All Fall Down (5 page)

I hoped karma would be happy now and leave
Harley alone. Maybe I shouldn't have married or had a kid, but I
couldn't imagine spending the last ten years of my life any better
way than I had. To leave life with no regrets seems like a pretty
decent thing, if you ask me.

"We did good," I said aloud to my wife, then
I grinned.

I wasn't sure my time was ready for an alien
like Harley.

"Give 'em hell, girl," I said. "Give 'em
hell."

~ ~ ~

Firebug

Me and Bobby, we started a fire yesterday in
that empty house on Colfax, the one with the ugly puke-green Realty
Masters "For Sale" sign in the front yard. We got in through the
patio door, real easy like. The guys working on the inside, fixing
up the place, they don't always lock up when they leave. I guess
they think nobody notices, but I do. Even I know better than to
leave a house open like that. Just asking for trouble.

We were outside the AM-PM on Fourth and
Garnett, hanging out in the shade, when I came up with the idea. Me
and Bobby, we went to AM-PM for drinks just like we always do. I
had a Mountain Dew with lots of ice. I like lots of ice in the
summer, crunch it between my teeth like candy. Bobby was sucking
down AM-PM's lame-ass version of a sour berry Slurpee. He stuck out
his tongue every now and then just to gross me out, like a blue
tongue is all that gross. I've seen grosser.

I'd slipped a lighter in my jeans pocket
when the AM-PM cashier wasn't looking. The lighter was clear orange
plastic, the kind where you can see the fluid inside sloshing all
around. I almost forgot about it until I did that little jump-skip
thing I do over cracks in the sidewalk, and I felt the lighter
poking hard against my hip.

"Wanna see something cool?" I asked.

I took the lighter out of my pocket and
showed it to Bobby, and all of a sudden, just like that, I had the
idea.

Kinda funny when I think about it, how ideas
come to me. I didn't really want the lighter, hadn't planned on
swiping it. It was just so easy to take.

It's part of the game, to see what I can get
away with. People look at me and expect me to be nice. Bobby says
it's my face, the way I can make it look all sweet and innocent. I
think he's jealous because he can't. People look at Bobby and just
expect him to do something bad.

Like that stupid AM-PM cashier. She was this
old lady with rotten teeth and frizzy bleached-out hair and a loser
job. She watched Bobby the whole time he was in the store like he
was going to stuff his Slurpee in his shirt instead of pay for it,
or maybe she thought he'd pull a gun on her and rob her. Just
because of how he looks, like he can help it. So I smiled my sweet,
innocent smile and paid for my Mountain Dew, and when she went back
to watching Bobby's every move, I grabbed the lighter off the
display next to the counter. Serves her right. I hope they make her
pay for it.

Bobby didn't want to do the fire at first.
He's always so scared of getting caught.

"Roberto, man, c'mon, we gotta do this," I
said, and because I know he hates his real name, I said it again,
drew it out sing-song. "Ro-berrrrr-to."

He took a swing at me, but I'm faster than
him and I ducked out of the way without spilling any of my drink. I
could have hit him back, but he's my friend so I didn't.

"Don't call me that," Bobby said. He looked
like he wanted to try to hit me again. "You know I ain't that
fucking name."

Yeah, I know, but saying it makes Bobby mad
enough to do what I want him to. I know it, and he knows I know it,
but that doesn't change things. Bobby'll do almost anything to
prove he's not Roberto, not some worthless piece of shit like his
old man.

"Listen," I said. "I been inside already.
There's all sorts of stuff in there that'll burn."

"Yeah? Then why don't you go do it? You're
the one who's got a hard on about it."

Hard on. That's funny.

Bobby sucked down some more of his drink and
pretended to ignore me. But I saw the glint in his eye, and I could
tell he was coming around to the idea. That's one of the reasons he
hangs with me. I come up with all the best ideas.

We stood there for a while, finishing off
our drinks and watching the traffic on Garnett. Wasting time, but
it was Saturday and we had no place special to be. I didn't want to
go home, not yet. There was nothing to do there anyway. There never
is.

