E: Starting Fires

Chapter: Kid, Starting Fires

The new tent my mother and father got me just finished burning up. It
burned from the top down, and now there's a square of red hot lines on
the grass. None of the pillows inside caught fire. I've had the tent
for two days, one of my birthday presents.

"It must have been that candle," I tell Richie, who is my age and
grinning, probably because he knows he's not the one in trouble for
something really bad. His big brother, Stevie, is frowning and looking
serious.

"You are going to get it," Stevie says.

I think about what to do. On the television I've seen lightning hit
trees and cause them to explode and burn, but the sky is hazy blue and
there's not a cloud in sight. Saying a cigarette caused the fire won't
work, because how would I explain a cigarette in the tent? The same
pretty much goes for admitting to lighting the candle, stolen from a
kitchen drawer and lit with the shiny metal lighter from my father's
pocket. There has to be something else to say besides the truth.

Richie and Stevie leave, Richie smiling away and slapping his hands
together while he walks away backwards. I go inside my house through
the sliding glass door in back, staying quiet and hoping no one else is
around. But my mother is sleeping on the couch, right next to the door.
I know she couldn't see the tent burning from where she's lying, but
she might be able to smell the smoke. I can the smoke coming off the
tent when I slide the door closed. There's no wind today. It floats
straight up into the air and disappears.

I could just say I don't know what happened to the tent, that maybe
someone snuck into the backyard and burned it up. We don't have fence.
Things catch on fire all the time. But seeing my mother asleep on the
couch, her hand under her cheek, makes me feel guilty. I decide to get
it over with, or at least part of it.

"Mama?" I whisper. She groans and shakes her head. "Mama? My tent burnt
up."

Her eyes pop wide open, making her look kind of funny until I remember
why I woke her up. She stares straight at me, but her eyes are sleepy,
like she doesn't know me. She blinks and asks, "What?"

"The tent burnt up," I say, then wonder if I shouldn't have said, "That
tent burnt up."

"What do you mean, 'The tent burnt up?' Where the hell is it?"

"In the yard, where it was last time."

My mother sits up and looks over the back of the couch into the
backyard. I can still see the smoke from where I'm standing. The
pillows and blankets I put inside the tent look like a little bed, like
the one my mother sets up for me when I'm too scared to sleep in my own
room.

"Oh, God," she says, putting her hand over her mouth. She turns and
looks at me, so I get ready to explain. But instead she says, "You'd
better get that cleaned up before your father gets home," then lies
back down on the couch, turning her face away from me.

At first I'm not sure what to do, partly because my mother isn't going
to help me but mostly because what she said means she may not tell my
father. I panic, and run outside, throwing the pillows and blankets
onto the grass and dragging the remains of the tent to the back of the
yard. I roll up what's left of it, burning my hands on the embers and
sending sparks onto the weeds and sticker bushes. I get the tent rolled
into a tube no thicker than my arm and hide it behind the clubhouse. I
grab the pillows and blankets, run back to the house, and throw them on
the porch. When I slide the door open, I kick all of it inside.

I pick them up again and run, hitting the wall in the hallway and
bouncing backwards. I stay on my feet, though, and push through the
door into my bedroom, where I throw everything onto my bed. I move the
blankets and pillows around until the bed looks the same as it always
does. My mother is still sleeping as I run past her and back
outside.

I find Stevie and Richie in their backyard. They say they will help me
make up a story about the fire. Richie thinks I should say I don't know
how it started, but Stevie doesn't think my mother and father will
believe this. "Tell them it was an accident," Stevie says, "And that
it'll never happen again." This is true, in a way, but I know my mother
and father will never buy me another tent. I never asked for one but
now that it's gone, I want another one. Richie comes up with a story
about the tent blowing away, and how it flew so high it was just a
little dot in the sky. I decide Stevie's way is best, though it all
depends on if my mother tells my father what happened.

When I get home my father is sitting by himself on the couch. I walk
into the living room staring at the floor. My feet are dirty and have
tiny scratches on top. The big toe on my right foot has a blue bruise
under the nail. I don't say anything.

"Come here," my father says, and I go to the couch and sit as far away
from him as I can. I start crying.

"What happened to the tent?" he asks. So, my mother didn't keep it to
herself, after all. I'm scared and mad at the same time. I tell myself
my father would have noticed the missing tent, anyway. I wish my mother
were here so I could make sure my story matches up with hers.

I tell my father what mostly happened. I say I borrowed the candle so I
could see when I slept in the tent at night, and that I just wanted to
try the candle out but probably got it too close to the tent. I cry and
tell my story while my father smokes and watches me. I leave out the
part about taking his lighter. He has a lot of lighters all over the
house, anyway.

"Son," my father says, "Fires are dangerous. What if it spread, or you
were in the tent?" He moves closer to me, and puts his hand on my
shoulder. "Look at me," he says.

I do, and he says, " I don't you ever playing with matches or candles
again. Got it?"

"Okay," I say. For some reason I want to laugh. My father looks like
Stevie, so serious.

"And if I catch you starting any fires, you know what's going to
happen, right?"

"Yes." My father lets go of my shoulder. He's not smiling, but he
doesn't look mad, either. "Can I go back outside?"

"Please do," he says, so softly I can barely hear him. I run to the
front door.

Stevie and Richie are still in their yard, pushing their new baby
brother in a red wagon that's missing a wheel. The baby wears nothing
but a diaper, and when I walk up I see on a mosquito on the smooth
brown skin of his shoulder. I swat it away.

"Don't hit the baby," Stevie tells me, but I hold out my palm so he can
see the squashed bug and the tiny smear of blood. Richie picks up the
baby and walks away.

"What did your dad do?" Stevie asks.

"Nothing," I say, grinning.

"Really? Man." I can tell he doesn't believe me. Stevie won't go into
my house because of my father. "He stinks," he told me once, but I know
the real reason. I don't blame him.

"Really," I say. I dig into my pocket and pull out the lighter I used
to light the candle, holding it out in front of me. "Want to?" I
ask.

"Want to what?" Stevie asks. Richie comes up next to us, leaving the
baby on the porch to play with a basketball that's so flat it's only
good for babies, or for a pillow when we're lying on the grass.

I turn around and run towards a house I know is empty, because the
people who lived there never come out the front door anymore.
Newspapers keep building up in front of the house, and now there's a
pile by the front porch, the paper yellow and thin and dry. The
newspaper crackle when I touch them.

"Wait!" Stevie shouts, running behind me. Richie is with him.

They're fast runners, and I know they'll catch up to me. All those
newspapers in front of the empty house will be easy to catch on fire.
We could build a campfire, or spell out a message in the grass that
people in a plane could read. But we should probably carry the
newspapers around back, behind the house. That way, no one on the
ground will see us.