Summary

Thomas decides to execute his revenge on the fourth of July. He successfully procures firecrackers sold by a ten year old boy in the park. He tests one of his bombs in the sandbox of the park, which successfully detonates.

Thomas recalls that he did not kill any of his comrades during his impromptu airstrike in Vietnam, but did sufficiently scare them, as intended. His comrades return unscathed, but with their own desire for vengeance. They tell Thomas that they will have to kill him, but on an unspecified day in the future.

Fast forward to present day, twenty years after the war, Spider approaches Thomas in the garage with six homemade bombs. His old comrades have been “checking in now and then” after all these years and took great satisfaction in watching Thomas’s steady decline into madness (303). Spider particularly enjoys the fact...