Cucurbita pepo

© 2016 KAYLA BALDA ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Cucurbita pepo

“Without going into any scientific exposition we must admit that light has quite as real and tangible effects upon the human body. But this is not all. Who has not observed the purifying effect of light, and especially of direct sunlight, upon the air of a room?” – Florence Nightingale, “Notes on Nursing.”

Trickled shadows fill my

ragged mouth with expectation, an infinitesimal weight; I:

didn’t expect

becoming

to hurt so much,

to mean a severing, to

growing thirsty, to

rotting under October moons. I:

can’t yet answer if illumination

justifies suffering. But

if you will let yourself recall

carved lightning scars and the Pumpkin King,

newspapers and crates, Sharpies and dull silver, bent backs, salted seeds—

at dusk, the way I shone and how you posed next to me in your Sailor Moon

sailor suit, how I

became shrouded in memory, in a million neural biographies,

flashbulb photography. If:

you let yourself recall,

can you tell me if it was all worth it? Can you

please tell me, because as the air chills

I’m afraid

for it to happen again;

you’re afraid

for it to happen again,

and I:

need to know if it is all worth it.

Fireworks

© 2016 KAYLA BALDA ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Fireworks

Neon lights exploded against my eyelids, a palette of galaxies, a spilt box of chalk on pavement, subtly illuminated by distant street lamps. I squeezed my eyes even more tightly to block out the remaining light, and held my breath, preparing to dive back down. This was one of my favorite pastimes. I used to press my face against the pillows on my parents’ bed until sparks lit up, until colors danced and licked at the edges of my vision, tinsel gold, amber, aquamarine.



Three bottle-rockets with pink-dyed sticks propel themselves into the air before popping, shredded Japanese print fluttering to the ground. “Katherine!” A metallic-toned, two-finger whistle sounds. “Jack!” It sounds again. Each parent in my neighborhood had their own way of calling their kids back. My best friend’s dad just happened to call her the same way he did the dog. And my dad just happened to use bottle-rockets to call me.



At the end of our driveway, back in Franklin, a 6-foot tall man with a wisp of styled hair holds out his cigarette after taking a last puff. The sun has just dipped into the horizon, behind the house. He quivers with anticipation when I take the butt from his hand, gives a mustached grin to me, and a thumbs-up to my mother. Ritualistically, I tap the cigarette against the summer-warmed pavement once, twice—a professional at four years-old. I press it against the green wick of a 3-tiered Goliath shell. It catches. Instantly, I scramble back, a deep whoomp sounding from what looks like a black PVC pipe. I cover my ears. The man who had given me the cigarette, my father, ruffles my fine brown hair and squeezes my small shoulder before gazing at the sky in bewilderment, as if seeing the face of God.

In elementary school, dad always used to take me to the gas station. It was big deal back then, because trips to stores of any kind meant treats: Chiclets, Bug Juice, strawberry shortcake ice cream bars, Chex mix, Combos, Funyuns, push pops, and our favorite—pop rocks. While dad filled up the tank, I would rummage about the store with the few dollars he gave me to load up on snacks. Whenever I picked pop rocks, we would eat them right in the car, sticking our tongues out at stoplights to watch the candy jump from taste bud to taste bud, laughing with giddy exuberance in between.





New Years Eve, and a two-foot long sparkler is placed in my left hand. It’s yellow and pink and green, all at the same time, colorful tissue paper wrapped around it like a may pole. “Try writing your name,” dad coaxes, although I haven’t learned to do that yet. The metal of his plastic lighter touches the sparkler and its top bursts into biting, bouncing silver sparks. It hurts when they touch my skin. I make three loops with the glittering stick and look back to him, my soil-brown eyes reflecting the incandescence of a thousand points of light. “Yes, yes, just like that.” He laughs heartily. It sounds just like the sparkler. Pop-pop-pop.

