Arson (5 page)

 

Chapter 9

 

 

THE FURIOUS ECHO OF fire trucks beckoned Arson to follow. He was walking home when they passed him. The red and white saviors shortened his breath. The sound of their screeching tires, restless engines, and fierce horns rang through the street and suddenly vanished round an unnamed road. Off to save some weary soul from a burning building, he imagined. Arson's conscience screamed for him to head home, but tonight, intrigue lured him on.

He hustled toward the sound and tried to keep up, staying close behind the sirens and the dim glow their flashing lights sent out into the darkness. He wanted to be there when it happened: the triumphant salvation of a helpless victim. Wanted to watch as some brave soul dragged a barely breathing, soot-covered person out of a fiery grave.

At last he quit running. Distorted shouts and screams muffled the echo of each siren. Loud, unforgiving groans offered up to the dark. The screams came from inside the house. Firemen raced in, some gripping axes, others wrapping their gloved hands around an almost uncontrollable hose as it showered the flames. The fire manipulated Arson's gaze, tempting him to keep watching, while a sudden back draft spit out two firemen. They hurled backward onto the grass and dirt, suits peeling and singed. But their courage remained. Arson's heart leapt into his throat as the same two men abandoned all fear and stormed into the heart of the fiery beast.

He waited. Waited for the heroes to do the saving. Waited for men to save the helpless, to redeem the lost. Arson lamented the empty hope hollowing him from within. He wanted so deeply for it to be true that he felt almost as if he were drowning in fear that everything would burn. In a moment, he imagined himself at the end of a dark road right before the bend. In front of him the world was ablaze, burning with impunity every man, woman, child, and home. Screams erupted from underneath and above. His eyes burned. His hands. His feet. His chest. He was burning along with every soul he watched die. He couldn't save them. He wanted to so badly, but he couldn't move. Torment and gravity were prevailing. Deep sorrow held him still. Arson couldn't save himself. He couldn't save anyone.

But reality burned away even frail imaginings. He stared on. In a violent blink, he witnessed someone bring a coughing woman out from the inferno and down the porch steps. The rescuer fought to calm her panic, but she wouldn't have it. She cried her husband's name, praying the fire would be merciful. It didn't help. She kicked and swore, and tears swelled.

“And what about my son!” she yelled, beating her rescuer's chest.

It was an unholy mess. Seconds later, a smoky figure exploded through the front door, carrying a young boy across blackened shoulders. The boy's skin was still alive, but his eyes looked dead. In fact, they probably couldn't see anything at all.

A deep sound exploded into the night, blasting glass and roof fragments onto the yard. Arson shook with horror. Raspy screams echoed from the woman's throat. With their heads out their windows, anxiously waiting to see the inevitable misery, neighbors oohed and ahhed. Arson noticed that the woman's hair and face were matted with ash and soot, her clothes torn and ripped. She hung there in anguish, in sorrow so enveloping you couldn't breathe. The way the weathered firefighter's stare broke the news of her husband's demise shattered Arson like glass. He was saying sorry without moving his bleeding lips. The woman fought to go back inside. Die if she had to. She sobbed. She clawed. She got down on her hands and knees and threw dirt at the man who refused her freedom, or as they saw it, suicide. There was no hope left inside. The fire had completely destroyed it.

Arson swallowed hard and felt regret. Violent regret. He had done nothing to help them. Was he dead inside or simply dying? At seventeen years of age, what had he gained other than guilt and fear? These men, these simple firemen bound by the limits of their normal skin and bone had more bravery than he did. The fire couldn't hurt him, but still he stayed. A solid stone.

Arson stared at his hands, knowing he could, if he wanted, inflict this kind of violence. One thought was all it would take. In a blink, he could destroy any house on this block. And just then, conviction set in. There was no escape from this curse. Why had he come here? 
Get home
, his thoughts commanded, 
where it's safe
.

Smoke rose from the ashes, a gray cloud hovering above what was left. Lightning illuminated the sky. Thunder groaned and crashed. And then Arson could feel rain. It was like the tears of God were falling down upon the world and all that was lost.

 

* * *

 

Arson blamed himself. He wasn't responsible for creating the fire, but he was responsible for doing nothing. For running away.  He pictured the fire eating away at the man's face, the way it must have bubbled and transformed into something ugly and unlovable.

His mother's face suddenly invaded his thoughts, crafted from only photographs he'd uncovered in Grandma's drawer, found a few months ago while she slept. “Couldn't save them…wouldn't save them,” he sobbed, his mind swimming. He pulled the photograph out of his wallet, the one he'd kept with him. Grandma never knew he had taken it, would probably beat him raw if she knew.

