Firecrackin'

So here I am. Cold. Drunk. About to lose my fingers.

It’s New Year’s God Dammed Eve. It’s the last day of this lousy thing we call 2007. And I’m probably the only person who doesn’t give a crap. This whole fireworks business, the celebrating, the food and booze, I hate it all. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I enjoy getting drunk, it’s just that I don’t think the coming of the new year is a good reason to do so.

All this day is about is you have to buy a new calendar.

You have to get used to writing a different number in the date.

Because that’s all 2008 is. A number. Really, the actual year is not 2008 AD, because they didn’t start counting the years right after Jesus was born. So forget about 2008. Forget about New Year’s Eve.

Forget about fireworks. That’s what I should’ve done.

Last year, it was better. Less fun, but definitely safer. I stayed at home, celebrated with my parents. We watched TV and we ate junk food and we drank some champagne at midnight and that was it. The TV programs were horrid, my mother moody as always, and I was stuffed with chips and sandwiches two hours into the seemingly endless evening. But it was at least safe. Safer than this frat party I’m at right now.

At home, there was no sin.

No brain damage from too much alcohol (and pot).

No vomiting.

No one got raped.

No one got their fingers torn away by firecrackers.

But it was no fun.

What they do on TV over here in this fucked-up country is they do these big shows. These events. These celebrations. Filmed in front of a live audience two or three months before December 31^st. They are full of celebrities, most of them twice as old as their plastic surgeons make them look like. Some of them dead before it even gets aired.

These celebrities, they perform their ten-year-old sketches. Tell their 20-year-old jokes. They sing 40-year-old songs on playback, not even trying to fake it. Really, I’ve seen better lip sync on Japanese cartoons. And all this is so unappealing to my generation, because the general assumption is that I should be drunk at some party and not at home watching this with my folks. My demographic, we really don’t even have a choice. It’s either get shit-faced or be bored to death.

And somewhere in the middle of this big show, we start to quarrel. Then we start to argue. Then we fight. We fight because I want to watch something else but dad has the remote. We fight because dad wants to go out to smoke but mom wants him to quit the habit. We fight because mom bitches about everything.

All I’m thinking is, I could’ve been so wasted by now.

Not last year. But this year, definitely.

This year, I went to a friend’s place with a bunch of other guys from school. We started drinking at six and stopped at two in the morning. Last man standing. And that’s when my tragedy comes in. That’s when we decide to get out of the house and light some fireworks.

That’s when I take the firecracker. That’s when I remember how safe it was last year.

When midnight approaches, the text messages start pouring in. Every stupid friend and relative, they feel the need to wish you a happy new one. They write these stupid poems and rhymes that don’t even make sense and they send them expecting to get an equally funny reply. Some smartass thank-you message. A clever pun. A good joke. Well they can all bite me. I never reply to these well-wishers. I usually turn my cell phone off, and erase all that shit in the morning.

Then the hour strikes. We drink a glass of champagne and we get some well-wishing phone calls from even more friends and relatives and then we go to bed.

That’s how you celebrate at home.

The way you do it is you don’t enjoy it at all. It’s an ordeal.

At the party, this year, we did free style. Whoever was sober enough to get the champagne bottle opened poured some to everyone who could find a glass and that was about it. We were about fifteen second off with the countdown. 2008 started late.

But back to how we got the great idea with the fireworks.

So I have the firecracker in my hand and I’m lighting it. The red tip of the green roll of paper filled with powder catches fire. It sparks more than it burns. It’s what’s called a fuse, I think. It’s supposed to hiss or burn or whatever for about five second before it explodes. Five seconds. One for each finger I’m going to lose.

Last year, at home, I went to bed at about a half hour into the new year. But I didn’t fall asleep until at least two a.m. There was just too much noise outside. Red and green and blue explosions of cheap Chinese pyrotechnics kept me awake. All I could think about was, why is this such a big deal? What difference does it really make to change the date? It’s not like everyone starts over with a clean slate. All the problems we had in December are right there in January smiling at us and waiting to destroy us.

This year, I won’t go to sleep.

This year, I’ll be in pain.

In about three seconds. The fuse is burning and hissing and sparking, and it’s doing those things real fast. And all I can do is I stare at it. I don’t know why I don’t let go. Why I don’t throw it away like the instructions say I should. I guess I’m too drunk not to be hypnotized by the red glow of the burning tip of the firecracker.

This year, I forgot to turn my cell phone off. This year, all the messages came in on time. But this year, I was too much under the influence to care. Sure enough, the usual collection of happy new years was piling up right on schedule. First a message from mom wondering if I’m alright. Then a message from a friend I hate. One from a guy I haven’t seen in years. Some from people I don’t like but don’t show it. Another one from mom. Then some more from people I consider annoying.

And the funny thing about these poems and rhymes is, there’s only about six or seven of them, and each year I get them all, but each year a different person sends a different one.

The way that happens is they all think they are so clever.

Last year, someone got a message. He liked it, so this year, he decides to send it himself. Only the thing is, the person who sent that last year’s favorite, he liked the thing he got that year, so now that’s the one he’s sending this year. Get it? You get the same shit every year, from the same people, but they all think they are sending you something you haven’t already read five times.

But text messages are the last thing on my mind right now.

I got about a second and a half before the firecracker explodes. Instead of throwing it away, I think of all the great memories I have with those fingers. Like when you see your whole life before you die. Only it’s just the life of your falanges.

Like when I totally gave my math teacher the finger.

Or when I scratched an itch until I ripped my skin and started bleeding.

And of course, there was that time I held an explosive and risked losing them.

Oh, wait. That’s actually happening right now. But lucky for me, the firecracker was cheap and probably not stored properly, so instead of exploding and tearing half my hand off, it only burned out. Quietly, harmlessly. Instead of pain, there is relief.

Instead of blood, there’s just more alcohol.

Instead of 2007, there is 2008.

Instead of calling an ambulance, I read another happy new year greeting shining there on my cell phone’s LCD.