As soon as the sun takes a dip, disappearing into the lake for a night swim, dad lumbers down the hill to Mitch’s lakefront as quickly as his bad leg will allow. He’s breathing hard and his arms are filled with boxes of all sizes, their bulk obscuring his University of Michigan sweatshirt and half his face. Uncle Mitch, his brother, is already at the bottom, tending to the fire and sharpening branch bits into marshmallow skewers. It’s dad’s favorite day of the year, aside from Halloween. July fifth, when the firework tents sell their goods half off and there’s no competition in the sky. As dad approaches, I begin to recognize the boxes: Night parachutes. Day parachutes. Rockets shaped like space shuttles. 2-tiered shells. Roman candles. Fountains. 20-shot cubes with themes like “Shark Bite” and “Dragon’s Breath.” We spend the evening shooting them off, dad and I running to and from the dock, retrieving ammunition, dodging misguided missiles, and clearing out the smoky trash, which remains faintly warm for hours.




Black cat super charged flashlight firecrackers—dad has those framed right by the front door, so that when you take off your shoes, they’re the first thing you see. Printed on the paper package is a snarling panther with slick white teeth, a hungry maw, and striking yellow-green eyes with viper-like pupils. Before I leave the house, I like to count the firecrackers—fifty down its left side, fifty down its right. Sometimes I imagine them going off in the house, the thin, winding wick slurped up by the cat, the pack bouncing mid-air.

Shelbyville. It’s in the hickiest city I can think of. Well, besides Hohenwald, which accepted the common-use, not-quite-endearing pronunciation of “hole in wall.” Folks in that area spent their time mudding and chewing tobacco. There were only a few run-down auto shops, and my Shelbyville boyfriend lived with hoarders. Literal hoarders—he made me watch his family’s episode. It was the summer before high school. I was fourteen, at the thinnest I’d ever been, wearing blue-flowered shorts and an Owl City band tee and so excited to see my boyfriend Lewis again—for the second time!!! I had survived the initial date, the disappointing first kiss on a rock, which I was later told was the object of local legend. (When he stopped slobbering on my face, he gleefully proclaimed that a murder had taken place on the rock, thirty years ago. “My first kiss was on a ‘dead person rock,’” I’ve told my friends. They lean in. “And it wasn’t even a good one.”)
                 After an afternoon of bad stand-up comedy and glancing about a room filled with boxes of cat litter and 10 gallon pickle jars, Lewis’s mom takes us to a firework tent to pick out a few explosives. He picks up a “Frog Prince” fountain and holds it up to my face. I roll my eyes; I’d had enough kissing for a lifetime, and wasn’t amused. We get the frog and wait outside for my mom to pick me up. As soon as my mom bumbles out from the car, she whips out her Panasonic FZ30. Lewis’s mother appears from behind her and unzips her own camera from its case. Just as I’m about to escape Lewis’s grasp, both mothers chant, “Kiss, you two!” I glance back at the tent, then at Lewis, eyes trailing the ground for a dropped lighter, or a box of matches. The dirty-blond afroed boy puckers his leech lips and suctions them to my face.
                 At least our mothers got their picture, because a week later we broke up. Mom cried. I laughed. My father stomped about the house, fist in the air, growling, “I gave that rat fireworks!”

Dad proudly holds a plastic-wrapped package to me and my best friend Alaina. It’s a foot and a half long in each direction and only as thick as a finger. “Look what the folks at the fireworks tent gave me for free,” dad says. “It’s a paper lantern that inflates itself and then takes off. They said it stays up there for fifteen minutes. I gave one to the lady that works at Great Wall for Chinese New Year. I’ve been waiting all day for mom to bring you two Yahoos back from the mall. Let’s do it now.” We unwrap the package, carefully unfurling the delicate, yellow paper. Dad sets the included fuel-cake into a metal ring at the bottom of the lantern, secures it, and clicks on his grill lighter. After ten seconds of steady flame, he hands the lighter to me and takes hold of the lantern’s top, offering the limp balloon some sort of structural integrity. Minutes later, it’s holding itself up, trying to wriggle free from our grasp like a toddler who’s just learned to walk. Once released, it pauses before beginning its languid rise, as if contemplating its existence or waiting for us to make a wish, our own personal star.

