the fourth of july

Three nineteen year old girls, wearing stars and stripes bikinis, sit in a fountain, in a tiny park in soho in 90 plus degree sunshine. A triangle of traffic surounds them.

Seated on the roof of their 'Quebequois' tour bus with it's icon of the goddess blowing wind out of her mouth, some canadian tourists crane their necks around and stare at the patriotism in the water.

A man with a pony tail, is minding his own buisness, reading a paperback book with his bicycle beside him in the grass, leaning his back against the fountain. He looks up and notices the girls who are balancing like balance beam walkers on the narrow wall of the fountain.

They walk up, up the steps that water tumbles down.

At the top of the fountain there is a curtain of water and the man with the pony tail suggests, quite platonically, that the girls take pictures of eachother through the curtain of water... which they do.

the photos, taken with a waterproof camera, warped by the wall of water, come out distorted, give the girls double smiles and double heads... wobbly outlines...

Later, a young man, walking through the park, past the fountain, carrying a floppy bag of potting soil, approaches one of the girls.
'are you allowed to be in there?" He asks her.
She's seated on the bottom of the fountain, up to her upper ribs in water, she shrugs.
"some cops walked by and they didnt make us leave." she tells him.
"thats because your three girls in bikinis. i cant imagine they'd let me stay if i went in there."
"maybe if you wore a bikini."
"maybe. are you from around here?"
"...around here..." she doesnt feel like admitting to suburbia... not at this exact moment.
"so should i go get my bathing suit?"
"only if you have a bikini."
"i have the bottom of a bikini..."
she thinks this has gone to far so she laughs and slides away, across the slimey bottom of the fountain, trailing her fingers over the surface of the water.
the young man and his friend walk away with their soil.

one girl makes white wing designs in sunscreen on the other girl's back.

later they collect all the pennies and arrange them by year on the fountain wall.
then they make new wishes, one decade at a time and toss the pennies back in.
a few of the pennies skip across the top of the water but only by accident, when they try to make the coins skip the coins just fall heavily to the bottom.

much later there are fire works.