Pillar of Flame

One summer night, we took my parents’ grill & we put in some sticks & paper & soaked the whole thing in lighter fluid & then my friend turned on his shortwave radio & we listened to some scientist in Houston who was saying where Apollo was at that moment & at the exact time it went over us, we lit the stuff in the grill so the astronauts would look out & see this light & they’d say ‘What the hell is that?’ & we danced around the pillar of flame & sparks laughing wildly because while the astronauts were out there unlocking the mysteries of the universe, we were back home in Chicago making more of them.

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