It’s a sultry night in July. We start our ritual stroll down to the boardwalk where a barge waits offshore to fill the black sky with bursts of chrysanthemums. I hold my father’s hand and look down at the sidewalk, avoiding the cracks, a tenet of childhood folklore. We pass the candy store; the sidewalk here is covered with black welts, the remnants of wax tubes, minus their sticky-sweet juice. 

The night is a  cornucopia of smells: the salty breeze off the ocean, the hot breath of the pizza shop, my father’s cologne.

We always stop for ice cream along the way; I follow as my father crosses the street. The Carvel stand is illuminated by yellow light, casting an amber glow on the faces of the milling patrons. Here too is an olfactory surprise, wafting out through the service window. Hot chocolate and cherry dip sit in silver warming canisters, a ladle hanging over the edge. People stand, smoking cigarettes, or sit at the picnic tables, talking, their murmur in competition with the cicadas and the faint roar of the ocean. I choose pistachio with cherry dip, my favorite, and my father doesn’t get any. He likes to just walk, and point out things to me along the way.

We’re heading east down Beech Street; the blocks in the West End are a hundred feet wide and named after the states. We live on Alabama street, a narrow one-way street, and the boardwalk is on New York Avenue, one of the wide boulevards that join Park Avenue on the bay side and Broadway on the ocean side. 

On the corner of New York Avenue are the bike shop and the delicatessen; I’m deliberately slow here. I linger at the window of the bike shop, a blue Schwinn catching my eye. There’s no water bottles or fanny-packs, but it does have a banana seat and gleaming sissy bar. I want it so much the desire becomes a dull ache in my throat. 

I look sideways at my father and neither of us says a word until he blurts out, “We better get going, the fireworks start soon.”

We pass St. Ignatius Church and the catholic school, surrounded by asphalt ball fields and an eight-foot high cyclone fence. These fields come alive in August, the Ferris wheel spinning lazily in counterpoint to the whirring gaming wheels at the Church Bazaar. That event draws big crowds, and if somehow you haven't seen someone all summer, you are  sure to see them there. This year they are raising money to renovate the Church rectory and the playground. I'm hoping they will also invest in some plastic rulers, which keep their shape, and are easier on the knuckles.

The streets down here are yet unpaved, but are instead red brick, some of them cracking, and bulging upwards. They are beautiful to look at, matching the Spanish-style clay roofs, but made for a tooth-jarring bike-ride. The entrance to the boardwalk is a wooden ramp, constructed, as is the rest of the boardwalk, of two by fours, some brand-new, and others so weathered as to crumble if you step on them. Stepping out on the boardwalk itself is like stepping out on a seaside stage, the applause of the waves lapping at the shore. The railings are galvanized piping, painted silver, stretching out for two and a half miles. There are wooden benches too, but usually we avoid them, preferring to lean on the railing, getting a view of the revelers on the beach below.

A few desultory bottle rockets skitter their way skyward, ending with their signature, “pop” and white camera flash, while the rat-a-tat of firecrackers punctuates our conversation. My father squints out toward the horizon and points. “Do you see it out there …? If you look hard you can see the ship.”

I squint against the gathering darkness and make out the faint outline of a vessel, barely visible under a crescent moon.

“Where does it come from, Daddy?”

“Its docked in the city and then it sails all the way around the Rockaways.”

Just then, the opening salvo rumbles up from the barge and fills the sky with color, like a giant umbrella opening, drawing “oohs” and “ahs” from the assembled crowd. I squeeze the railing in excitement as the pyrotechnics reach a crescendo, looking up at my father occasionally, 
or shouting a rhetorical, “Did you see that one?” He just laughs and nods his head, looking more at me than the display before us. 

Within fifteen minutes, it is all over, culminating in a grand finale that obscures the moon and stars and lights the Atlantic below. The onlookers reluctantly begin to disperse as we contemplate our walk home, by far the longer of the two legs of the journey. 

My father turns to me with a wistful smile, “Did you like the fireworks?”

“Yeah, Daddy, they were better than last year.”

“Happy Fourth of July, son.”

“Happy Fourth of July, Daddy.

All is quiet but for the endless trill of the cicadas. We walk along in silence; neither of us knowing this will be the last time we will take this walk together. I reach up and hold his hand. He smiles.

Author's Biography

My name is John Duncan, I was born and raised in Long Beach, New York but now live in upstate New York in the Albany area. I am married, with three children, two of whom are diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders. We have a border collie, a parrot, two cats, and a tank full of fish just to keep things interesting. 

This essay is a tip of the hat to my father, who passed away in 1968 when I was eight years old. I still remember the details of our walks together like it was yesterday.

E-mail John.

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