Firecrackers were my first illicit vice.
Long before porn, drink or drugs, at 11 or 12, I was shelling out cold hard cash for things that went ka-blam in the night. I gave my few crumpled dollars to kids a lot older than me who were both allowed to head into New York City on their own, and brave enough to find a dealer in Chinatown willing to sell them the good stuff: strings of firecrackers knotted together in their red paper packets, bottle rockets with their bright yellow nose caps, cherry bombs that belched clouds of colorful smoke, and paper novelties that spun, squealed and sprayed sparks.
As an adult living in New England, I've always been enticed by the fireworks supply warehouses that line the New Hampshire border.
Even when I'd been a resident of the Granite State, though, I'd never indulged in my favorite explosive proclivity. The idea of being able to browse a selection with clear pricing always seemed too much of a good thing, and as I got older, my passion for cheap explosives didn't get as much peer validation as it once had. When I got to be a renter and then a homeowner, the world had suddenly become someone's private property and not available for my private destructive whims. In short, I'd let my fear of consequences take priority over my love of detonating small explosives.
This year, though, with the responsibilities of a reporter resting heavily on my shoulders, I felt it was time to investigate. With a lighter, a pack of matches, and an action figure between us, I drove north from Massachusetts with two adult comrades in search of some fuses to light.
*
Driving up 91, we felt apprehension mixed with our anticipation.
None of us has blown anything up in a couple decades, and though we knew you could buy fireworks in New Hampshire, we had no idea where we'd be able to light them off. One friend had grown up in the state, and he made a few calls to acquaintances asking permission, but no one was eager for us to light up on their property. I called around and investigated the law on the Web.
As far as fireworks are concerned, it was turning out New Hampshire wasn't as free as we'd thought.
Fireworks are legislated on a state-by-state basis, and, according to usfireworks.biz, a website that sells mail order fireworks, the different recreational explosives are divided into the 15 categories listed below (an asterisk indicates that a category is illegal in New Hampshire).
Bottle Rockets*
Sky Rockets*
Roman Candles
Firecrackers*
Sparklers
Smoke and Punk
Fountains
Missiles*
Novelties
Crackle and Strobe
Parachutes
Wheels and Spinners
Sky Flyers
Display Shells*
Aerial Items (Cakes)
At 10 categories out of 15 available, New Hampshire is more permissive than any other state in New England. Connecticut is in second place with five varieties. Maine allows sparklers and novelties, Vermont, only novelties. Nothing's legal in Massachusetts or Rhode Island. You'd need to drive to South Carolina to buy a firecracker, but they wouldn't give you a bottle rocket without a permit. Tennessee's the closest place where you can buy and explode anything on the list.
But, as the Keene police made clear when I called, while the state of New Hampshire permits some fireworks, final say is left to each municipality. Asked for a recommendation for where I could set some fireworks off, I was told there was no place within Keene's city limits that they were legal. Fireworks use is up to the discretion of local police and fire department officials, and they often decide on a case-by-case basis. To find out if fireworks were permitted elsewhere outside of Keene, the officer said I'd need to call to find out. He knew of no directory.
To muddy the waters further, though I knew Massachusetts forbade them, I called several local police departments in the Pioneer Valley to find out the typical penalties imposed for violating this law. Officially, I was pointed to the state laws which impose a fine of up to $1000 and/or a year in prison for selling explosives without licenses or proper insurance, and possession can result in a $100 fine and confiscation. Unofficially, I was told that around July 4th, the laws were taken "with a grain of salt." Local officers typically only responded if there was a neighborhood complaint, and they rarely filed charges. The worst they usually did was confiscate the contraband.
Talk about mixed messages: in a state where fireworks are legal, they're not permitted, but in a state where they're against the law, officials turn a blind eye. But this apparent paradox plagues most American vices: as a society, we see no conflict between outlawing dangerous behaviors, even knowing many will engage in them regularly anyway. Outside the first fireworks outlet we came to, Phantom Fireworks on Brattleboro Road in Hinsdale, the license plates in the parking lot were mostly from out of state: Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York. Judging by the shopping carts full of boxes they were packing into their car trunks, these customers were either spending a weekend in New Hampshire or they had positive relationships with their local law enforcement.
In the end, whether you live in a state where fireworks are legal or not, the message seems to be, like everything else, do what you can get away with.
*
The other concern my friends and I had had driving north was that the Valley Advocate had only given me a $50 research allowance.
When I'd been buying from shady teens, I had no idea what anything really cost, or what to expect in return for the sum total of my savings. No doubt they were giving me the dregs of whatever they'd bought too much of, but I don't remember complaining. The firecrackers were my favorites, and a pack could keep me happy for months: blast off some now and savor the rest for a rainy day.
