NAPERVILLE, IL — Software engineer Brad Henson, 47, launched a Saturn Missile Battery into a cloudless July 16 sky Tuesday night, marking the twelfth consecutive evening he has personally refused to accept that Independence Day was, technically, one day.
Henson, who purchased $834 of unregulated explosives from a tent off I-355 on June 28, has been steadily working through inventory with what neighbors describe as ‘the relentless, patient cadence of a man billing hours.’
‘Freedom doesn’t have a calendar,’ Henson told reporters from his driveway, holding a Roman candle in one hand and a half-warm White Claw in the other. ‘The British didn’t surrender on July 4. They surrendered when they got tired. That’s where I’m at with this — that’s where I want my neighbors to get to.’
According to a logistics spreadsheet Henson voluntarily produced, he still has 41 mortars, two ‘cake’ assortments, six smoke bombs deemed ‘for the kids,’ and one item labeled only ‘THE BIG ONE’ with a hand-drawn skull next to it. At current burn rate, his remaining stock will carry him through the second week of August.
Across the cul-de-sac, neighbor Janet Perlmutter has entered what therapists are calling the bargaining phase. ‘At first I called the non-emergency line. Then I called the emergency line. Then I started waving from my porch like we were friends, because at this point it felt humiliating to keep pretending I didn’t know who it was,’ she said. ‘Last night I just stood at the window and clapped. He saluted me. I think we’re in something now.’
The Henson children, ages 8 and 11, have begun referring to their father in the third person as ‘The Cannoneer’ and have set up a folding card table at the end of the driveway selling lemonade and earplugs as a bundle for $3.
A representative from the Naperville Fire Department, reached by phone, sighed for approximately nine seconds before clarifying that no, technically the city’s fireworks ordinance does not include an exemption for ‘a guy who’s really committed to it,’ but that enforcement at this stage felt ‘spiritually complicated.’
Asked when the campaign might end, Henson gestured vaguely toward the garage, where a tarp covered something roughly the size of a beer fridge. ‘When the people are free,’ he said, ‘and not a minute before. Also when I run out, which will be soon, but not as soon as you’d think.’
At press time, a single mortar shell could be heard going off four blocks away, followed by the faint, unmistakable sound of a man saying ‘WOOOO’ entirely to himself.