The best laid plans

I, Fox Mulder am in such deep shit, only this time I'm not alone. Bill Scully and Charles Scully are each standing in piles right next to me and it started out so innocently...

That's my soul mate, my partner, my friend, the mother of my child, and the sister to my partners in crime. Scully and I were headed to Mrs. Scully's big 4th of July bash.The whole Scully' clan was to be there. Charlie, and his wife Karen. Their two kid's Charles Jr. and Sarah along with Bill and Tara and their son Mathew and of course my Scully and William. Oh and me, Mulder.

Scully gathered up all the food she'd made and I gathered up William, who I had made, or at least had a hand in making, well not exactly a hand, anyway we were soon on our way. Now the Scully tradition was to eat until you couldn't walk and then blow the hell out of shit. Their motto was 'fireworks display, we don't need no stinking fireworks display'.

Each year the boys would set off an arsenal of fireworks in the Scully's back yard, and I can't wait! Since it was a Scully tradition, my own Scully had agreed to let me help blow things up as long as my fingers weren't among them. I was like a kid in a candy store. We never did this kind of thing when I was young.

My old man would always just trot us off to the seashore where we would watch them launch the fireworks from a boat. Where in hell is the fun in that! No smell of ozone, no near misses, and no guys screaming, 'Run! The fucker didn't go off!' Nope, none of that. It was hardly worth dragging us out for.

We got to Scully's mom's house and I saw Charlie's rental and Bill's 'Big Bertha' of an SUV sitting in the driveway. The man has a serious case of penis envy going on there.

We went inside where everyone made 'kissy face', which I hated but for Maggie's sake I played along with it plus it pisses Bill off that she kiss's me. The women got the kids settled in while Bill, Charlie and I headed outside.

"Nope, not this year! They cheated us on the cut last year.' I swear it sounded like they were about to score some fucking dope! Finally I couldn't stand it any longer and I said,

"Fireworks! What the hell did you think we were
talking about." Charlie just looked at me and shook his head. Trying to regain what little testosterone the boys had left me with, I blurted out,

"I know where there is an out-of-state-fireworks stand." Actually Scully and I had passed it on the drive over. In big red letters the sign proclaimed, 'out-of-state-fireworks', so I took their word for it that they were.

Both guys looked up at me in a way that could only be described as a mixture of love and admiration. Bill leaned down and patted me on the back.

"So what are we waiting for?" Charlie laughed and we headed for Bill's penis-mobile but first I had to tell Scully I was going with her brothers. She gave me a scared look, like she might never see me again.

"No really, they WANT me to come." A peck on the cheek later and we're off. Right away Bill starts spouting crap about blowing up stuff in the past, and how the neighbors had all ooo'ed and aww'ed. I had to admit the man knew his explosives. He'd set off everything from wussy little fire crackers to M80's and quarter sticks of dynamite. I admired the man.

We finally pulled up in front of this little junky trailer that sat on a vacant lot and sure enough the sign read,'out-of-state-fireworks' in big red letters. I could have sworn I saw tears forming in Bill's eyes. Anyway we walked in. This old guy that I would have guessed was somewhere between 80 and 120 years old asked if he could 'hep' us. I stayed back, letting Bill and Charlie take over. They were the experts after all. Bill looked at Charlie and said,

"I'm in for a hundred too." Then they both looked at me. Now normally Scully would have killed me if I'd have spent a hundred dollars on shit to blow up but this was a Scully tradition we were talking about here so I say, 'Sure count me in,' Bill and Charlie both grinned at me.
I had arrived!

Fourty five minutes later Bill, Charlie and I were each carrying a grocery sack filled with shit to blow up but only after we had signed he proper paper work that stated we would not blow shit up in the state of Maryland. At this moment somewhere out there is a form floating around with George Hale's signature on it. But I digress.

We piled into the SUV. Bill and Charlie were still yammering on about the shit they had blown up in the past. I couldn't let them best me all the way home so I suddenly blurted out,

"I wish I had thought to bring along some bullets". I had no idea why I said that. Hell, Scully couldn't even get that damn campfire lit with one, but Bill and Charlie seemed to be in awe of the fact that I had even thought I could blow up bullets.

We soon pulled into Mrs. Scully's driveway. The only thing left to do was to eat like a ravenous pack of wolves and wait for nightfall. Little did we know what lay ahead. . .

The women out did themselves, food wise. (Don't tell Scully I lumped her into the 'women' category or I'll never see her naked again.) So anyway, we were well fed and a little inebriated, well Bill and Charlie were. I wanted to have all my faculties. I still didn't entirely trust them plus Scully thought I was acting like an adult by not getting plastered and wearing my shorts on my head.

The sun was slowly slipping past the horizon as the women assembled the kids in the backyard. Mrs. Scully was lighting those little torches that guarantee no mosquitoes. I think the only thing that kept the bugs away was the stink that rolled off those things and
the heat they added to the already sweltering evening.

Bill and Charlie spent half an hour arguing about which was better, Ohio Blue Tips or the Wal-Mart long lighter. In the end the Wal-Mart long lighter won out. Even Bill had to admit the lighter was more efficient and in the world of blowing things up speed was of the essence. Having settled on what form of igniter they would use,we retired to the garage.

Two rickety card tables were set up in the middle of the garage. One was groaning under the weight of all the explosives heaped on it. I was a little taken back by this show of firepower. But neither of the Scully's seemed overly impressed.

