Archive of Our Own ^beta

They never quite knew when the fourth of July would be. Even if they had calendars, time didn’t work consistently. The only way to know it was the fourth was when they would wake up and emerge from their tents to see that the entire place had been turned into an explosion of red, white, and blue. (Even more than normal, that is.) 

Some of the assassins — namely, Guiteau and Squeaky — looked excited. Others looked even more dour than usual. Booth had that oddly pleased expression he sometimes got. 

Sara, for her part, didn’t mind. There was a part of her that kind of enjoyed the festivities, if you could call them that. She wasn’t being expected to help man the grill or keep a backyard full of screaming children entertained, and that’s what she cared about. 

Someone, probably the Balladeer, had set out little American flag pins on the counter of the balloon dart game. The balloons, normally gray and sepia-toned, had been replaced with a bright combination of red, white and blue. Zangara stood in front of them. Sara watched as he methodically went at them with one of the flag pins, each one making a loud pop, like the bang of a gunshot, as they exploded. Sara looked around. No one else seemed to look in their direction. Random gunshots weren’t uncommon here. 

She watched him as he went after a row, wondering what the hell he could possibly be doing. She found herself asking this question a lot. 

If only to get an idea as to what was running through his head, she cleared her throat, and sure enough, he turned to stare at her. It was more of a glare, really. An unblinking glare. 

“Can I, uh, help you?” she asked, despite the fact that it was her who interrupted him. He stares at her for a few more seconds, before turning back to continue his work. 

Okay, then. What an odd man, Sara thought as she fixed her flag pin to her vest. She watched him for a few moments more, and she was still watching when the Proprietor showed up, smiling her a hello with that far-too-wide smile. She waved weakly in return. He then started pulling out balloons from his pocket, blowing them up, and replacing the remnants of the popped ones, effectively erasing Zangara’s work. 

There was something symbolic in that, she was sure, but she was never one for symbolism. 

Somewhere, someone was cooking hot dogs. She leaned away from the stall, looking around for where it came from. There was the noise of a commotion, coming from near the rickety old roller coaster most of them were too afraid of to touch. Then the smell of smoke. 

Goodness. 

She set off towards it, hurrying her pace when she heard someone — Hinckley, she thought — yell in surprise. 

Luckily, the scene that awaited her seemed to be mostly controlled. Hinckley stood over the grill, looking frazzled. Guiteau loomed over his shoulder, wearing a “Kiss the Cook” apron he had gotten from God only knows where. The wood of the roller coaster structure next to the grill was scorched, and dripping with water. At the wooden picnic table, Squeaky sat, perched on the table itself, with Booth sitting on the bench beside her, glaring. 

Sara looked at the two at the grill, then at the scorched wood, then at Squeaky.

“Hi, Moore,” Squeaky said, sounding like she didn’t have a care in the world. “Guiteau set fire to the roller coaster.” 

“I … can see that,” she replied, taking a seat. “And the water?” 

“Hinckley put it out.” 

Well, that explained that, then. 

Booth was still glaring at Squeaky. “Get off of the table,” he hissed. 

“What? Why?”

“It is exceedingly rude.” 

Squeaky looked to Sara, who shrugged. She didn’t exactly think that this group of people counted as what Booth would call good society, but she wasn’t going to get involved. Squeaky looked back at Booth, scoffed, and stood up, moving to perch on the beams of the roller coaster structure. At first, Sara had been sure it couldn’t take it, but Squeaky sat up there often. It probably wasn’t going to collapse. Probably. 

Risk of collapse or not, it seemed to make Booth happy, or at least got him to shut up. 

“Hot dogs are ready,” Hinckley said from behind the grill. He handed a paper plate with them to Guiteau, who neatly put them on buns and delivered them to the table, then one to Squeaky. 

“Thank you,” Sara said, taking one. She reached for the ketchup, wondering how she was going to put it on her hot dog with no plate or napkin, when — 

“It’s raw,” Squeaky announced plainly. 

“What? No, it’s not,” Hinckley said, and Sara watched him go over and peek at what Squeaky held in her hands. “Huh. I guess it is.”

“Don’t hot dogs usually come pre-cooked?” Sara wondered aloud. 

“My dear Moore,” Booth said, overly theatrically (as was his way), “do you really expect this place to have what you expect? Such as cooked food? Why, if you were to present this —” he dramatically picked up a hot dog — “to someone in 1865, I do not believe they would call it food.”

