How Are You Going to Save Yourself

by JM Holmes

  “What the fuck, Rydell! I didn’t save my lab.”

  “You shouldn’t let it get that hot,” he said.

  “How long are you gonna do this shit?” She walked to him, took his arm. “Please.”

  A deep rumble started in the kitchen.

  “What’s that?” he said.

  “It’s just the fridge.”

  Rye pushed her out of his path and pulled the fridge away from the wall. He clocked the dust buildup, handfuls of gray dust balls near the wall. He swept and swept, using his hand like a broom, stretching his arm as far as he could, then yanking the fridge to get farther back.

  “Stop!” Sr. said.

  “You gotta clean this shit!” he said. “The paint is oil-based, the insulation is cellulose. The house would go up in a second.”

  Sr. tried to rub his back but he left into her mom’s room. She was sleeping. He used his fingers to poke at her ashtray to see if any embers remained. She stirred, but she was fast asleep, unaware. The ambient sound of waves washed gently from her CD player. The window open. The night still. He took a deep breath and listened to the hum of the street lamp. After a minute, he walked back into the kitchen.

  Sr. watched him, leaned back with her palms against the counter. “Deep breaths,” she said.

  He went to kiss her, but then just stuck his index fingers in her ears. She shrugged him off. He turned to go, grabbed the bag with the work.

  “You’re really gonna leave like that?” she said.

  Rye stood with his arms around her, then kissed her forehead. They held each other a moment longer.

  “This isn’t forever,” she said.

  “This isn’t forever,” he said.

  “Don’t let them kill you,” she said.

  “It’s just weed,” he said.

  “And fire,” she said.

  She kissed his Adam’s apple. He flinched.

  JASON HARASSED RYE for a week about the PKs, and the morning Rye was able to set his hands on them, Jason was MIA. Rye texted a few times, even called. No answer. Rye was due at the station by eight. I imagine even he started sweating. Shit got hectic. His car idled in a parking lot looking out at Newport Ave., which would take him to Rumford or the station, depending on the turn. He’d left the Marissas early so he’d have time to drop the pills at Jason’s. He called Jason and called again. Waited and called again. The clock slid and slid again—7:00, and 7:15, and 7:30. Ten minutes early is twenty minutes late—the damn recruit-school lessons echoed in his brain like a PSA. A good probationary officer would’ve been at the station by 7:30 the latest.

  “What the fuck, dude?” Jason said. “It’s seven thirty in the morning.”

  “I need to drop these off,” Rye said. He held the pills in his hands, the whole script wrapped in cellophane. The weight stunningly light, each pill so small. The sun already shone bright over the Episcopal church sandwiched between gas stations. People paraded in and out with coffees and an easiness that clean lives can give. The sun had only been up for two hours and he was already sweating bricks.

  “Drop it off later,” Jason said.

  “I got work,” Rye said.

  “You’re a drug dealer.”

  Rye put the car in reverse. “I’m headed your way,” he said.

  “I don’t have the dough.”

  “Get it.”

  “I’m hungover, dude. Come tomorrow.”

  Rye had begun to hate holding the prescription shit more and more. Class E felony. He hung up. It was almost eight.

  MARISSA HIT ME up that morning, stressing heavy. I tried to tell her that I hadn’t heard from Rye in a while. I didn’t mention New York.

  “You should call more,” she said. “He talks about you.” She asked me again about Rye dealing and about my life and if I’d liked Berlin. I’d been to Russia earlier in the summer, but I didn’t correct her. I’d been visiting my friend Aimes from college. He taught over there. The Nevsky Institute had offered me a job for the following summer. I didn’t mention any of this. I asked how her classes were going and about my goddaughter. She eventually said that Rye was bringing home more money now. She asked me if he was getting into powder and I told her she was crazy. She was right—just had the wrong drug.

  I felt her anxiety over the phone. A teakettle whistled in the background, followed by some bangs and clicks—cup, kettle, stove.

  “You wouldn’t tell me shit anyway,” she said.

  I assured her I knew nothing. I actually wanted to ask a lot more, but that would’ve been admitting I was a godfather in name only—in reality a ghost who had to imagine them living and loving in that space, trying to put armor on a life that couldn’t be protected.