A couple asks me to take a picture of them; they smile delightedly, each positioning one arm on the steel railing behind them. “Trois, deux, un!” I call, and the camera’s flash goes off. They nod at the digital preview and I shoot back off, snaking through the crowd in a half-panic. Not here. Not here. Or here. The tulle in my dress bustles about as I climb the hundred stairs to the viewing deck, and descend the hundred to the bar. It’s my last night in France, and I’m lost on the Eiffel Tower, my French class nowhere to be found. All I can think is that I’m caught in some sort of impromptu Marie Antoinette reenactment—Voici! The Flight to Varennes!
                    One hour, six drunk tourists, and three helpful traveling groups later, I’ve been reunited with my group and thoroughly scolded by my teacher Mme. Smith. To be expected. I settle into my train’s seat, eyes drifting closed; only minutes later, I’m awakened by a clambering in the car, by pointing and hollering and seat rearranging. I’m about to interject, but instead my mouth rounds into an o. The Eiffel Tower is glittering, sparkling. Midnight, and it’s as if the cork of the world’s largest champagne bottle were unleashed, bubbles spilling over and over again.




“This is a celebration of his life,” I announce, arms spread wide as if announcing the next hit television show or finishing up a gold-medal performance. “Tonight we have French wine, BBQ, and fireworks for you.” My family stares at me, doe-eyed and afraid, unsure how to respond to the 17 year-old standing in front of them, whose chest is puffed and mouth is beaming, who’s brimming with life. It’s the reception after my father’s funeral, and I’m equal parts screaming and silent.
Just last week he was calling me a lazy slob, eating bacon and sunny-side up eggs and talking excitedly about the fireworks he had been saving for my return from vacationing in France. A week ago, blood rimmed his mouth and I had to help him into his pants, his shoes. He got ready for the hospital so slowly; I never considered it was because he knew he might never see home again. A week ago, mom threatened suicide and a social worker took me outside to talk about becoming an emancipated minor. A week ago, my half-brother Bryan told me that if I had any respect for dad I would take him off of life support; that Mom would have to sell the house and her and me would have to move and we should be thinking about funeral arrangements.

                    “Are y’all ready?” I hand a lit match to one of the children who had begged to set up and light their own shell. Relatives are gathered round, with red solo cups filled with soda or wine. The yard settles to a hush. The young girl taps the match against the edge of the cannon and mouths, “Bibbidy-bobbidi-boo.” In an instant, the long wick flashes, disappears into the tube... and nothing. We pause, breath held in anticipation. Instead of shooting toward the sky, the tube itself explodes, a low-sounding boom. Chunks of charred black rain onto our heads, and I motion for everyone to step back, to duck. Boom. Harsh crimson bursts from the ground in a starburst effect, glorious, terrifying. The cannon’s base clatters in the distance. Boom. Silver bees dance along our feet. Smoke wafts from what’s left of the tube. Despite the ringing in my ears, I am still able to hear the soft wail of an approaching siren, police.
                   Ten minutes later, my half-brother Randy and his fiancé Samantha lope up the hill, smiles dancing on their faces. “Oh yeah, there were some neighborhood disturbance calls going around,” Sam chuckles. “We sent the cops in another direction.”

I’m scraping the greasy remains from a mini BBQ grill, tasting burnt morsels of cheeseburger every now and then. My fingers are shiny with oil and soot, and I smell heavily of smoke. In the background, I hear my college friends discussing their plans to attend the local Fourth of July fireworks show. Their conversation crescendos with excitement; and I imagine all of their sentences ending with exclamation points. Instead of joining them, I gaze mutely out at the pond. Soft ripples and swaying cattails. Crane flies and overhanging branches. I focus on the crunch of burgers and roasted corn and aluminum vegetable packets. I press dirty palms hard against my eyes until colors blossom.
                  It’d been years since I’d seen the glittering comet-like trails, sparklers. It’d been years since I ran the show, beige mosquito-chaser in hand (after dad quit smoking), half the neighborhood gathered at their porch steps in rapt attention. But it doesn’t interest me anymore.