Tag: Humor

Drunken Fireworks is a short story written by Stephen King. It was first released as an audio book in 2015 as one of the stories in a short fiction novel titled The Bazaar of Bad Dreams. 

Stephen King mentions an anecdote with this short story, wherein an old woman, recognizing him at a grocery store, told him that she does not like horror stories.

He did clarify that horror was not the only genre that he has written in. He mentions that he loves to read and write stories that are funny and it shouldn’t surprise anybody, because humor and horror are Siamese twins “you write some scary stories and you’re like the girl who lives in the trailer park on the edge of town: you get a reputation.”

Too bad that he didn’t write humor as much; because going by what this story offers, we can do as much with King’s humor as with horror, if not more.

Drunken Fireworks: Summary and Plot Analysis

The story is narrated by Alden McCausland, who has been taken into custody by the Castlecounty police.

Alden lives with his mother, and they are what he calls themselves – idle rich, having recently acquired a lot of wealth from his father’s demise followed by a lottery win.

Both Alden and his mother have comfortably settled in a life that usually involves them spending a lot of time idling around and drinking. They spend most of their summers at Lake Abenaki.

Their neighbors, on the other side of the lake, are an Italian-American family – The Massimo. They are very rich and owe their wealth to a very successful construction business.

The McCauslands, however, do not think much of them.

Thanks to them being Italian and operating a business out of Rhode Island, they are obviously connected to the Mafia, in the eyes of McCauslands.

Starting from one fateful day of 4th of July celebrations, both families engage inadvertently in what came to be called the “4th of July Arms race”.

What ensues is an insane game of McCauslands and Massimos going to great lengths to one-up their neighbors. Being ‘trumped’ by the Massimos on almost all occasions, Alden and his mother become more and more desperate to win the next showdown.

Their desperation takes Alden to forge new connections himself – going to the extent of sourcing “Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind” or “GE4” – illegally.

In the ensuing showdown, completely oblivious to the dry summers that Castle county had that year, Alden launches the GE4, only to witness that the fireworks go further than the intended purpose of showing Massimos who’s the boss.

A shift of wind sets the pine trees around Massimo’s house on fire. Soon after, flames engulf the house and destroy it.

Alden is then arrested by the police.

The police, upon receiving a full statement from Alden, lets him know that Massimo will not be pressing charges, considering that they were also accountable for taking the arms race to ridiculous proportions, eventually leading to damage.

Alden is not convicted but soon comes to know that his cabin is burned down too and the cause was attributed to his carelessness, keeping the fireworks too close to the stove. He is advised that getting along with that story, and having insurance pay for the damages is the best course of action for him.

Drunken Fireworks: Analysis and Review

The story has humor written all over it. Be it Alden’s complete insensitivity to other

Cultures or his mom avoiding ‘alcohol abstinence’ like leprosy.

The story is not devoid of time-tested wisdom either. Consider the following for an example:

“I guess a lot of Ma’s weight gain had to do with coffee brandy, they don’t call it fat ass in a glass for no reason. But she said she was never Miss America to begin with.”

We have all seen someone like that – family or friend – haven’t we? Oh forget all that , how much it reminds me of myself!

Look here:

“something’s gonna kill everyone, am I not right? Doctors have a way of forgetting that but Ma knew.”

I noticed two things in that statement- the way I have seen our dear elderly folks try to brush off requests for making some healthy changes to lifestyle and the creative excuses that they come up with to counter them and Alden’s dog-like devotion to her mom.

“..but they were Italian, and Massimo construction was based in Providence, Rhode Island, and you’re cops, you can connect the dots. And Ma always used to say if you put two and two together, you never get five.”

A sharp comment on the number of babies of Massimos:

“Massimos must have had half a dozen babies, and they wore colors so bright, they burn your eyes if you looked at them too long.”

The next one here makes me laugh every time I read it:

“Someone ought to dip that trumpet in olive oil and stick it up his ass. He could fart out ‘God Bless America.’”

Alden’s blatant disregard towards his Italian neighbors is so disgusting yet hilarious.

Some motivational quotes from Drunken Fireworks

There were a few motivational gems referenced in the story as well. Consider the ones listed below:

“It ain’t the size of the dog in the fight but the size of fight in the dog.”

Then there’s this:

“I didn’t bother telling her no made up story, because she always sees through them and has since I was knee-high to a collie.”

This one did elicit an aww from me. The mother-and-son relationship shown in this is the only glimpse of love that you get, hiding behind all the humor and stupidity of the characters.

Mr King does not write humor much and I don’t see why.

I Am The Lion Now is a short story by Edan Lepucki. It revolves around a pregnant woman that lives in LA with her husband. The couple lead an ordinary life until a possum shows up at their door. 

No, I am not talking about the famous incident at the Bronx zoo where a woman jumped into a lion’s enclosure and seemed to taunt him.

I am going to talk about Edan Lepucki’s short story – ‘I am the lion now’.

I Am The Lion Now: Summary and Plot Analysis

The story revolves around a pregnant woman named Margaret who lives in an apartment in LA with her husband Toby.

They seem like a pretty average LA couple differing in one aspect of sexual activity. Margaret maintains a journal of the dates of their ‘deeds’ thinking to herself that someday a biographer would consider it as a  piece of information worth recording while her husband bakes a second cake for her after burning the first one, to satiate her pregnancy craving.

While Margaret is left to her own thoughts whiling away time in her bath tub, her husband finds a possum (which he mistakes for a rat initially) and in the ensuing chaos, a book burns in the bathroom while a possum runs all across the kitchen with an almost chubby man on its tail.

Toby comes to like the little possum and even convinces his ‘cold’ wife to provide food and shelter at least for a   night. The baby possum is later located by its family but having seen it touched/tampered by the humans, is left alone.

A few weeks after the episode, Toby sees the possum, who is a teenager now, only to have it hiss at him.

He is the lion now.

I Am The Lion Now Review

The story is pretty ordinary story until you take into the account how it has been said. This story is written by Lepucki in a very interesting omniscient third person point of view. The style that has been seen on and off in English literature for a long time.

She has presented the point of view of the animate and inanimate objects alike. It is like a breath of fresh air. Consider the following quotes from the story –

“The Possum glares and hisses, ‘I am the lion now’”

There is a reference in the story where Margaret recalls a novel that she recently read about a bunch of zealots in an Afghani zoo where one of them cut a bear’s nose because its beard was too short, while another jumped into a lion’s enclosure and announces himself as a lion, and eventually gets killed. I love how she gave voice to the possum.

“But I am worth it’ – whispered the book”

While Margaret lies in the bath tub thinking the book that she is reading is too challenging, and longs to look at a tabloid containing pictures of pregnant celebrities. The book then reads her mind and thinks itself to be worth Margaret’s time.

A place where books can actually speak with me, for real, oh! that’s what I call dreamland!

This one cracked me up –

“They were married, and passion was not greater than cake”

This references to Toby’s second attempt at making cake for his wife and deliberately not putting the timer on. Simply because he knew that when in the act, they would consider stopping it a more likely scenario than ruining the cake. Laugh-worthy reality of our times, folks!

“Let the squeamish suffer their fear, let them live without really living. Margaret was safe in her risk taking.”

This references to Margaret’s bath tub: grimy and rusty near the drain, but that doesn’t scare her, because she does not wash her fruit either and kisses dogs on the mouth. This in Margaret’s mind, is risk taking personified. The life of a modern outlier, eh?

“All crises, once averted, become jokes”

After dousing the fire and seeing the remnants of her charred book, Margaret quips ‘Oops, I guess I won’t be reading this’. I couldn’t help but stroll down my own memory lane and smiled.