“I loved your mother very dearly, Arson. She was my angel. She was my 
baby
. My own.” That's what Grandma always said right before she cried. On his mother's birthday, Grandma always reminded him of what he'd done. Every October 27, she blamed him for taking her precious angel away. “You cursed little demon,” she'd say. “Killer!”

She was right. Grandma had known his mother better than he'd ever had the chance. All he had was a crumpled photograph of Frances Parker, the woman who died because he was born.

Killer! You took her away. Killer! You. Killed. Your own mother
.

Arson's nose filled with snot. Sorrow poured down his cheeks. Heavy rain drops hit the back of his neck and felt like knives cutting pieces of his skin off. His hair lay down in surrender in front of his eyes, a gray crystal blur.

Arson reached the end of the street and crossed, ignoring the blinding beams of the car speeding toward him. The wet screech of the tires might have otherwise scared him half to death, but tonight was different. He realized how short and fragile life could be. Life ended at any given moment, like the life of the trapped father who would never see his son again or the mother who had died giving birth to him. Arson knew these feelings well and, tonight, welcomed them. Hate for himself, hate for the old and gray world that hated him. It seemed like hatred was a gift tonight. It felt good; it felt right.

The road split, and he paused. He knew which way was home and chose the other.

“Watch where you're going!” another incensed driver hollered. “You could get yourself killed!”

Arson began to run. “I deserve it,” he whispered. The water felt hot even though he was sure it wasn't. Maybe it was coming from inside. Suddenly, he stopped still in the middle of the street. Looked around. The world was dead, asleep. Every wandering thought stormed him at once—a childhood he never had, the mother who created a monster, screams of a burning victim trapped in a house without rescue. 
Killer
!

His eyes searched the darkness. Still no one. The fire inside begged for release, like a serpent slithering beneath wet flesh. The headache, the numbing rain pouring down from a God he never saw, never knew. In one fluid motion, the serpent took over. It slithered its way to his wrists and spread to the tips of his wrinkled fingers, gasps of fire licking with each twitch. The stop sign to his right suddenly went up in smoke. The telephone pole to his left wilted to black powder and ash. Electric sparks soon illuminated the night. Arson breathed deeply, tears dripping from lit-up eyes. He screamed, unleashing another wave of heat from his body.

The fire felt good.

 

* * *

 

“I hate the rain,” Emery moaned, sitting at the foot of her bed. She toyed with her mask, wishing it were a face instead. She lifted it a bit to feel the flesh beneath while listening to the patter of rain smacking against the windowsill.

“Why do you hate the rain?” Aimee asked with stressed-out eyes.

“It makes me sad and depressed.”

As her mother drew closer, Emery remained tense. She hated how her mother looked at her, like a monster. It was obvious her parents had never seen her the same since that day.

“I guess it's normal to feel depressed when it rains, honey. 
They
 say that weather can sometimes dictate the way we feel. 
They
 often say that our emotions are fickle, much like the weather.” Aimee looked as though she wanted to smile, but her face wouldn't allow it.

“Whatever. You're not as funny as you think, Mom.”

“Well, sorry. We can't all be as funny as your father.”

Emery saw her mother cringe but ignored it. Instead she tilted her head slightly and stared through the glass window, out into a gray world filled with tears. “I hate the rain,” she sighed again, this time murmuring.

A hand brushed the back of her shoulder where the white nightgown Emery let droop to her elbow hung. “What's the matter, sweetheart?”

Emery was silent.

“Honey?”

“What?”

“You seem like you're thinking about something. You were staring out into space. What's wrong with you?”

“Nothing,” Emery replied. The last thing she wanted was the possibility of an argument, however small or unprovoked.

“Don't be ridiculous. Tell me what's bothering you.” She felt her mother reach to rub her back, but instead Emery coiled up around her pillow. “It's the new house, isn't it? A new bedroom you're not used to. This ugly town feels more like the set of some low-budget horror movie than home.”

She focused on her mother, suddenly this opinionated list maker who formed a spreadsheet of all the wrong things.

“God only knows who our neighbors are,” Aimee continued. “Gosh, I can't get that creepy boy out of my head. Who sneaks up on people and watches them like that?”

“I don't know. Maybe he was just interested in who we are.”

“Yeah, well, I'd like to know what kind of people live around here. There's no telling how bizarre they might be. Heaven forbid we wake up one morning and—”

“Get abducted? Maybe 
you
 should sit down and talk about your feelings, Mom.”