An eighteen-wheeler roared by, belching
nasty-smelling diesel over its rusted trailer. Garnett has a "No
Trucks" sign, but nobody pays any attention. There's a park across
the street from AM-PM, lots of grass, a couple of basketball
courts, and a playground with swings and a slide and a little-kid
merry-go-round. I guess somebody figured trucks driving by a park
where a bunch of kids hang out wasn't a good thing. Too bad nobody
cares. I flipped the truck driver off even though I knew he
couldn't see me, and Bobby laughed.

"This is lame," I said, tired of just
standing around. "Let's go."

I tossed the rest of my drink toward the
trash. It hit the rim and bounced back on the sidewalk, spilling
ice on the hot concrete. Bobby picked up the cup and threw it with
his into the trash can.

"What are you, the garbage man?" I asked as
I headed off down Garnett. Colfax was four blocks away, the empty
house three blocks up.

"Rebound Man," Bobby said. "He shoots, he
scores!"

He did an air ball jump shot and then
started walking with me, and just like that I knew he'd decided to
do it.

Never a doubt. Bobby's my friend.

* * *

Seven blocks can take forever when you're
walking someplace you don't want to go. Your feet drag and the hot
sidewalk burns through your shoes until the bottoms of your feet
feel like they're on fire. The sun zaps all your energy, and it's
all you can do to keep on walking.

The seven blocks to the empty house on
Colfax wasn't like that at all. The sun still fried my head and the
sidewalk, but my feet didn't feel the heat. A few cars drove past,
but nobody else was out on the streets but me and Bobby. No kids
jumping rope or throwing ball. No dads mowing half dried-out lawns
or washing cars in the driveway, no moms pulling weeds in front
yard flowerbeds. Even the dogs that normally yapped their heads off
while they chased along after me inside chain-link fenced yards
only barked a couple of times and stayed in the shade.

Lazy, hot Saturday afternoon, and I was so
jazzed I could hardly keep from running. I get like that when I'm
playing the game.

"Burgers," Bobby said, his nose in the air
sniffing like a dog.

I smelled barbecue too. Somebody was in
their backyard grilling lunch or maybe an early dinner. Probably
sucking down a beer or two and listening to the Giants' game on the
radio. My stomach rumbled. Barbecue was one of the best things
about summer.

"Steak," I said. "Gotta be steak. Or maybe
ribs with lots of sauce. Or chicken. Burgers don't smell that
good."

"Burgers rule."

Bobby was Burger Man. He'd eat burgers for
breakfast, lunch, and dinner if he could get away with it.
McDonalds, Burger King, Jack in the Box, Bobby didn't care as long
as it was a burger. I always figured it was part of him wanting to
be Bobby instead of Roberto. Nobody could like burgers that
much.

"Burgers suck," I said, just to piss him
off. "Give you mad cow disease."

"Do not!"

He went to shove me, but I veered off the
sidewalk into the street. I moo'd at him and he laughed at me.

"Mad cow," I said, and moo'd again, then we
both started to laugh.

Half a block away from the empty house,
Bobby started walking slow. He eyed the house like it was going to
bite him. It wasn't anything special, just like any other old house
in the neighborhood except for the For Sale sign. Sure, the lawn
was dried out and the yellow paint on the outside of the house was
peeling, but half the houses we walked by were in worse shape.

"You sure nobody's there?" Bobby asked,
eying the rusty old white Toyota parked in front of the house.

"It's Saturday. They don't work on
Saturdays. I told you, I been watching."

Watching long enough to know that the Toyota
belonged to the house next door. That meant the neighbors were
home, but I could hear the deep thump-thump-thump of a rap beat
coming from their house. Whatever me and Bobby did, they'd never
hear us.

"I'm hungry," Bobby said. "We should get
something to eat first."

He was stalling. Maybe he'd decided to back
out. I could start the fire myself and it would still be cool,
playing the game was always cool, but it wouldn't be as much fun
without Bobby. Friends did shit together, that's what being friends
was all about.

"You backing out on me?" I asked. I stepped
up close to him, getting in his face. "Huh? Roberto?"

Bobby backed away from me.

"No," he said, defiant like, but he wouldn't
look me in the eye. "I don't think this is such a good idea. I
mean, this is somebody's house."

"No, it's not." I pointed at that puke-ugly
sign. "Nobody lives here, nobody's gonna care. They'll just fix it
up again."

"Yeah?"

