He still has vivid memories of being a kid, eight, maybe nine, the year his uncle had smuggled him and his cousins up to the roof of that shady warehouse where he was working in Weehawken, an utterly unremarkable waterfront building that happened to be dead across from where they parked the fireworks barge in the middle of the Hudson River.
The fireworks were for New York City, the jeweled spires glittering across the water far enough away they might have been another planet. They were not for Weehawken, New Jersey, which made stealing them even more fun.
From the frigid roof of the grungy warehouse the explosions were enormous, red and green and white and gold bursting right on top of them and filling the whole sky. Each detonation was loud enough to feel like a punch in the chest, and he loved it, loved it the way he would later love a loud show or a crowded club, the music pulsing so hard you could forget your own heartbeat.
He was stupid to think it would still be like that this year.