  “I been around,” I said.

  “We haven’t heard from you.” Her voice flat.

  “I saw—” I almost slipped and told her about New York. “By the way, if you fuck up drawing my blood,” I said, “I’ll revoke my godfather status.”

  “If I ever get certified,” she said.

  “Ni puha, ni pera,” I dropped some Russian on her.

  She laughed and it sounded like she was blowing on her tea to cool it. She didn’t even ask me what it meant. “Come by soon,” she said.

  After she hung up, I thought about when Rye had called and asked if I’d be Jr.’s godfather, one of a few. The offer felt like a bullet in my hands. I liked the weight of it because it felt solid, one last promise. I’d sent cards and presents, but those things were easy.

  MOSS SAT IN the firehouse kitchen that morning as Rye crossed through to throw his things in the locker.

  “Strike two,” Moss said. “You’re late.”

  “Sorry, family drama.”

  “Shoulda picked a different one, then.”

  Rye wanted to crack him across the jaw but jammed his hands in his pockets, surprised to feel the work there, the whole bundle. He willed himself not to look down.

  Moss stared at him like he was an alien, then walked away.

  Rye couldn’t believe he’d forgotten to leave the 30s in the car—$4,800 of work bulging out of his pockets. Everything became an alarm. He wanted to go back to the parking lot right then, throw the pills in the console. But he kept hearing sirens in the stillness—boots on tile, the station TV, the bass of a stereo, a cell phone, the microwave going off, the dispatch, another cell. He couldn’t risk being the last one to the engine. He shoved the pills into his locker but kept wanting to go back. Moss watched everything.

  The day hit the highest temp of the summer—104. The city ran on faulty window-unit ACs. He sweat silently all day until Babe asked him to lift in the afternoon.

  Moss came over to heckle him as he worked. “If only you could save lives in the weight room, huh?” he said.

  RYE USED TO jab me like that, but always with love. He’d say shit about me being soft to piss me off, then slap me on the chest when I’d show and prove. Afterward, he’d come back to my mom’s, where there was no government cheese, and she’d make white-meat chicken. He’d dig in the fridge for bologna or hot dogs instead. He did like her meat gravy, though, with the meatballs and sausage. He’d eat bowlfuls of that while my mom smiled because being a mother has always been her calling.

  One time, after we ate, we went back down to the park to shoot around. He rolled a dutch and we sparked. He was always careful to keep his smoking weed away from his selling weed. He even picked it up separately. He was weird like that. It was hot and the park was almost empty. We got so high we couldn’t even finish our game of horse. We sat on the metal bleachers with our shirts off, looking up into the haze of city sky. Some people milled around him for bags, and he broke them off.

  “How much you making?” I asked him.

  He smiled. “Enough to eat,” he said.

  I told him I wanted in. And I did, and had tried, stuck between visions of my life—what the city expected us to do, deadbeat dad, same old jazz bullshit.

  “Nigga, you don’t need in. Your moms feeds you.”
He threw the ball with one hand at the hoop and it ricocheted off the side of the backboard. “Imagine my fucking mom in the kitchen? The woman can’t even boil water. You got a backyard. Your mom’s a teacher. You eat grilled chicken for dinner. She’s gonna help you go to school and leave and never come back.” His eyes were far off like he was envisioning those things for himself or his family.

  “You’re family too,” I said.

  But he still was looking off like he could see through a wormhole into the future or an alternative universe where we’d known each other only in passing, a cousin you’d walk by on the street even though you used to be in the tub together, wanting to get the water when it was hot, before it got dirty, and find a spot on the bed before your sweating cousins pushed you off.

  “Leave. Don’t stop,” he said, his eyes still on the horizon, above the leaning homes.

  RYE’S SECOND FIRE was one street over from my mom’s. She said she could smell the smoke. It was a two-alarm. It came in the sleep of night when fires tend to spring like resurging dreams, hot and hungry, turning acquired lives to ash, leaving nothing behind to truly measure the people who made the space a home—a necklace, perhaps, the gut pipes of a house, useless to all but investigators, who never knew the victims but construct a story for those who wish to know, maybe insurance, able to pick only a silhouette from the wreckage. That’s how I feel now.

