus has been deployed all the other times they’ve been over, and he wants to know who Raige and M.D. are because Thomas talks about them constantly. There’s hand-shaking and hellos and Raige asks polite questions about the Army, while M.D. immediately starts in on her misadventures with la migra intergalactica, and there’s chatter and bragging until Thomas’s younger brother comes in and goes, “God, stop gushing, you act like they’re something special…” And then Thomas’s mom tells them to grab the cooler, they’re heading out and the whole house smells like a blown outlet now from M.D. and Raige’s arrival, so they might as well go early.

The cooler is a massive monster, and heavy as lead, but M.D. strains up one end of it and refuses to let anyone take it from her, and Raige gets the other because he wants to be useful. Marcus and Thomas get the grill (their dad has a herniated disk, and he can’t lift anything these days), while their mom grabs the food and Christopher nabs the boxes of fireworks.

“It’s too dry, mijo,” their dad says.

“No it’s not,” Christopher insists.

The whole mess of it gets loaded into the bashed-up ’78 Chevy pick-up that has terrible gas mileage but is the undying steed of the Rodriguez family. Marcus, Christopher, and their parents wedge into the cab with the grocery bags, while Thomas opts to hang in the bed with the fireworks, the grill, the cooler, M.D., and Raige.

“No fool tricks,” his mom says in Spanish as she cranks down her window. “I’m not getting pulled over by Gomez and Perry while I’m off-duty.”

“Ma,” Thomas whines, sticking with English, “c’mon, gimme some credit…”

“No making out in back!” Christopher bellows, and Thomas slams the door in his face before vaulting into the truck bed.

M.D. and Raige have already gotten themselves situated. M.D. has the extra car battery in her lap and she’s eyeing it like a hungry squirrel with a nut.

“What’s this for?” She asks.

“You can’t use it,” Thomas says. “It’s for…”

The rattling growl of the Steed’s ignition cuts him off. It builds to a crescendo, then dies. He hears a muffled curse in Spanish from his mom, and then she tries again, but the engine just grumbles and whines without turning over. After a few tries, it’s obvious she’s not getting anywhere.

The truck door opens and Marcus gets out. “I see y’all still haven’t fixed the alternator,” he calls to the family in the cab.

“I thought it was good for one more go,” their mom protests.

“Aw, Ma,” Christopher whines, “we’ll be stuck here forever, they’re going to think we’re poor…”

M.D. looks at the battery, then back at Thomas. “Ah,” she says.

Marcus already has the Steed’s hood up. “Hey, bro, give me the jumper cables already,” he calls.

Thomas doesn’t even look for them. He’s grinning at M.D. with his most charming expression. He lays an arm across her shoulders and gives her puppy eyes. “Babe…”

M.D. sighs and rolls her eyes. “This is so not what my creators intended me to be.” But she gets out of the truck bed and goes to the engine.

First, they have to explain M.D.’s crappy powers to Marcus (she tries to go into the science of it, until Thomas cuts her off with, “she’s a human Pikachu.”) Then they have to explain the relevant parts of the engine to M.D., who’s completely clueless about cars. But once everything’s settled, she rolls up her sleeves, yanks off her gloves, and grabs the greasy, grungy black battery with both hands. Her arms pulse.

“Try it now,” Thomas calls back, and the engine turns over without a hitch. There’s a whoop from the Rodriguez family.

“Can you live with us, like, permanently?” Christopher asks.

It’s a joke, but it’s obviously something M.D.’s never been asked. She blinks, then just walks back to the truck bed without saying anything sarcastic. Thomas jumps back in, and off they go.

Even though it’s past five, the Texas sun is still scorching, but at least the bed gets more of a breeze. They rattle and bump down the highway, making sure the bungee cords are holding everything in place. Or rather, Thomas does. Raige has never gotten to ride in the back of a truck before, so he’s too busy being wide-eyed and delighted about everything, laughing with surprise at every bump and waving at construction workers sitting in their own truck beds on the road. The workers seem a bit baffled at his enthusiasm, but enough wave back to keep him happy.

