Rockets and Mrs. Crank

The 4th of July was always a big deal in my house. It was my father's birthday. Oh yeah, and there was all that other stuff, like fireworks and such. Who am I kidding? The 4th of July was ALL about the fireworks, at least it was when I was in 5th grade.

When I was very little, say 5 or 6, my father would tell my sisters and myself with a smile on his face that all the noise, rockets and hoo-ha was just people celebrating his birthday. I believed him, well sort of, anyway. I knew that had to be more to it than that. I mean, my father was neat and all, but come on! He still makes that joke to this very day, and now at 85, I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Around 1970, New York City on the 4th was a very different place than it is today. This was way before various mayors cracked down on the illegal fireworks trade. There was a big "black market" in fireworks of all kinds, and every neighborhood had several kids who were "connected". How they got the stuff I still have no idea, but they did. My father would tell me stories how in the streets where he worked downtown, guys were selling tons of stuff from the trunks of their cars; always on the lookout for the cops. But let’s face it, the cops couldn't have been working at cracking down TOO hard. Some were probably buying the stuff themselves.

As far as a kid like me was concerned, that was just fine. 5th grade was the best time for participating in the illegal underworld of Black Cat firecrackers, Whistler Chasers, Roman Candles, Bottle Rockets, Sky Rockets, Cherry Bombs and the big scary one, the M-80. M-80s had the worst reputation, they were often the stuff of urban legend. This was reinforced every year by the police with a demonstration of just what an M-80 would do to a poor mannequin, who had one taped to its hand at a bomb range someplace. BOOM! There was no more hand or arm on the mannequin. That video had the intended effect: M-80s scared the crap out of me.

My connection was a kid in my class named Tom. He ran quite a nice little business selling all kinds of fireworks out of his footlocker in his room. My friends Eddie, Richie, Tim, Frank and I were regular customers. With a little disposable income (I had gotten very good about stashing away some of my allowance each week) we would start purchasing all we could starting weeks before the big day. The problem was hiding all this stuff from your parents.

"Why is your backpack so fat?" my mom asked.

"Lots of homework... and... stuff...", I would answer, as I hustled my stash to my room. I had discovered if you took the bottom drawer out of my dresser, there was a gap down to the floor below, Where parents (and sisters’) prying eyes would not venture. Years later when it was time for the dresser to go, I pulled out the drawer and noticed that bottom gap still held the sweet, pungent scent of gunpowder, made all the sweeter from its illegality and danger. Little by little, the stash would grow, a pack of Black Cat here, a Roman Candle there. Until arrived the day of days, the 4th.

Living on the 6th floor of a 6 story apartment building had many advantages. Having one of my best friends living up there too made it even better. Between us, our apartments took up most of the western most side of the building. Above us was the roof, “tar beach”. And although tenants were technically never supposed to go up there, we did anyway on a regular basis. Our logic was simple, who are we bothering? I mean, we were just walking around on our own ceilings anyway, for the most part. It was another great place to hang out. From the back of the roof over my sister’s bedroom, you could see all of downtown Flushing, and all the way back to my friend Eddie's apartment blocks away. In another direction, you could see all the way to Flushing Meadow Park, our unofficial "backyard". That view was cool most days, but really cool on the 4th.

As darkness fell, Richie, Eddie and myself made our way up to the roof with our cache of rockets, firecrackers and various incendiary devices. We discovered we were not alone, some other neighbors in the building had preceeded us. Folding chairs had been brought out; beers and sodas were flowing. It was fairly cloudy, but we were fairly confident that the dreaded rain that had been predicted for later would hold off.

It was a hot night, and back then air conditioning was still considered a luxury, at least in my neighborhood, anyway. Consequently, there were lot of open windows on our block, some filled with people peering out at the night sky, waiting for the show to begin. On the top floor across the street I noticed that through one open kitchen window I could see an older, chubby woman in a flowered moo-moo standing at the stove, and immediately recognized her as Mrs. Crank. At least that what we all called her. Whenever we'd be playing on the block and making noise, she'd be at her window, either glaring or outright yelling down to us to "keep your freakin' mouths shut, 'ya damn stupid freakin' kids!". I'll bet she'll just LOVE us tonight, I thought to myself, and smiled.