Emery waited for the words to settle in and disturb the living daylights out of her mother.

“Feelings?” Aimee replied. “I'm fine, a little uneasy about this place, that's all.”

Emery sank into the pillow, could feel the goose bumps on her arm. It became cold all of a sudden when her mother's hand once more reached out to her. “Why do you keep trying to touch me?”

“I'm your mother, and I love you. You're acting so strange.”

Who was she to start making accusations? Did she have to spend seven years afraid of her own reflection? Emery hated how parents and shrinks always thought they had the answers when, in reality, they didn't have a clue. “I'm not acting strange; I just don't want to be touched right now, and I don't want to talk about the rain or this new house. I want you to leave me alone.”

“It's perfectly normal to have feelings, Emery,” Aimee tried.

Emery's eyes rolled back. “There you go again.”

“What did I say this time? What?”

“Nothing.”

“No, tell me.”

Emery adjusted her mask and retreated under the covers.

“It's that terrible mask. I never liked it, but your father insisted. I can't believe you wear that creepy thing every day. It's awful.”

“I know. It's not like your opinions are anything new.” Emery groaned. “I'm tired.”

“So am I,” Aimee spat. “Think what you will about me, but you and I both know that masks can't hide everything.”

Emery buried her head beneath the pillow. “You have me all figured out.”

A defeated sigh pushed its way out. Aimee turned the light off as she left the room.

Emery could hear loud footsteps outside. She leaned up in bed and stared out the window, noticing a dark figure. The strange boy her mother couldn't stand. Possessed with curiosity, she hopped out of bed and moved toward the windowsill. The blurry figure danced intermittently across the glass. She watched it stretch against the gray world before it vanished inside the neighboring cabin.

“Who are you?” Emery wondered, rubbing the flesh of her mask, its leathery material more real to her than the skin on her face.

Down the hall, Aimee strolled into her room and quickly got into bed, nerve-wracked. The sound of her husband nestling up beside her never reached her ears. He whispered something, but she didn't respond. She remained in the argument with her daughter.

Joel's hand reached for hers as he tried to smell her hair before he kissed her. But his lips felt unusual and unwelcome.

“I'm not in the mood, Joel,” Aimee said under her breath, rolling over.

 

Chapter 10

 

 

AIMEE AWOKE ALONE. Her eyes had glazed over, and there was a bitter taste in her mouth. Brushing the hair out of her face, she yawned and glanced down. The spot beside her was empty. The imprint of where Joel had lain for the past seven and a half hours betrayed him. Nothing left behind but damp, wrinkled bed sheets. She assumed it was her husband's anxiety back to play the devil after a quiet, loveless evening. Aimee felt somehow refreshed, though. She tried hard not to gloat inside, but it was the first decent sleep she'd caught in weeks. Was it wrong for her to feel some satisfaction?

It amazed her how different they were. How different they'd become. There had been a time when she longed for Joel, even cried sometimes when he left for conferences and meetings. Now, she found herself welcoming the quiet, quite content with the empty space beside her on the bed. Joel was a different man, or perhaps it wasn't until this moment that she'd noticed he hadn't really changed at all.

“You're making breakfast?” Aimee said as she stumbled into the kitchen. Joel was slicing potatoes and stirring eggs when she moseyed past. Anticipation and excitement drew her eyes. He looked peaceable, but forcibly so.

“Maybe,” he said, his face glowing with mystique.

“Maybe?” she asked, staring at the countless items and utensils scattered across the countertop.

“Good morning, wife.” Joel shook the skillet, the eggs hardening, and then walked over to her. With a deep sigh, he kissed her on the lips.

A stranger's lips
, she thought. The way he pressed into her, his palm tickling the soft skin on her lower back, crystallized her veins. “What time did you get up?” Aimee asked.

“About an hour ago,” replied Joel. “Didn't want to wake you.”

“That was probably a good idea.” She pulled away at length and wiped her mouth. “Sorry, my lips are just so chapped when I wake up. Wouldn't want to gross you out.”

She could tell his eyes lingered on her. Before they were married, he used to look at her a certain way, not unlike the way he was looking at her now; only this time, his usual grin was now stitched into a tired, aging face. She could almost guess what would come next—something about her figure, how pretty she appeared, at least to him, or the way she said good morning, which today had never actually come out.

“You're so beautiful,” he said, looking her right in the eyes.

There it was. Geez, she could practically puke. Could he hear himself? He sounded like a fool, a blind fool far too desperate to see that what she really was, was simple. Ordinary.