M.D. is quiet. She just gets as much of the engine grease off her hands with a rag as she can, then half-closes her eyes and sticks her face into the breeze, taking in deep lungfuls of free, unfiltered air.

“You look better,” Thomas tells her.

“I feel better,” she admits, rests her head on her arms, and seems to go into a doze then and there.

They go down Mopac to 290, then take that out into the grassy fields and open spaces. Even in Austin, there’s still plenty of it, and there’s one particular field that a friend of the family owns; he uses it mostly for hunting, but he’s given them permission to use it while he’s down in Mexico City, visiting family.

They pull in through the gate, park the Steed (“aw, Ma, don’t turn it off,” Christopher says, “we’ll need the Pikachu to start it up again…”) and the fun begins. Marcus lugs out the grill, a blanket is laid down, Mr. Rodriguez puts on his barbecue belt, and the grilling begins. Chicken and beef, corn on the cob, potatoes, and vegetable skewers, all cooled off with sodas and beers from the cooler. Raige’s eyes are sparking; Thomas suspects that if his family ever did have barbecues, it was ages ago, back when his mom was still around.

M.D. just eyes the food hungrily, huffing the smoke like that alone will feed her. Both Raige and Thomas notice it and edge over to her.

“Have you eaten anything today?” Raige asks her under his breath.

“Of course I have,” she says, but she looks away.

Thomas raises his voice. “Hey! Da! Give Pikachu the first chicken, she doesn’t know proper barbecue!”

M.D. makes a pained face. “Oh god, please don’t call me that…”

“You’re blond, you’re short, you zap people. Sorry, babe, you’re a Pikachu.” Thomas pats her on the back.

“Could be worse,” Raige says philosophically. “You could be a Magikarp or something…”

M.D. does accept the first chicken breast, and she doesn’t eat it so much as assault it, tearing off chunks with her teeth and wolfing it so fast that she chokes twice and needs thumps on the back.

“Chew, babe,” Thomas reminds her.

She just growls at him and grabs ketchup to help it go down easier.

It turns out Raige has never had brisket before, but he realizes its superiority fast enough. There are compliments to Thomas’s dad for his cooking abilities (he spins the tongs through his fingers with a proud grin), and then they settle down to eating and talking.

They all swap stories. Marcus tells boot camp stories, drill sergeants with senses of humor and combat games, his deployment overseas. Both Thomas’s parents have cop stories, and sure, the kids already know them all, but M.D. and Raige don’t. Raige is too shy to tell stories, but Thomas and M.D. swap on and off, and the Rodriguez family are able to accept them for what they are with neither disbelief nor shock. Christopher just whines about how god, he doesn’t have anything cool to say, his life is boring.

Before they know it, it’s dark, and the mosquitoes are starting to swarm. They light up the citronella candles and look up at the stars.

Unfortunately, the most important part, the fireworks, looks to be a no-go.

“I told you it was too dry,” Thomas’s dad says.

Nobody wants to admit it, but it’s true. It hasn’t rained in Austin for weeks; the field is dry tinder, and there’s no hose to put out any fires that could get started. Christopher and Thomas beg and plead, but Marcus has started pulling the sensible adult stuff since joining the Army, and between him and their parents, they’re outnumbered, because Raige refuses to get in the middle of it. When Thomas appeals to M.D. (“come on, babe, you can’t claim you care about safety, I know you,”) she just munches potato chips and says, “Fire is not among my skill set, genius.”

Which makes Thomas and Raige look at her. Then each other.

This time, Thomas isn’t alone in draping his arm across M.D.’s shoulders and giving her puppy eyes.

“M.D…”

“Buddy…”

“Old pal…”

“We love you…”

But M.D. isn’t buying. “No way, guys. Do you have any idea how much power I’d need to pull off a display that big and bright?”

Thomas hadn’t even considered trying to get her to do something big, he’d just been figuring on a few sparklers and Roman candle imitations, but hey, now that she’s brought it up… “You’ve just eaten something like a pound of meat, three cobs of corn, and half a bag of potato chips. Can’t you…”

“No, Thomas, I can’t. Because I suck.”

