250 - Two Hundred Fifty

Breaker Whiskey

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[TRANSCRIPT]

[click, static]

Can you hear that Birdie?

[the distant sound of fireworks]

Fireworks. They started about ten minutes ago and we’ve—well, we’ve even been able to see a few, just the ghost of them really. We couldn’t figure out why the hell fireworks of all things would be bleeding through and then we realized that it’s the fourth of July. Not only that but, as Harry pointed out, the bicentennial is next year. She figures people are probably kicking off a whole year of celebration today.

One hundred and ninety nine years. That’s how long America has been a country. I can’t tell if that’s a long time or a short time. Two hundred doesn’t sound very long as the lifespan of a nation, but then when you think about everything America has done in that time…both the good and the bad…

I mean, it’s mostly bad, isn’t it? I’m certainly not a poster child for the establishment, but I think we can all agree that America really made quite the impression in the last two centuries, including killing a lot of people. Which…I guess that’s another case of throwing stones from a glass house.

But also…my grandparents came here from Scotland, Harry’s came from Poland—everyone we know came from somewhere else. Living in New York was the best of this—all the different people you could meet, the different food you could eat, the languages you’d hear on the subway.

The last time I saw fourth of July fireworks with Harry was…sixty five or six, I think. The whole crew went out to Jones Beach with a case of beer and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that Pete had thrown together for us. We’d just finished fencing the last item from a job a few months earlier and I think we were all feeling that sense of camaraderie particularly strongly. And I remember Pete saying “what a country we live in. A true haven for the crooked and criminal” and we all toasted to that. He was right. From the…Boston Tea Party to the wild west to us, what is America’s legacy but one of outlawry? Including fireworks! Maybe not in every state, but there’s something fitting about celebrating the country’s birthday by enjoying an illegal activity.

All those memories now…thinking about Pete hadn’t really hurt like this even after Harry first told me but knowing the details now, being unable to create a more forgiving narrative in my head…

It just hurts to think about, that’s all. I—I loved him, in my own way and I thought he—and I like to think that Harry was paranoid, that there’s something about his old partner that we don’t know that made Pete do what he did and that he’d never have hurt me but he—

I think it’s just the realization that I didn’t really know him at all. And I knew that—I knew that he was a mystery to me, to everyone, but I thought I knew the way I didn’t know him, if that makes sense. I thought I knew the important things. I—

[click, static]

Harry’s calling me over—apparently she found a new part of the sky that’s got some visible fireworks.

I hope you’re seeing the sky light up wherever you are, Birdie.

[click, static]

[beeps]

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You have gun too. Received.