Inside she exploded, but on the surface, Aimee rubbed her eyes and said, “No, I'm not.” Aimee watched as her husband stirred the spatula into the omelet mix, taking in a whiff of the breakfast steam. He adjusted the stove's temperature then removed the cover on the pan beside the skillet. A smoky mist of potatoes, pepper, and buttery onions filled the kitchen. “Home fries are almost done. Aimee, are you ready for the best thing in your entire life?”

Yes
, she wanted to say. 
Yes, I am
.

Joel scooped the omelet onto a paper plate then loaded the other side with sautéed home fries. “A meal fit for a queen. You'll need this in order to impress all your new colleagues at that
prestigious
 clinic.”

The sheer emphasis he used nearly made her hug her stomach.

“It's a hospital, 
dear
, not a clinic.”

“Tom-ate-o, Tom-otto.” He shrugged.

“Oh no. There's a difference. There is. Ask any nurse, and she'll tell you I'm right.” Her eyebrows dipped into her nose, her tone morphing into something grim. Aimee could sense the hot venom begging to come up. She couldn't hold it back any longer. Months of working hard as a nurse while he lazily tried to find himself again was enough to make any woman want to scream. “That job is the only thing that's going to keep us afloat the next couple of months while you pull yourself together.”

Joel bit his lip, beaten.

With numbness in her eyes, she watched his face crumble. “Is something burning?” she asked, flaring her nostrils.

“The toast!” Joel dropped the plate and rushed to the smoking toaster. Jamming the switches up, he stared, defeated, at burnt squares. “It was almost perfect,” he sighed, handing his wife the plate.

Those two words described her entire life. 
Almost perfect
. Like 
almost
 getting your chores done before Dad got home or 
almost
 pregnant. The scares, trials, and, at times, joys of youth seemed to call her again.

Joel dropped two more slices of bread down the toaster's throat while Aimee poked at her food, lost in some fairy-tale ending she'd imagined a thousand times in her head, none of which had brought her here. How did she get here anyway? Playing with the ring that bound her to this failed minister made her feel as if she were a prisoner, and this lackluster rock was keeping her in captivity. Was he just another inmate, or was he the warden, holding the key to her freedom but never letting her go? How could he walk around such a messy, bland, and angry house and act like everything was okay?

Once Joel applied the butter to the two steaming slices of bread, he quickly placed them onto his wife's plate. “Oh,” he said. “Almost forgot.” Joel then ran the knife down the center of the bread and created four parts, blackened just right. “Thank God for second chances.” He smirked.

Aimee chewed her bottom lip, one hand keeping her frizzy mop out of the food, the other cutting a piece of the omelet small enough for her mouth.

“How's it taste, sweetheart?”

She hated omelets. Didn't he know that? When they were dating, she had played like she enjoyed them, but deep down, they reminded her of her father. She loved when he used to make them for her whenever arriving home from months of active duty. The way he'd slow cook everything so that he could spend every precious moment with her, if only to pick up and disappear again. Aimee cherished those moments, ate everything on her plate, just for the colonel.

She was staring into those eyes again, him looking back at her with all the love in the world, and yet she hated him. Hated the way the colonel yelled at her mother whenever he came home from drunken poker games. Used to say he drank 'cause war was hell. If he'd bothered to hang around long enough, maybe he would've noticed home wasn't any different. Aimee rubbed her arms from time to time, checking for bruises that might have sneaked up on her over the years. But instead of rubbing black and blue spots off of her back and ankles, she felt the pain on her heart, the only place she could still feel a wound.

Aimee looked at her husband, but the man looking back at her was clad in medals. The man's gray flattop stuck up from a grim face, eyes worn from staring into the hearts of fearful soldiers, blurred by the notions of right and wrong. She remembered most how his top row of teeth was stained by the grit of tobacco. From head to toe she could see him clearly—the hero of her childhood. Wrinkled fingers placed on his brow, his rocky face a hollowed-out life all its own. But he hadn't changed. His coffee-colored suit matched his skin, as if blended so perfectly you couldn't tell they were ever separated. Then her eyes lingered on his boots, tied to perfection, neither lace longer than the other, and knotted twice. He stood there straight and rigid before her, their eyes once more locked tight. He was 
almost
 perfect.

As the figure spoke, she could hear her husband's voice coming through. “Are you happy, sweetheart?”

“I hate omelets,” she spit out quickly. “I have to go get ready.”

Aimee sank her teeth into a slice of toast and rushed upstairs to her bedroom before she could hear Joel say, “I love you.”