We staked out our spot: the roof box cover for the dumbwaiter that at one time you could access from my apartment. The dumbwaiter had been sealed shut years ago, considered a fire hazard because it was a handy way for flames to skip from one apartment to another. The box above the shaft on the roof was about our chest height, with a peaked cap covered with old tar. The peaked angle made it an excellent site for rocket launching.

Shortly the sky began to light up with all kinds of fireworks. Catching sight of them was kind of like trying to spot a shooting star before it would blaze out, and by the time you pointed it out to a friend, it was mostly gone. Some would travel above the clouds before exploding, so the clouds would glow red, green and purple, lit from above. Everywhere there was the random noise of explosions, glowing colors in the sky, the smells of burnt cellophane and cardboard, and gunpowder hanging heavy in the air. I was in heaven. Now, from our high perch on the roof, we could get some serious altitude. We began working our way through our stuff.

There was a rhythm to shooting off your treasure trove, you needed to start slow and build to a climax. Firecrackers went first, at the beginning one at a time, and as that got boring, a pack at a time. Next were bottle rockets, which were really just flying firecrackers. We would lean them on the dumbwaiter, and they would take off like a shot.

"Hey, let's take 3 and roll their fuses together! " someone suggested. With a "fiffft!" sound they shot off in all different directions, a random mess.

"Totally cool!" I yelled. Next we tried 5, and got the same result, only better. Next were the Roman candles. We had a glass peanut jar that we had put marbles in the bottom of, for stability. We jammed the candle into it and lit the fuse. Oohs and Ahhs were uttered by all. Same went for the pyramid cones, a rainbow of sparks shot into the sky, lighting the whole roof with color. Between our stuff and some other neighbors contributions, we had shot off a bunch of things, and our pile was dwindling.

It was getting late, and by now a lot of the people who had made their way up to the roof had called it a day, The sky was growing more threatening. I noticed even Mrs. Crank had called it a night, her kitchen light was now off. The three of us were the only ones left. We were dwindling down to the end of our supplies, and of course we had saved the best for last: sky rockets that packed a pretty good punch. The rockets themselves were 4 to 5 inch cardboard tubes with a pointed cap on the top, painted to match the color they would display when they exploded. They had a long, wooden stick that ran the length of the cardboard tube and then about fifteen inches beyond that. We had one each, and Richie went first.

We first tried the peanut butter jar. Richie jammed the rocket's stick all the way down to the bottom of the jar, and the rocket now stood straight, aiming for the sky directly above us. He lit the fuse and we all ran a few steps back. There was a “fifft!” sound, some sparks, and then... nothing. We all stood there. Now what do we do? It still looked like it was it was burning. We looked at each other. I shrugged my shoulders and started back toward the rocket, and then BANG! The rocket exploded on the launch pad, and scared the hell out of all of us. The jar fell over and scattered marbles all over the roof, but at least the bottle had not turned into tiny shards of flying schrapnel. After my heart worked its way back down my throat, we went to inspect the damage.

"Well, that just sucks!" Richie stated. We all agreed, it DID suck. One down, two to go.

Eddie went next. After a short discussion, we all agreed that the peanut butter jar was a bad idea, especially since most of its marble base was now scattered all over, and it was now way too dark to find them all, if any. Eddie came up with an idea. The roof was covered with black metal pipes, open at the top and exposed to the sky. I'm not too sure to this day what their purpose was, but that was not important. We had all seen enough war movies to know what a mortar tube was. You've seen it too, the solder drops a rocket into the tube and it immediately shoots out to rain death down upon the enemy.

"Why don't we used one of the roof pipes? You know, one of us holds the rocket, another lights the fuse. Then we let the rocket drop down the pipe, and it should shoot right out!"

It was a great plan, well, sort of. "What if we get a dud, or catches fire, or it explodes before it makes it out of the pipe?" I asked.

We grew silent, and I figured we were all thinking the same thing. If the plan backfired, there might be smoke, then fire, then fire trucks, cops, and lastly the dreaded JD (juvenile delinquent) card. The JD card was the thing adult society always threatened us with. To this day I still don't know exactly what it was, but all we knew it was a very bad thing to have, a kind of get INTO jail free card. A 5th grader with a good imagination is a terrible thing. We stood in silence, then one of us–I don't remember who–said, "Naw, that won't happen!" and we were all done with worrying.