They’re interrupted by the creak of Marcus jumping out of the truck. He’s grinning. Apparently he’s not entirely adultified, because in his hands are the Steed’s jumper cables and the spare battery.

“Would that be enough?” Raige asks.

M.D. stares at them a moment. “Yeah,” she concedes. “That’d do it.”

“Woohoo!” Thomas says, and he and Raige scramble for the car gear.

“Aw, we get a Pikachu light show?” Christopher says. “This is the best Fourth of July ever!”

“Don’t have high hopes,” M.D. says hastily. “I’m not exactly good at this…”

“Is it safe?” Thomas’s mom asks dubiously.

“Ma, don’t discourage her,” Thomas says. “She got hit by lightning before, she’ll be fine…”

But Raige is frowning. “If you have any trouble, any at all,” he tells M.D., “you just say so, it’s no big deal and—”

“Will you relax?” M.D. says, pulling off her sweatshirt. “I’m not going to seize; it’s a car battery. Even I can handle a frogging battery…”

Jumper cables aren’t intended to be attached to human anatomy. They’re expressly designed not to zap the person using them, and M.D. doesn’t take to the idea of having them clamped to her ears, while Thomas’s parents won’t let them wreck the cables. Finally, Marcus solves the problem by pulling out the steel tire jack and a wrench, handing them to M.D., and then attaching the cables to them.

“Ready?” Thomas asks.

“Yeah, yeah, stop acting like this is a big production,” M.D. says, tucking the jack under her arm. “Just get on with it.”

Thomas latches the other end of the cables to the battery. “All yours.”

M.D. lurches at the first jolt. Her forearms blaze fluorescent. Raige starts to move towards her, but she waves him off and slouches into an easy posture. She smiles lazily.

“Oh yeah,” she says dreamily, “this’ll work just fine…”

And she fires an explosion of scarlet light into the air.

She’s never had to imitate fireworks before; she takes a few tries before she gets the flickering right, and of course, there’s no boom or crack. But once she gets it, she goes wild. Purple, orange, green, and gold. She sends up geysers and mums and lights up the field, while the Rodriguez family whoops and eggs her on with encouragement and suggestions, and she takes them without sarcasm.

Soon, it’s mutated beyond a fireworks show. At his request, M.D. blasts Christopher in light so he can see what it feels like, passes around little blossoms of glow that float on the air like fireflies, brings fireworks down to the ground for closer viewing. She digs deep into the barrel of theatricality that she doesn’t get to use often, and there is no more exhaustion in her smile.

Thomas laughs and claps and whistles, but he notices Raige is silent. He’s barely even watching the light show after a while; he’s just watching her.

M.D. is obviously loving every second, but she can’t handle the constant current for too long, and she’s never put on such an extravagant show before. Around the half hour mark, she starts slowing down, and after forty-five minutes, she’s starting to shake and give off the static sounds that forewarn disaster.

Thomas is about to speak up when Raige slips through a gap in the chatter and asks, “How’re you doing?”

And M.D. says, with obvious regret, “I think I should stop.”

Thomas undoes the jumper cables, the tire jack and wrench go back where they’re supposed to, and M.D. staggers to the truck bed and collapses, where she’s given the ovation she deserves.

They head back soon after that. The truck bed is lined with insulating plastic, but Thomas still keeps a little space between him and M.D., because when she’s this tired, she tends to zap people by accident. Raige stays near, even though his hair starts crackling and sticking up even more than usual.

“Careful,” M.D. says. “I’m a bit hazardous right now.”

Raige shrugs. “I stuck my finger in a wall socket when I was little. You’re not as bad as that.” He pushes his fingers back through his hair, trying to smooth it down, but that only makes it worse.

Thomas leans back against the side of the truck, full of good barbecue and contentment, and he watches the shine of his friends’ eyes and the stars. He knows that in another hour or two, M.D. will go back to being a ward of the Jaunter’s League, and Raige will go back under the heel of his dad. But right now, all the people he loves most are free and happy, and that’s just the way he likes it.