I never understood people who lit whole packs of crackers off at once. It seemed such a waste. For me and my childhood cohorts, the joy was figuring out inventive places to light them off, along with selecting props for maximum effect. Dramatic and graphic destruction was key, and we spent a lot of time trying to think of things that would be fun to obliterate.
My friends and I never got my hands on anything more powerful than a firecracker, and while they certainly could hurt you if handled stupidly, they weren't that powerful. So the challenge with firecrackers was to find something sturdy enough that it wouldn't be utterly obliterated and something would remain afterwards, but not so sturdy that it wouldn't be damaged at all. Empty drink bottles and cans were an obvious but often rewarding choice, as were action figures and plastic army men. Often we would use our pocket knives to cut into the plastic bodies, weakening them for maximum impact.
Each firecracker was an event unto itself. Sometimes it was a dud. Sometimes the fuse seemed to snuff just before ignition and then explode. Other times, the fuse went quickly and the impact came before you'd even started to run.
And then there was the pregnant pause when everyone wondered if it was over and if everyone was all right. As the bits of paper fluttered to the ground, you started looking through the smoke for whatever remained after detonation.
But firecrackers weren't available in New Hampshire. The state legislated aesthetic spectacle over physical impact, and the pricing I'd seen in the colorful fireworks catalogs mailed to my door suggested I needed hundreds of dollars to provide a worthwhile show. But we didn't want to put on a show: we wanted to blow stuff up. I worried 50 bucks wasn't sufficient to satisfy three grown men's hunger for demolition.
I needn't have worried.
The two fireworks retailers we visited, Phantom Fireworks and Fantasy Fireworks, had options for all budgets, and both were running buy-one-get-one-free offers on their entire inventory. Both were set up like supermarkets with aisles devoted to different types of explosives. Items were available individually or packaged in kits. Smaller explosives were available by the registers for last-minute impulse purchases.
Of the two, Phantom Fireworks had a more corporate feel, with fluorescent lighting and polished linoleum floors, but the tidier display space was at the expense of personal assistance or a sense that those selling the explosives had any firsthand experience using them. Rather, the woman at the front desk at Phantom Fireworks demanded our driver's licenses, took down our info, and only later explained that the reason was to include us on their mailing list.
By comparison, the man at the Fantasy Fireworks counter welcomed us, explained that he and his family only had two stores—this one in Hinsdale and another in Seabrook—and let us know the other ways his service was superior to his competitor. Because Phantom was a chain, they distributed a generic set of fireworks to all their stores, whereas Fantasy bought from a variety of dealers, and they only bought products they and their customers had tried. He also offered everything he sold on a two-for-one basis, but his customers could mix and match with like-priced items. Finally, his pre-packaged kits contained only the good stuff.
"Only aerials. I don't cram the nooks and crannies of the boxes with filler—stupid toys and novelties. Just aerials and repeaters," he said.
In the absence of firecrackers and bottle rockets, customers in New Hampshire favor explosives that shoot upwards and burst into a loud cloud of sparks with a crackle and a bang. Since we were planning on igniting our purchases during the day, and we wanted more interactive fun than kicking back and watching, we got two different kits heavy on stupid toys and novelties, and for $45 we had a grocery bag with more than we had time or energy to explode.
"You like big bangs?" the proprietor asked as he handed me the receipt.
"Sure…"
"Try these out. Oh, have a good time and be safe."
We left Fantasy Fireworks giddy and satisfied, and we went looking for a place to get cracking.
*
Most people who enjoy blowing up fireworks are probably well versed in how dangerous they can be. Setting off recreational explosives "safely" has always seemed like an oxymoron to me. No matter what you do, you're playing with fire, and it's likely you'll burn your thumb trying to light a reluctant fuse, or get a face full of sparks from something that goes off too quickly. If you want to be certain of safety, don't mess with fireworks. But the threat of pain is thrilling, and knowing just how bad things can get makes the experience even more so. Like so many vices, part of the fun can be seeing the results of multiplying the potency and trying to discover the breaking point.
We told each other stories of accidents we'd had ourselves, witnessed or had related to us long before we were able to do a Google image search on "firecracker" and see mangled hands and other horrific injuries. Though our experience with explosives was limited, there were tales of items with exotic names that were capable of either flammable magic, or if misused, grotesque dismemberment.
On our way up to New Hampshire, one of our team told us of a kid in high school he had known who had had a terrible mishap with fireworks. He'd known the kid a long time without understanding why he always wore a hoodie and never uncovered his head or took his hands out of his pockets.
I told my tale of the stupid thing I did with a cherry bomb.