It was Ed's rocket, so it was decided that Richie would hold it, and Eddie would light it. Now it was all about the timing. Richie had to let it go, but not right away. If he did, the fuse might burn longer than it took the rocket to fall 6 stories down, and if it made it down to the basement first, we weren't sure what would happen. Better to not take the risk. Let the fuse burn just a bit, then let go. Easy plan, I thought. Easy for me, of course, I wasn't the one holding the explosive thing.

Eddie and Richie practiced a bit, to get the timing right. "OK, I light it then 1, 2, 3 and then you drop it, right?" Eddie asked.

"I don't know..." Richie replied, "I'm just going to wing it. I wanna see how fast it burns, so no promises..."

"You ready?" Eddie asked me.

"I guess so..." I replied, and held my breath. That was about the extent of my involvement.

The two positioned themselves at both sides of the pipe. Richie nodded at Eddie, and Eddie lit the fuse. I'm not sure of how the timing actually went down, but the next thing we all knew, the rocket was blasting out of the pipe straight into the sky, up, up, right into the clouds, which by now were hanging pretty low. There was a loud bang, and the clouds lit up a bright green for a second or too, and then the glow faded.

"Hey, that's it?" Eddie cried. "Well, that sucks too! You couldn't even see the starburst! What a gyp!"

We were all pissed off now. Two down, one left, and we still had not gotten what we came for: a real, big, noisy, blinding skyrocket explosion, like the ones shown on the rocket's cardboard tube. False advertising... what a bunch of crap! But I still had my rocket left, and we were determined to make this one count.

"Okay, jar was a bust, pipe was no good, what next?' I asked. Then, almost simultaneously, we all looked back to the dumbwaiter.

"That worked good for the bottle rockets," said Richie. "Shoots them up, but not too high..."

"Should be right below the clouds..." stated Eddie.

"Yea, that'll work... I think..." I said. It was a simple plan. Just lay the rocket down on the peaked roof, light her up and let her go. The flight path will be more of an arc than straight up, and since we're 6 stories up, it still should be plenty high to get a good explosion under the cloud cover.

Thunder was starting to rumble in the distance, so time was of the essence. "Okay, let's do it," I said, and grabbed my rocket. This one was a red one, so this should be good. As I picked it up, I noticed something... The wooden stick that came off the base had a crack in it. This made the stick kind of wobbly, and it kind of bothered me a bit. My mind raced... what if I got some scotch tape and wrapped some around the stick a few times, that should take care of the problem. The thunder rumbled again, this time it seemed closer.

"We better hurry, it's gonna rain!" cried Richie. The scotch tape was all the way downstairs, in our "junk drawer", which seemed an awful long way away at that moment. Naw, I thought, the stick will be fine, you worry too much.

"Okay, here we go," I said, with all of the conviction I could muster. I didn’t say a word about the stick situation to either Eddie or Richie. After all, if you don't acknowledge a problem, it doesn't really exist, right?

We lay the rocket down on the dumbwaiter roof, making sure to angle it at the optimum position, so it would explode safely in the area of the sky between the back of my building and Eddie's, 6 blocks away or so. Plenty of space, a nice safety buffer, no problem. Thunder again, so we had to go NOW.

I lit the rocket, and we jumped back a few steps. With a flash, the rocket ignited, took off, and then I saw it. I think I'm the only one who did– mostly because in the back of my mind I was expecting it– the stick snapped, right at the crack, and was now bent at a 90º angle. And not surprisingly, that's the way the rocket went, 90º to the left. Right across the street, and right into Mrs. Crank’s open kitchen window.

In an instant her apartment was filled with the sound of a large BANG, and the whole kitchen exploded in a shower of red sparks. It was kind of beautiful– in a terrifying way. I seem to remember the whole incident in slow motion. I could swear I recall seeing individual sparks as they floated around the sink, the refrigerator, the cabinets. One by one, they all winked out. Then all that was left was a light smoke, wafting out of the window.

