* * * * *
The crowd gathered on the river shore facing the skyline of the city’s glass towers dashed any of Jack’s hopes that the night would deliver any romance with his wife Linda. Not one ounce of that park shore was covered by soft blanket or quilt. There wasn’t a picnic basket to be seen. Instead, there were only lawn chairs, filled only with aging and thickening men and women who refrained from holding one another’s hands, who didn’t so much as peek into one another’s eyes.
Jack hadn’t wanted to visit that shore to watch the fireworks launched to celebrate the Workers Holiday. That holiday was the only time of the year when the men who owned that skyline of glass towers gave the polishers a day off from their cleaning and scrubbing. Jack would’ve preferred to catch up on some rest at home. He would’ve preferred an activity as simple as listening to music on his antique radio. But Linda had pressed him to attend that festival gathered on the river’s shore. She had implied that they would have such a lovely time, that they would give romantic another try though they anymore seldom touched at all. Jack scowled as he scanned the crowd assembled to watch the fireworks. He was a fool to think his idea of a romantic evening was anything like the idea of his wife.
“Don’t forget to go back to the car for the cooler in the trunk,” Linda’s fingers snapped and pointed to the spot where she hoped Jack would softly deposit their lawn chairs. “I don’t trust the locks on our old car. Be careful when you set all that down. I packed a frozen, chocolate-silk pie for dessert.”
The packing of that pie didn’t surprise Jack. Pie and sweets were the closest Linda came anymore to any kind of sensual experience. Jack doubted Linda had felt anything other than the touch of an appetite for the last nine years of their marriage. How did Jack allow himself to be so dim as to believe that, just maybe, his wife might make an effort to please him on the night of the Workers Holiday?
“Anything else in the cooler?” Jacked rubbed his shoulder after he dropped the lawn chairs to the ground. “Is there any beer in there?”
Linda’s mouth twisted sour. “That’s just like you, Jack. It’s the only day you get off all year, and you’re worried about drinking beer. Why do I bother?”
That was Jack’s question as well. But he didn’t say anything before turning to make his second trip to the car for the cooler. Linda had already torn through a cucumber sandwich by the time he returned.
“Don’t look at me like that, Jack. There’s nothing wrong with cucumber sandwiches on Workers Holiday. They’re healthy. You should eat more like I do. You should pay closer attention to your diet. Eating better would help you with your cholesterol.”
Jack didn’t argue, and instead he grunted as he worked to unfold the lawn chair’s hinges. He didn’t want to spend his holiday arguing with Linda any more than was absolutely necessary. He sighed. He knew he ate no less healthy than his wife. He knew Linda would follow that cucumber sandwich with five slices of chocolate-silk pie.
Linda set back in her chair, and she didn’t face Jack as she spoke. “Don’t you think it’s a lovely night?”
Jack nodded. The dust remained quiet on that late afternoon. Perhaps the dust was also exhausted from its battle with the polishers and chose to lie upon the ground rather than rise to mar the Workers Holiday. Yet looking back over his shoulder towards the direction of the wild lands, Jack saw the heat lightning crack across the sky, telling him that a fresh dust storm was gathering in those empty lands to roll into the city. But the winds wouldn’t arrive in time to smear the holiday celebration. The city would twinkle and glow in uncountable reflections of falling firework light.
Jack, however, wasn’t very interested in that skyline’s glow. He couldn’t resist the urge to shift in his lawn chair and gaze longingly in the direction of the Crystal Palace that waited a little further down the shoreline. He could just discern the light of the Palace’s pink neon signs rising into the darkening sky. He wondered which of the girls would be dancing that night on the Palace’s stages. The most popular dancers would be twirling for all the polishers who would crowd into the Palace on the night of the Workers Holiday, eager to toss their coins to catch the attention of the girls who teased them with winks and blown kisses. Jack wished he were at the Palace. He tired to imagine the image of the last woman he had watched dance on those stages. He could not. It had been too long ago. Jack sighed. Thinking of whoever might twirl that night in the Palace would only heighten his hunger.
“Jack Mays,” Linda hissed. “Where are your eyes drifting to? I’m over here.”
“My eyes aren’t drifting anywhere.”
Jack knew that Linda realized he longed for the Palace. She wouldn’t say anything. Jack had learned that Linda was too frightened to object. He had learned how Linda refrained from confronting him regarding his yearning, for to voice her displeasure would be for her to admit how Jack still hungered, no matter his accumulating years, and no matter all the hours he spent rubbing his mop across those glass towers rising across the river. Jack knew that Linda would prefer to remain quiet rather than give her husband that chance to say aloud how she had never satisfied his craving, not in any of the ways Jack suspected a girl who danced at the Crystal Palace might.
“Well, hand me a carbonated water,” Linda forced a weak smile, “one of the lime ones. I think the fireworks should be starting soon.”
Jack leaned towards his wife as he offered the aluminum can. He tried to imagine that Linda was one of the Palace’s girls, tried to remember Linda before he ever accepted that dismal position as one of the towers’ polishers. Linda had been a looker then, maybe not a stunner like all the girls in the Palace, but she had been a real looker all the same. Jack found it wasn’t so hard to bring that memory of Linda back to his mind when he concentrated. He set a hand upon Linda’s leg. He softly caressed her ankle.
Linda grunted. “What are you doing?”
“I’m only touching you. Do you remember when we used to enjoy touching one another?”
“Really? You just start touching me out of the blue? Really, Jack? You know nothing about the finer sex. A woman’s ankle swells in this kind of humidity.”
“Humidity? There’s no humidity when there’s so much dust in the air.”
“Are you trying to tell me that you know more about being a woman than I do? You really are something, Jack Mays.”
A whistle shrilled across the river. A white streamer of light lifted into the night before exploding in a blossom of falling reds and oranges.
Linda clapped. “Just look at how those fireworks reflect off of the towers.”
Jack watched a dozen more rockets fire from their barges upon the river to dot the night with fire. He looked to the other aging and thickening men who sat upon lawn chairs much like his own, and he thought their faces looked as puffy and dispassionate as his, no matter how their wives applauded at the boom of each concussion. He doubted that he was the only man watching those fireworks and thinking only of all the hours it had required to keep those glass towers so clean, so that their firework reflections could so awe the wives gathered along that shore.
“I tell you, Jack, watching how those fireworks sparkle across that skyline makes me proud of you, makes me appreciate what you do to keep the city clean.”
But Jack was not as impressed by the lightshow, no matter that the fireworks grew more elaborate with each rocket. He could only think of the dust that the wild land behind his shoulder prepared to deliver to those glass towers. He could think only of all the hours he lost to the labor of keeping those towers glistening and clean. He could only think of all the shiners he gave to give to the crooked lift men before they carried him in their ascending cages.
“Now, that really is something,” Linda reached for Jack’s hand as bursts of golden light filled the sky.
Only Jack withdrew his grasp. He didn’t think the fireworks were very lovely at all.
Jack realized it was all reflection, all just empty light. Jack watched the explodi
ng blossoms and realized that his work held no weight, held no matter. He knew that the result of so many of his days and years was only illusion.