The Firebug of Balrog County (18 page)

Letter to the Editor

Dear Editor,

Do you ever feel sad? Does your heart ever ache inside your chest with longing and despondency at the ephemeral nature of existence? It's your old pal the Firebug here (if you had not already guessed this from receiving yet another piece of anonymous mail slipped carefully beneath your door).

Yes, sir, I guess I was feeling down tonight and just wanted to write you a letter. I think we've achieved something like friendship these past weeks, you the editor and I the mysterious contributor, so I hope you'll feel somewhat saddened to know this will be my last missive.

Yep, you heard me! I am retiring from the editorial letter business and perhaps from starting fires as well. You know what they say: if you play with fire long enough, eventually somebody will shoot at you with a high-tension bow.

Sincerely,

The Firebug

The Firebug Wakes

O
n the day we took Mom off life support, I stayed up watching TV until two a.m. I was the only one in the house still awake, which felt strange because my mother was normally up at all hours, catching what sleep she could in small increments, like a cat. I turned on a lamp and examined our living room. I was in the presence of a multitude of Mom-based items. Her slippers peeked out from beneath the coffee table. Her spare eyeglasses sat on the end table beside me. Her box of tissues was by my feet. Her favorite quilt was bunched against my hip.

I stood up. Her books were in the built-in bookshelves; her favorite paintings were hanging on the walls. She'd gotten Dad to paint the living room a weird deep blue. She'd picked out the couch and chosen the cool blue and white striped fabric to reupholster it with.

But these weren't really items anymore.

They were artifacts.

My back tightened and my shoulders sunk inward. I took a deep breath, held it until I saw fizzy dots, and let it out slowly. I left the living room and headed down to the basement.

Our basement was cold and cobwebby, outlaw territory. It flooded occasionally, so the floor was simply painted concrete and chilly to the touch even in the summertime—if you had a troubled mind, you could pace around it for hours without making any floorboards creak. The two biggest rooms were the rec room and the laundry room, with the other two used for storage and spider hoarding. We still had a coal chute in the laundry room, from back in the day when they'd deliver coal for your furnace right to your house. We also had a crappy weight bench in the corner of the rec room where you could reel off a few sets when you felt pissed off.

Tonight, I'd come to the basement to pace and grieve without worrying about waking my father and sister. Yes, here I had come to feel my skin grow heated, my eyes puffy, and my chest hitch as the initial wave of what had occurred that day, and its utter permanence, finally rolled over me.

Ah, such sob-choked lamentations.

Even the spiders let me be.

Two days passed. I ate a lot of cheese-based casseroles, Dad drank a lot of beer, and Haylee existed on oxygen and sleep. Flowers and gift baskets arrived from all over. Our family had achieved a kind of temporary local celebrity status—we were in mourning for a woman who'd died too young.

She leaves behind two children and a loving husband.

That kind of business.

On the evening of Mom's wake, we piled into the van and drove to the mortuary. Grandpa and Grandma Hedley were already there, standing outside the mortuary's entrance despite the chilly November day. “We can see her first,” Grandma Hedley said, ushering us inside. “Before the official viewing begi
ns.”

We took off our coats in a long hallway and hung them on wooden hangers. Grandpa Hedley led the way into the viewing room, which was lit in soft white light and smelled like lavender and old man cologne. Short, padded chairs had been placed around the edges of the room, chairs for sitting and chatting, and a casket sat up front, the room's dominant centerpiece.

Haylee glided toward the casket while the rest of us hung back.

“He does good work,” Grandpa Hedley said, touching the knot on his tie. “I've always said he does good work.”

Grandma Hedley smiled and squeezed my hand. Dad looked from the casket to the floor and back to the casket.

“I appreciate you arranging things, May,” he said, his voice a hoarse whisper. “You too, George. Thank you for your help.”

Grandpa Hedley coughed into his hand and cleared his throat, embarrassed by all this display from his son-in-law. He looked toward the hall doorway and hitched up his leather belt.

I joined my sister by the casket.

“Jesus,” I said.

“I know, right?”

“She never wore that much makeup in her entire life.”

“And what's with that lipstick? Who wears bright pink '80s lipstick anymore?”

I closed my eyes and rubbed them until I saw colors. This tarted-up corpse was both our mother and very much not our mother. This was our mother when Haylee was five years old and allowing Haylee to use her as a makeup doll.

