If you want to see fireworks in Beauneville, you have to go to Stapleton. Fireworks are not permitted in Beauneville; they scare the birds.
As a rule, the citizens of Beauneville go to Stapleton to do things that are prohibited -- or simply frowned upon -- in Beauneville. Frankly, there isn't any other reason to go there. Civic leaders of Stapleton recognize the absence of anything approximating economic life in their city, and thus they cultivate what others might consider vice and iniquity.
When you drive through Stapleton, you see the signs of decline everywhere. Grand Victorian homes on River Road are sadly dilapidated. A number of them fell to the bulldozer more than a decade ago so the Big Box store could expand its parking lot, under the theory that customers were disgruntled because they were unable to find a place to park. It turns out, however, that customers were actually disgruntled because Big Box sells cheap crap that nobody wants; thus the expanded parking lot is mostly empty.
Stapleton's decline began years ago, when the buggy whip industry went south. The decline accelerated when Wickett's Bazaar burned to the ground. This grand old department store -- the brainchild of Major Wickett -- was an exact replica of the Topkapi Palace, complete with a massive wooden elephant named Jumbo. (Stapleton architecture buffs were too kind to point out to Major Wickett that the actual Topkapi Palace does not feature a wooden elephant named Jumbo). Unfortunately, the Bazaar was built out of wood and in 1933 an errant firework from the Fourth of July celebrations landed square on Jumbo's forehead, immediately igniting the faux pachyderm and sending off sparks that lit up the rest of the Bazaar. Folks who witnessed the event say it was the best Fourth of July fireworks in Stapleton's history, but they felt sorry for Mr. Wickett.
The civic leaders of Stapleton have always favored industrial policy, where the government takes an active role to promote the winning industries of the future. Unfortunately, the industries promoted by the civic leaders of Stapleton have been mostly losers. For example, there is the abandoned radio factory on Grand Avenue; the long-since-closed Studebaker distributorship on Main Street; regional headquarters of the defunct Railway Express Agency on Railroad Avenue; and the call center on Pine Street that was outsourced to India last year when the proprietors could not fill openings for English-speaking operators.
Stapleton has high hopes for green jobs, though.
Another growth employer in Stapleton is Dr. Cutlet's Quik N Easy Express abortion center, where abortion is a woman's right to choose, and no questions are asked other than the expiration date on Mom's MasterCard.
Of course, Dr. Cutlet's customers come from other parts of Washington County, and not from Beauneville. For as the reader may recall from previous chapters, the youth of Beauneville are not sexually active.
And when they are sexually active, they use birth control.
Most of the time.
When they are sober.
So if you want to see fireworks in Beauneville, you have to go to Stapleton. Actually, that should read if you want to hear fireworks, you have to go to Stapleton. If all you want to do is to see the fireworks, you can do so by climbing to the top of the misnamed Bell Tower on the Beaune Estate. The tower is misnamed -- there are no bells in the Bell Tower, nor were there ever any bells there. Grandpa told Roderick that the contractor building the tower assumed it would be a bell tower, because it looks like a bell tower. The contractor went to visit Auguste Beaune (who was then ninety-three years old) to inquire about the delivery of the bells. Auguste woke from his nap and looked around, startled. "Bells? What bells? They're aren't any bells!" Some people think Auguste simply forgot to order the bells, and was too proud to admit it; at ninety-three, he wasn't exactly sharp as a tack.
Anyway, the name stuck, so Beauneville has a Bell Tower without bells.
Most folks in Beauneville don't know you can see the fireworks from the top of the Bell Tower, but Roderick knows, because Grandpa told him.
Roderick thought about inviting Natasha, or Megan, or one of the other girls who flirt with him at the boathouse. He invited Molly, though, because there isn't anyone else he'd rather be alone with than Molly.
When Roderick invited Molly to see the fireworks from the Bell Tower, she accepted immediately; not because she gives a whit about fireworks, but because she likes the idea of doing something secret with Roderick.
Roderick wore a t-shirt, jeans and sneakers. Molly wore a white armless shirt, cutoff jeans and sandals. The climb to the top of the Bell Tower was arduous and a little scary: the spiral stone staircase is steep; the railing is flimsy; there are no lights. Roderick and Molly groped their way to the top in the fading light and sat close together in one of the portholes at the top of the tower, their feet dangling from the dizzying height, and waited for the fireworks to begin.
In Roderick's view, if you've seen one firework, you've seen them all. Still, he was thrilled to sit next to Molly in the open porthole. He could smell her hair -- it smelled...nice.
Molly thought about Beethoven, and that damned twenty-forth variation of the Diabelli.