I smiled my sweet, innocent smile. "Yeah.
It'll make them happy, give them more work to do. They'll get more
money. Everybody's happy when they have more money."

"What if we get caught?"

"We're not gonna get caught."

I slugged him in the arm, not hard enough to
hurt, just hard enough to let him know I was getting tired of his
shit.

"Don't be stupid," I said.

I walked to the back yard gate and pretty
soon Bobby followed me like I knew he would. The sidewalk around
the side of the house was littered with cigarette butts.

"Look at this." I kicked at a cigarette butt
with my toe. "I bet they'll blame the whole thing on these guys,
smoking on the job."

"Smoking'll kill you," Bobby said.

Bobby's old man smoked but it hadn't killed
him yet. Drinking hadn't done it either. Maybe he should take up
running. I heard that killed a lot of people.

I opened the gate. The hinges creaked and
the gate sagged, its wooden slats scraping against the concrete
sidewalk. Bobby winced and looked over his shoulder like it was an
alarm or something, but I knew it didn't matter. All the houses
around here have tall wooden backyard fences. Everybody wants
privacy, and everybody else gives it to them. It's rude to peek
through the cracks in the fence to see what's going on in your
neighbor's back yard. Once we got behind the fence, we could do
almost anything and no one would know.

Bobby walked through the gate and I closed
it behind us like we belonged there. No sweat.

Most of the backyard was just dirt, but some
of it had been lawn before the workmen trampled it down. Their big,
ugly boot prints were all over the place. Scraps of lumber and
little bits of chalky walling and rusty nails were ground into the
dirt right along with more cigarette butts. In the back corner a
couple of piles of dog shit drew flies. I wrinkled my nose against
the smell. Debris from inside the house—big pieces of walling and
insulation and scraps of wood and little bits of wire—was piled
against the inside of the fence, and more stuff was jammed in a
battered metal trash can next to the back gate.

The guys who worked here were slobs. Good
thing. Hidden underneath all that debris was the little red "Sold"
sign I pulled off the top of the Realty Masters sign the day
before. If they'd cleaned up their mess they would have found it.
Some people make it so easy to play the game. They deserve what
they get.

The sliding glass patio door was unlocked,
just like it was yesterday.

"Easy," I said. "Told you."

I slid the door open and grinned at Bobby.
It wasn't my sweet, innocent grin, more like a shared secret kind
of grin. My playing the game grin. The best grin of all.

The door opened into a room I guessed was
supposed to be the dining room. A paint-splattered plastic sheet
covered dirty carpet. The room was empty except for three doors
propped up against the walls. Yesterday the white paint on the
doors had still been wet. Now the doors were dry, but the house
still stank as bad as it had the day before, maybe even worse
because it was so hot inside.

I looked at the white door closest to the
patio door. The scratches I'd made the day before with a nail in
the new paint at the bottom of the lowest panel were still there.
Not quite my initials—I'm not stupid—but enough of a mark that if
anybody looked close, they'd know somebody did it on purpose. I
wondered if anybody would notice before they put the door back
where it belonged.

"You do that?" Bobby asked, leaning in to
look at the door.

"Yeah." I laughed. "Cool, huh?"

"You're a freak, you know that?"

If anybody else had said that, I would have
slugged them. But Bobby knows he can call me that and I won't get
mad.

"And you're the freak's friend, so what does
that make you?"

"Freak Man!"

Burger Man. Rebound Man. Now Freak Man. That
was just too much. Bobby could always make me laugh. We stood there
on that paint-splattered piece of plastic, busting up in the middle
of a hot, stinky dining room over something that was only funny
because I was in the game.

We were both freaks, and that was fine by
me.

* * *

Things started to go bad when I showed Bobby
the dead hamster.

I didn’t think it through, I guess. Animals
are just animals to me, nothing special. But Bobby, he used to have
a dog before his old man found a mess it made and beat the crap out
of it. That’s the only time Bobby ever stood up to his old man, and
that piece of shit turned his belt on Bobby. He ended up with a
bruise on his arm the shape of a belt buckle, and probably more on
his back that he wouldn't show me. I wanted to wrap that belt
around his old man’s neck and squeeze, pull it tight until his face
turned as purple as Bobby’s arm. I didn’t do it, though. Part of
the game is to pick the right time. One of these days it will be
the right time for Bobby’s old man.