I opened my mouth to protest, but realized even before a word made it from my brain to my vocal cords that protesting would be no use. My mother does not make decisions; she makes proclamations. The kind that guys on horseback posted in kingdoms of old to subdue the peasants.

“Tell Mr. Crawley ‘thank you, but we respectfully decline.’”

I closed my mouth, realizing this would take a peasant revolt. The kind with torches and pitchforks.

“Okay,” I said to my mom. “I’ll tell him,” and then added, “I don’t want to miss the Fourth of July anyway.” That got her attention.

“Why? What are you planning?”

I shrugged. “Nothing much.” Then I left her to the darkness of her own imagination.

Last year, the Fourth of July was a blast. My friends Howie and Ira and I got our hands on some real fireworks that the Sheepshead Bay Rotary Club had purchased but couldn’t get permits to use, on account of they don’t officially permit anything in Brooklyn.

In my neighborhood, however, the Fourth of July is all about broken rules and losing fingers. Not that we were stupid enough to do anything dangerous. We hadn’t had a Roman candle fight since, like, the third grade. We took every precaution with the fireworks. We figured we could set it off from my front porch and light up the sky above the whole neighborhood like they light up the Statue of Liberty. And the best part about it was that we only had to light one fuse, because the thing was automated. Once you started it, it cycled through like some sort of explosive computer system. To be extra safe, just so that we didn’t set my house on fire, I angled the fireworks away from the house.

Here’s something I learned about fireworks last year: If you don’t aim them straight up in the air, they take on this trajectory called “gravity’s rainbow.” In other words, they go up in one place, arc across the sky, then come down somewhere else, blowing up the pot of gold at the far end.

Have you ever seen those war movies where the enemy relentlessly bombs the good guys in their foxholes and the good guys all form lasting friendships that eventually threaten their marriages? Well, let’s just say that us kids on East 56th Street made the folks over on East 53rd Street bond in ways that could be considered unnatural in certain religions.