“What should we do? Should we say something?”

I opened my eyes and the painted version of our mother was still there. Chest not rising, hands folded over in that way she liked to sleep on the couch. That way we always joked about because it made her look dead.

“I don't think we can do anything, Haystack. The viewing is about to start.”

Haylee didn't say anything.

“It'll be okay.”

I took my sister's small hand and gave it a squeeze. I could feel the eyes of my father and grandparents upon us, waiting for a sign to come forward.

“I didn't feel anything,” Haylee said. “When she died.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like, her soul. I didn't feel her soul leave her body. I didn't feel her get called up to heaven or whatever.”

Mom was wearing mascara, I realized. It added some David Bowie to her open casket look. A little glam.

“You'd think if anybody would go to heaven, it'd be her, right? That we'd be able to feel her leaving?”

I let go of Haylee's hand. “Yeah. I guess so.”

Grandpa Hedley cleared his throat and I knew we had company, that the mortuary dude and his mortuary wife had entered the room. Soon a line of locals would shuffle on in, view my mother's gussied-up corpse, and offer their condolences. Sam would show up with his grandma, dressed in his black Johnny Cash suit, and later we'd walk to my house together, not saying much, and proceed to get drunk in the basement on a pilfered three-liter bottle of condolence wine. We'd get so hammered I wouldn't remember Sam helping me to bed and I'd wake up in my own dried vomit the next day, having dreamt of my mother visiting me inside an otherwise black abyss, grown ten feet tall and painted like a clown, looming before me like Frankenstein's monster, and, even looking like that, my dream self would be so glad to see her. I would beg for her to say anything, anything at all, but she would retreat into that abyss without having uttered a sound.

But right at that moment, all that fun stuff lay ahead of me. I could only put my arm around my sister, utter some banal reassurance, and wait while the rest of the world stepped up for a view.

I volunteered to deliver my mother's eulogy. I'd done a paper on Pericles' funeral oration in English class and figured I'd be able to do my mother justice. Anything would be better than relying on the church's pastor, who'd lived in Hickson for only two years and whom I'd never even met.

However, I hadn't counted on the enormous bottle of wine I'd shared with Sam the night before and the massive hangover it had wrought. I also hadn't expected the preacher to repeatedly tell me that if delivering the eulogy got to be too much for me, I could sit down and he'd step up to help finish it. Up until that point, I hadn't factored in the emotion that would pour through me as I spoke about my mother. I'd figured my mother needed a eulogy so I'd give her a fucking eulogy. I'd be damned if I was going to break down MID-EULOGY AND LET THE GODDAMN PREACHER FINISH WHAT I HAD STARTED.

Thus I was filled with a strange mixture of hangover pain, prideful rage, and determination when I finally did deliver my mother's speech, sputtering and half-choked with sorrow. I led off with three quotes we'd taped above her hospital bed on a sheet of printer paper, talked about how much good work she'd done and how well she'd handled her terrible fucking illnesses, and then I rambled to some kind of conclusion about how much we'd all miss her.

All in all, it wasn't my best work. It was a sad speech given by a sad fifteen-year-old kid in a suit coat he'd borrowed from his father only to find the sleeves two inches too short for his long and spindly arms. A serviceable speech, perhaps, but nothing like the glowing red-hot gem of brilliance my mother deserved, a woman whose life had so obviously earned a two-week period of feasting and gladiatorial games and not some lame church service and a speedy trip to the crematorium. A speech, honestly, I am internally rewriting to this day and will probably rewrite until I croak myself.

I skipped the post-funeral ham sandwich chit-chat and walked home alone. I tried not to think about how my mother, coffin and all, was being delivered at that very moment to the crematorium in Thorndale, where she'd be reduced to a few pounds of ashy soot and poured into a cardboard urn. When I opened the door to our house, the smell of flowers was so pungent it made my eyes water and caused my thoughts to detach in a strange, floating way. I found myself standing in my parents' bedroom. I looked around. I felt coolly objective, like a burglar casing a mansion.