Bill reached into the pile and pulled out a huge rocket taped to a stick. Charlie nodded his head in approval. I soon found out this was another Scully tradition, weeding out the bad shit, kind of like culling the herd. Soon the bare table was filled with the good shit.

The other table now contained sparklers, snakes, and a few assorted bottle rockets. Both Scullys' seemed to be satisfied with their choices. The most dangerous looking explosives went into two of the paper bags. The third contained the leftovers. Both boys looked happy at the 2-1 ratio.

Bill actually thanked me for sharing the name of my dealer with him. (Like I did this all the time.) I knew I had passed another Scully-man test when Charlie handed me a
bag of good shit to carry. We headed out of the garage door to a smattering of applause from the women folk. I was feeling just a little more, manly. There was no doubt that when Scully saw me carrying those high explosives, I would be getting some that night, and maybe twice!

At first I flinched. I've seen ATF agents handle less firepower with more care than Bill Scully was exhibiting with this stuff. My admiration for the man was only growing. Not to be out done I dumped my bag right on top of his. Charlie had already dumped his weenie fireworks in a pile about 10 feet from the good shit.

The sun had just begun to set and the sky was getting dark. Bill snapped at his mom to, 'Douse the damn bug lights' on the pretense that they put out too much light but I think the smell was getting to him too. The boys discussed the order that our show would be taking, half a dozen weenie fireworks then on to the heavy artillery then back to the weenie stuff. I had to admit, Bill and Charlie were to fireworks what Bob Fosse was to choreography. I knew I was in the presence of greatness.

The crowd grew quite as Charlie whipped the Wal-Mart lighter out of his hip pocket and somberly handed it to Bill. I assumed that when Mr. Scully had passed away, the torch was passed to Bill, literally. Bill took the lighter and clicked off several test lights.

A few cheers were heard. Since Bill was in charge of the actual ignition, Charlie became his second in command, selecting what was to be blown up next. I was relegated to third, which turned out to be the passer. I had to grab what Charlie selected and pass it on to Bill.

I know that sounds like a wussie job, but I was just one link in the chain, and everyone knows that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. And I'll be damned if that was going to be me. I looked up to see Scully with a large grin on her face, trying to get Will to look at his big strong Daddy about to blow stuff up. It was a heady feeling.

The show was about to begin. A hush fell over the crowd as Charlie handed me a box of snakes. I started to open them, when Bill frowned and took the box from my hand and lit the whole damn thing! Out crawled a big, huge black snake. I had to admit it the guy was no beginner.

Next came the sparklers and a fist full of firecrackers. Charlie then handed me one of the first explosives from the good pile. I immediately felt the difference in my hand. It felt heavier and more solid than the others had been. This was gonna be good!

I handed it to Bill who took no notice of it. Being the consummate professional that he was; he was in the zone. He stabbed the stick into the baked earth and bent the fuse until it was to his liking, and then set a flame to it. The fuse sizzled and crackled and climbed closer to the body of the rocket. Suddenly the rocket shot off with a whoosh as it climbed high into the air. The women clapped and the children cheered.

Suddenly I saw the rocket zooming back to earth at mach speed. It landed square in the middle of the bad pile! A stunned silence fell over the crowd.

Then all hell broke loose. The bad pile exploded into one giant Fireball. Unfortunately one small rocket escaped and shot across to the good pile, igniting it. Good shit was going off all over the place. There were rockets zooming in every direction. Luckily the women and children were sheltered in the screened in porch. The conflagration was massive. It reminded me of the pictures I had seen of the burning of Coventry during World War Two. But this!

I was standing in the middle of this, as explosives rained down around me. That's when it hit me, 'Duck you dumb ass!' I threw myself to the ground and covered my head but not before seeing Bill and Charlie standing there, frozen in front of a back drop of flames and screaming rockets. The mayhem seemed to go on for hours but it was actually over in just a matter of minutes. As the noise died down I scrambled to my feet. Bill's eyebrows were missing and Charlie had a burning ember in his shirt pocket.

When the smoke cleared I realized that Mrs. Scully's lilac bush was on fire. I ran to the house and turned on the hose, putting out the burning bush along with a small corner of the porch roof. It was right then that every kid chose to bawl, I'm not talking crying, I'm talking ear piercing wailing! I peered into the screen covering the porch to see that Will was cowering behind his mother,scared shitless, while Scully was trying to peel him off her back.

The look Scully shot me just about guaranteed William would be an only child. I trudged back to where Bill and Charlie were standing. Not a word had passed between them. All that could be heard was three nasty sounding door slams. One for each pissed off wife.

Bill finally comes out of his stupor and yelled, 'Back in the car!' All three of us piled back into the SUV. This time I didn't bother to tell Scully. I figured the farther away I was right now the better. We were headed back to the highway when suddenly Bill and Charlie both realized they had no cash! Ten minutes later I was standing in front of the ATM watching it belch out 15 twenty-dollar bills. Just my luck, neither Bill nor Charlie's card was accepted in the state of Maryland.

Three bags of explosives and one George Hale later we were back in business. Only this time Charlie is handing Bill a rocket from a Coleman cooler storage locker while I'm manning the hose. The kids were happy, the women were at least speaking to us again and all was right in the world.

The ride home had been a quiet one. Will was asleep in the back seat while Scully was still a little pissed off but at least she'd stopped shaking. Just as we hit the D.C. city limits, she turned to me.