We all looked at each other. We were frozen, unable to move. "HOLY SH..." I started to say, and then I heard the screaming. It was then we saw the kitchen light burst on, and Mrs. Crank in her nightgown and curlers, running around the room, checking all was intact. This was probably my imagination, but I thought I saw her face harden– her anger seemed to glow right through the smoke. Then she turned, and she headed for the window.

Without a word, we instantly unfroze and ran like hell for the stairway. I don't think I ever did, or have since, run so fast in my life. In a blink, we got back down to the 6th floor landing. My heart was back in my throat again, and seemed to have no intention of leaving this time.

"Oh man, did you SEE that?! Right in her window, like we aimed it that way!" laughed Richie. I could tell he was half laughing, like we all were, and half scared out of our minds.

We sat for a moment, trying to catch our breath. Then Eddie asked the question we all were thinking. "Do you think anyone saw us, saw it happen?"

We sat in silence. I saw it all then, in my mind, because I'd seen it on TV a thousand times... a knock at the door, a couple of cops, handcuffs slapped on, as my mother cried and my father yelled. Thrown in the slammer, and issued the dreaded JD card. Life as I knew it was over.

We sat in silence for a little while longer, then Richie stated the obvious. "We don't tell ANYONE about this– ever! Swear on your mother’s life, I mean it!" We all raised our right hands. "Swear," we all said. It was official now, no going back. We were all bound forever in the coverup of the Mrs. Crank rocket attack. We fell into silence, once again.

Then Eddie stated, "I'd better get home, it's going to pour soon," and just like that, we could hear the sound of rain starting to hit the skylight over the stairs, right above our heads.

"Me too, I better go in," stated Richie. I felt the same way. I think we all wanted to get as far away from the scene of the crime as possible. Without much more of a word, we all scattered, Rich and me back to our apartments, and Eddie bounding down the stairs for home.

I locked the front door, and walked down the hallway to the living room, where my parents sat, having tea and slices of my Dad's birthday cake.

"Got rained out, huh?" asked my Dad, not looking away from the TV. This was good, not a trace of anger in his voice. Had the whole thing gone unnoticed to the world except for the three of us, and of course, Mrs. Crank?

"I'm actually glad it started to rain," stated my mother, "at least all the noise and bru-ha-ha will calm down now. It'll wash all the garbage from all those fireworks off everything, too." I agree, I thought, and most of our incriminating evidence will wash away too, I hope.

"I'm gong to watch TV for a while”, I said, and headed down to my room. My sisters were already in there sitting on the floor, watching our 19" black and white. They looked up briefly, then back to the TV.

"You all done shooting off all your garbage?" my older sister Maureen asked, not looking my way.

"It's noisy, but I bet it was fun," my younger sister Helene stated. "Next year I'll be 6, and Dad says I can go up and watch, and you can't stop me!"

"Yea Okay, whatever..." I said, practically in a whisper. I sat on my bed, with my back to the wall, looking at the TV. Not watching, I had no idea what was on, nor did I care. My entire brain was focused down the hall at any sound coming from the front door. I sat, and I waited for the doorbell to ring... and sat.

I hardly slept at all that night, but as the hours ticked by, I slowly began to relax. Maybe we would actually get away with it. Could we be that lucky? I'm never that lucky. Still, “Dear Lord, if you get me out of this, I'll do... something. I'm not sure what just yet, I’ll figure that out later. But it will be big, that I can promise.”

The day after the 4th just happened to be a Sunday. The rain had passed, the sun had come out, and the doorbell had never rung. We always went to church at St. Michael's. Most times my older sister and myself went to the 9:00 a.m. children's mass, as attendance was required by St. Michael's school. This time, I actually looked forward to going, I had a debt to settle. In my pocket was my allowance, my WHOLE allowance I might add. The collection plate at St. Mike's did quite well from me that week, relatively speaking.

Years later, with the safe distance of time to protect me, I did break my oath, and told the story, and I'm happy to state that my mother did not suffer any health consequences. I often wonder what Mrs. Crank must have thought, being woken up from a sound sleep by what must have sounded like her kitchen exploding. "I really HATE those damn stupid freakin' kids!!!" would be my guess.