An idea bubbled in my mind. I passed through the remodeled bathroom and entered my mother's laundry room/walk-in closet. The two robes she'd worn during her long sickness, one terry cloth and the other silk, were hanging beside the blouses and pantsuits she'd worn to work. I pulled the robes off their hangers and carried them out to the living room, where I dropped them on the couch. I followed her oxygen hose back to its base and detached it from HAL. I wound the tubing into a bundle and tossed that onto the couch along with her box of tissues, her prescription medication, and her favorite couch pillow. I went down to the basement, found the box of her medical bills (paperwork my father liked to pore over at the kitchen table like a lawyer before a big case) and brought the box up to the couch. Finally, I searched the house and retrieved two dozen inspirational books, gooey reams of happy-happy bullshit people had given to Mom. I added those to the pile as well.

The mound of terrible was impressive. I got a lawn bag out from beneath the kitchen sink, dumped all the terrible inside of it, and hoisted the bag over my shoulder like a skinny, hung-over Santa Claus.

“Ho, ho, ho,” I wheezed, shifting the heavy bag on my shoulder. I went back into the kitchen, paused long enough to grab a book of matches from the junk drawer, and went out through the back door. The air was fresher in the backyard, less pungent with gift basket flower smell. I trundled across the backyard and into the woods, burrowing forward until I came to the first open space hidden from the house, a treeless patch Haylee and I called the Spot. The Spot was good for hiding and exchanging secrets. The Spot was good for daytime camping, snow-fort building, and, as you got older, smoking and drinking with friends.

Most of the recent snow had melted, leaving the Spot brown and ugly and damp. I dropped the bag of terrible from my shoulder and spilled its contents into the Spot's center. I overturned the box of medical bills, crumpled several sheets of paper into fire-friendly balls, and placed them strategically around
the Mound of Terrible's base.

Still, I was not convinced. I went back toward the house, nabbed a can of lighter fluid from the garage, and returned to the Spot. I doused the whole heap with fluid until the can squeezed dry and then I chucked that onto the pile, too.

“Goodbye, terrible things.”

The pile caught on the third match, a pleasant
WHUMP
that caused me to step backward into an evergreen. The bills, the books, the robes, even the plastic oxygen tubing began to burn. My heart went bump in my chest and sent a short, manic burst of joy through my body, the first truly good thing I'd felt in a week.

For the first time, the firebug had truly woken.

A Cow to Slaughter

I
woke early o
n Monday morning, fuz
zy-headed and exhausted. The sound of arrows whistling past my head had filled my dreams and my soul was heavy with dread. The idea that my own grandfather had somehow not recognized me seemed as ridiculous as the failed assault on the haunted castle itself—George Hedley was a canny Vietnam vet, a mayor with thirty years experience, and a kick-ass hunter to boot. Shit. He cared so much about catching the county's mystery arsonist that he'd hid in the cold and dewy grass past midnight. And he was fucking seventy-two!

I went to school like a cow to slaughter. I spent each class period staring at various white boards, a tunnel of howling darkness swirling around me. I waited for my name to be called over the intercom or a SWAT team to come crashing in through the windows. At lunch, I could only stare at my food while the lunchroom buzzed around me.

“Don't you like Italian dunkers anymore?”

I flinched. I'd forgotten Sam was sitting across from me, happily chowing down on his own lunch.

“I like dunkers fine.”

“Then why aren't you eating them?”

“I'm not hungry.”

“You're always hungry. You're like a tapeworm with wacky blond hair.”

“Really, Sam. I don't know what to say that.”

“You always know what to say to everything. Are you sick? Did you fucking party last night without me?”

I picked up one of the pieces of cheesy bread and dunked it in the marinara sauce. I stuck it in my mouth and chewed, giving it the old high school cafeteria try. It tasted like a lump of glue.

“Sam,” I said, swallowing with difficulty. “I'm not the upstanding citizen you think I am.”

Sam drank his chocolate milk and eyed my tray.

“Good,” he said. “I hate upstanding citizens.”

I looked across the table. Good old Sam, I thought. Good old low moral standards, Orson Wells–looking Sam Chervenik. He'd understand when they came for me in the dark of night and hauled me off to big boy jail. He'd go to my trial. He knew about the kind of darkness a firebug could be born into.

“I don't know anymore, Sam. Life is terrifying. Life is out to attack you.”

“Blah blah blah. Are you going to eat or not?”

I handed over the untouched dunker to Sam and pushed my lunch tray away. There was no point in reasoning with the lad. He'd learn in time.

Camo man, camo man. Where art thou?

Sharpening my knives, little buggy.

Sharpening my knives.