Behind him, Squeaky took another bite of the raw hot dog. 

“Well,” Sara began to counter, but was interrupted once again. 

“What’s all this?” 

She turned to see the Balladeer, all smiles and cheer, walk up, guitar in hand. He always seemed to be happier on the fourth of July. Beside her, Booth scoffed. Sara didn’t understand the hatred Booth harbored for the Balladeer. (And the Balladeer seemed to harbor as much hatred as a being made of hope could towards him.) Sure, she didn’t like him either, but Booth seemed to genuinely and passionately hate the man. It would be impressive if it weren’t a little intimidating. 

The Balladeer took a seat on the table in much the same way Squeaky had, an aloof smile on his lips. He played a few chords — the beginning to “My Country 'Tis of Thee”, or so Sara thought. Booth shot him a glare. 

“I will never understand,” he began pointedly in his Southern drawl, “why all of you people think it is alright to have incredibly poor manners.” 

“Bold words, coming from you,” the Balladeer responded glibly, still strumming his guitar. 

“I am a gentleman —” 

Sara stood up. She wasn’t feeling like dealing with the two of them. 

The conversation had devolved into an argument. It often did, when all the assassins were together. (There would be the occasional joke about leftist infighting, and whoever said it would get glared at by Guiteau and Booth until they took it back.) 

Sara, though she would make the occasional comment, didn’t join in. She found it rather tiresome, and had set off to find the other missing assassin. 

She found him where he often was, on the roof of one of the storage sheds. 

“Czolgosz!” she called out, and he peered over the edge and waved. She waved back, then headed for the ladder. It took her a few tries to get up, what with carrying her purse, but eventually she scrambled up onto the roof. 

From where they sat, they had a pretty good view of the rest of the assassins. 

“Are they still arguing?” Czolgosz asked. 

Sara looked up from where she was getting two beers from her purse. “Yeah, I think they are.” They certainly looked like it, even if their voices didn’t carry. 

“Don’t they know that there’s bigger problems today?” 

“What, with the fourth?” She handed him a beer, and he took it.

“People die from fireworks. Hundreds.” 

“Do they? Well, they’re safer now, at least. Patriotism aside.” 

“Are they?” He gestured to the faint scorch marks, leftover from last year, when Byck had led a small revolt and stolen some fireworks, thus setting a minor blaze. The Proprietor and Balladeer put it out, of course, but the air had been smoky for days. 

Sara shrugged, opening her beer. “I trust the Balladeer with them.” She held her beer out for the customary toast. 

Czolgosz clinked his bottle with hers. “Stupid housewife.”

“Deranged immigrant.” 

They drank. 

“You know, Czolgosz,” she said without prompting, “there’s this newfangled thing I think you’d like. Recycling.” 

“Like bicycle?” 

“No, no — you give your glass trash to the city and they make it into other things. I think. I’ve never been clear on how it worked.”

“Sounds like a scam.”

“Eh, probably.” 

And speaking of fireworks, there was a faint whooom and a loud boom coming from the edge of the carnival (or at least what Sara assumed was the edge — she was never one for exploring). Fireworks, red, white and blue, lit up the sky, burning bright and fizzling into nothingness almost as quickly. There were delighted cheers coming from the other assassins, and Sara set down her beer to clap. 

Czolgosz chuckled. “Pretty, but too damn American for me.”

“This whole place is American. Look at the paint job.” 

“Not like this.”

Czolgosz was right. This was a whole other kind of patriotism. Everything looked better under the light of the fireworks, even the chipped paint of the carnival. Sara knew she was one of the most okay with the country out of the assassins, but she would never claim herself to be some sort of red-blooded patriot. Still, she had mixed feelings on the whole deal. She was American too, wasn’t she? Booth would often claim that they had just as much of a right to the country as anyone else, even despite their crimes, and she found herself agreeing with him. But it was the Balladeer’s America, as the distinction went, that these fireworks were celebrating, not the America of the downtrodden and dismayed. 

She took off the American flag pin, still attached to her vest, and slipped it in her purse. 

Another round of fireworks went off, sounding a little like gunshots. Well then. At least they were pretty. 

She held out her beer for another toast. 

“Happy fourth, Czolgosz.” 

Clink. 

“Happy fourth, Moore.”