There were these kids a few years younger than me, playing underneath a tree on a hill at the top of a long flight of stairs. Down on the street, I was looking for an interesting way to detonate a yellow wooden smoke bomb. Ever the fool, I decided to put it in my back pocket, have a friend light it, and run up the stairs screaming in terror. The sight of smoke billowing from my back, along with the impact of my acting, would send the youngsters running away white with shock and alarm.
I only got up half a dozen stairs before I learned that along with all the smoke that comes out of a cherry bomb, there's a jet of intense, white-hot flame. I couldn't see this, but my burning ass told me it was so. I tried to get the bomb out of my pocket, but I scorched my thumb. Instead of stopping, dropping and rolling, I ran up the stairs, screeching like a boiling teapot.
The children playing beneath the tree looked down at me and laughed so hard they cried.
Though my pants and underwear were ruined, I tried to hide them in the laundry, which is how my mother found me out. She didn't punish me further, though, because she figured I'd learned my lesson. I still have a scar on my cheek to remind me not to fuck around when I shoot off fireworks.
As we pulled the car into an empty lot behind an abandoned factory, my friends and I all agreed we'd do our best to return home with all our digits and without having caused any forest fires. Still, we were all aware that something beyond our control could happen when the sparks started flying. Accidents happen. Someone could get cracker happy.
*
The deficit of firecrackers and bottle rockets didn't dampen our fun.
We headed down a rail bed behind the factory, and then climbed an embankment to a clearing, where we found a big rock and an old stump. We started with Jumping Jacks and Bumble Bees. The distinction between these small novelties and firecrackers isn't as great as I'd feared. These spray sparks and then go bang. They're as loud, but less destructive. Instead of confetti, the charred cardboard cylinder remained. We graduated to smaller aerials, which were collections of tubes filled with colorful jets of explosive, fused to detonate in stages.
All the sparks we were making in the clearing made us worried about igniting the ground cover, so we went down to the gravel on the rail bed and shot off paper fighter jets, tanks and bigger aerials. We probably would have finished everything off in the lot behind the factory, but after our one lighter died, the matches went quickly. The New Hampshire native in our crew knew a quarry 20 minutes away, and we got fresh lighters on the way. We were glad to be far away from trees for the biggest aerials and the Roman candles, both for their pyrotechnic footprint and their sound. The guy at Fantasy Fireworks hadn't been kidding about the "big bangs."
The action figure we brought was of the new breed of blockbuster four-inch tall action toys. Far evolved from the days of rigid limbs, even our guy's wrists could bend. Posing him grabbing our explosives was easy and far more convincing than tying their stiff plastic carcasses on with string and rubber bands. He withstood his perils well until a jet of flame caught him in the cheek, followed by a Roman candle to the crotch.
After about three hours of sizzling fuses, we got tired before all of our purchases had been detonated.
We hadn't seen anyone. We had picked up all our trash, which was copious, and disposed of it in a dumpster after soaking it thoroughly. If it hadn't been for my professional obligation to report this story, no one would have been the wiser about our New Hampshire escapade.
*
Phantom Fireworks, the national fireworks corporation, recently sent the Valley Advocate a letter which said, in part, "The time is long overdue to change fireworks laws in this state to provide for sensible and regulated use of all consumer fireworks." According to Phantom's vice president Bill Weimer, between 1994 and 2007, the amount of fireworks imported to the U.S. doubled to 265,500,000 pounds, but at the same time estimated fireworks-related injuries dropped by 65.42-percent to "only 9,800" in 2007. It seems unlikely, though, that many are going to swallow the proposition that more fireworks made more readily available means fewer injuries—why aren't the streets filled with protesters? An online petition started in May, 2009 urges Massachusetts voters to join together and demand the right to recreational explosives (http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/FireworksMA2009). It states a goal of a hundred thousand signers, but as of publication only seven people have added their names to show their outrage.
After last weekend's July 4th fireworks in Easthampton, on our way back to the car, my son and I were treated to an amateur neighborhood display set off in someone's back yard. The closer proximity to these explosives made them rival the ones we'd just seen over the Easthampton skyline, and they continued for a good 15 minutes without a single heckle or siren interrupting the fine show.
Like most attempts to regulate vices, fireworks regulations demonstrate that, like our language, our law is subject to interpretation, has local variations, and can be far less rigid than you expect. While gray areas can make us more susceptible to abuse from law enforcement, they also allow private citizens latitude in finding their own limitations. Until someone gets hurt or annoyed, the message seems to be, go ahead. Knock yourself out. Blow yourself up.
Right now, I'm happy to tell my son fireworks are illegal, and he should never do them. One day, that might change, and I'll explain a few of the loopholes. Who knows: that day could be soon, too, when he discovers what happened to his action figure.