Big Greg took off when I showed up after school so Hickson Hardware was a one-man operation for the afternoon. We'd received a delivery of snow shovels, snow blowers, and ice salt earlier that day. November had begun and Balrog County's annual six months of frozen fuck-all was on the horizon. The squirrels were fat, the deer were uneasy, and the rickety old men were ready to bitch and moan about our slippery parking lot until spring.

I stocked the new merch and tried not to cringe every time somebody entered the store. I'd be surprised if Grandpa Hedley took a direct approach—an obvious assault wasn't really his style. He'd come at me sideways. Probably get his buddies on the police force involved, do something to scare me st
raight.

The door chimed at four, waking me from a light doze at the front counter. I lifted my head and wiped the drool off my cheek as Katrina entered the store and stopped, silhouetted by the sunlight outside.

“Hey there, slacker.”

I slid off my stool and stood up. “Hey.”

Katrina approached the counter. She was wearing her black leather jacket and a purple infinity scarf.

“Busy today, huh?”

“Yep. One of those manic Mondays.”

Katrina looked around. I leaned forward and saw the hardware store the way she must have seen it: dull and silent and three steps toward the grave.

“You need more hacksaw blades? I've got an employee discount.”

“No, I'm good. Actually, I'm losing interest in that project.”

“Really? The birdhouses?”

“I don't know. I went down to the basement this morning and they just seemed … sad, you know? All those dead skeleton birds, chilling in their empty little houses.”

“Yeah. I think they're really cool.”

Katrina stuck her hands in her back pockets and rocked on her heels. “I don't know. I guess I don't care so much about cool anymore.”

“You don't?”

Katrina shrugged. “Where's cool really get you, anyway?”

“Into the best dance clubs in America, that's where.”

The wind gusted outside, rattling the hardware store's windows. I leaned back and crossed my arms.

“So, why the surprise visit? Avoiding studying?

Katrina pulled a car magazine off the front rack and started flipping through it. “Oh, you know. I guess I just found myself out walking and thought I'd stop by. There's not a lot of destinations in Hickson to really aim for.”

“You missed me, didn't you?”

Katrina rolled her eyes, trying to repress a little smile.

“You did, didn't you? You needed yourself a little Mack fix.”

“Please,” Katrina said, dropping the magazine back on the shelf. “You're going to make me puke.”

“Puke with love.”

“Shit.”

Katrina gave me a healthy shove and I flailed backward, almost tripping over the register stool. As she marched out of the store, regally tossing her dark ringletted hair, I realized the visit had been her way of saying the haunted castle fuck-up was all right, that she still dug me whether I was a successful firebug or not.

Katrina wasn't in it for the burn.

She was in it for me.

Fifteen minutes before closing time, two fire trucks and a police car roared past the store, sirens blaring. I stepped out onto the sidewalk and watched as seventy-five percent of Hickson's emergency responders headed east. A substantial plume of black smoke rose in the distance.

My cell phone buzzed in my pocket. Sam.

“Yo.”

“You won't believe this, dude. Somebody torched the straw castle.”

“What?”

“I'm over here right now. I was on my afternoon walkabout.”

“The haunted castle's on fire?”

“Yeah, it's like the end of
The Wicker Man
over here. You should come check it out. I'm guessing this baby's going to burn for a couple hours, easy.”

Somebody shouted in Sam's background. Sirens blared.

“Is my grandpa there?”

“I don't know. Maybe. There's a shit ton of people here. It's like a disaster party.”

I squinted, keeping the phone to my ear. The amount of black smoke on the horizon was definitely increasing.

“I think I'm going to pass on the fire, Sammy Boy.”

“What? Are you serious?”

“Yes, Sam,” I said, wincing. “I have never been so serious.”

I ended the call. The firebug was wide awake and flipping out but I still remembered the feeling of dread I'd woken up with that morning. This burn felt like a setup, another move to literally smoke me out of hiding.

I went back into the store and turned out the lights, deciding to let Big Greg add up the register in the morning. I just wanted to go home, burrow beneath my comforter, and get some goddamn rest for once. I started home, lost in warm and fuzzy Katrina-type thoughts and feeling the approach of winter in the air.

A block from our house, I realized the crackling I'd been hearing wasn't acorns popping beneath my feet, and that the smell of smoke in the air was coming from much closer than Robinson Park.

Our house was on fire.