  The city was a tinderbox of old homes, sloping and dry, with old electrical and too many people doing too many things in too many outlets. Rye outfitted himself in under two minutes. Found his spot in the backseat of the truck. They were stretched thin and put him on forcible entry, his first ever. Sousa drove with Moss beside him, more silent than usual. Babe got situated last, next to Rye in the back, no dimples. The other engine loaded up too. They called that crew Benfica ’cause they flew the soccer club’s flags in their lockers. Rye’s crew left the station and he prayed for the first time since Jr.’s christening.

  The fire was on the east side of the city, on Cottage Street, a longer drive from the station. The houses were mostly one-family there, but still packed in so the shades stayed closed. Cars lined both sides of the road, fitted tight like molars.

  Rye picked out the houses of people we knew—Hess with the blue eyes, and little Ricky who wore kid-size Jordans even in high school, and the Katzoff family who cooked a stinking sausage on Fridays that no one could ever find in the city. I hadn’t talked to any of them since I’d left. Rye held each memory as it roared past. Each unlit house passed like a breath, life-giving.

  They turned onto Waterman. From a distance, it was just the smell.

  Moss started yelling, “It’s go time, boys! Locked and loaded!”

  “Showtime!” Babe said. He reached over and clapped Rye on the back.

  The men kept hollering, but Rye remained silent. He thought the house would look like a jack-o’-lantern, surrounded by crowds and pity and something more sinister. Back before Rye had a family to build and a home to keep, we used to set off cheap fireworks on a street down at Slater Park, watching the weak lights trail into the sky. Rye thought about Jr. trapped inside. His knee started bouncing. People littered the road, huddled together with loved ones, hoping theirs wouldn’t catch next. The smoke came in billows now and flames could be seen through the windows. The horn blared and people cleared, some slower than others. Above it all, streetlights still cooked. Then something else caught and the flames rose higher. Rye gripped the handle on the side of the truck tighter, tried to steady himself, battle every fiber in him that screamed, Flee!

  He ran over the details of his mother-in-law’s home—the medicinal smell; the matchstick rooms in the back, all wood-floored; curling irons; a cigarette left burning, maybe; the candles she lit sometimes when she drank her wine and listened to Aventura; old Christmas lights plugged in too long; an overloaded outlet. He knew their accumulated lives were begging for fire.

  The horn sounded again and the people scattered on a street that Rye and I had walked dozens of times to Black’s for pancakes and thick-cut bacon.

  The smoke came clouded in deep hits, obscuring sections of the house as they pulled up close as they could on the curb. Benfica started rigging the hoses. I wonder if Rye prayed for his Marissas.

  “Get the fuck out of the road!” Moss yelled. “Jesus.”

  Sousa pulled the air-horn cord to blow on top of the sirens.

  “We got a job!” Babe yelled. He bounced in his seat.

  The smoke was getting thicker. Rye gripped his mask and dismounted swift. He made sure the face piece was tight. The hook felt clumsy in his hands. Moss bounded ahead. The front door stood wide open. Babe searched the outside to read the extent of the fire. Sousa worked the hose.

  A woman yelled something to Moss about her husband. “He went back—” Her voice trailed off as Rye and Moss approached the house. The heat intensified and the air thickened, toxic and sharp. Rye froze.

  NOT LONG AFTER Blake’s, I decided to take Rye up on his offer to check out the station. I hadn’t lied when I told Marissa that I’d been around. I stopped by my mom’s place first to pick up some kids’ books. She put some cake in a Tupperware for me to give to them too. Seeing Rye with Jr. made her heart full, she said, shuffling around the deck, her spine curved like a question mark. Her garden was lush with flowers. I told her she needed help with the house. She turned to me with her dirt-caked gloves, smiled, and waved me off.

  I swung by a bookstore to pick something special out for Jr., but the covers were all white faces or dragons. I figured my mom’s gifts would be enough.

  Dunnell Park was still filled with people playing ball or just sitting on the benches talking shit and smoking Blacks. The old backboards had been replaced by beautiful Plexiglas ones with air pockets that were supposed to make the balls bounce truer. The parks in the city had always been beautiful.

  Outside Marissa’s mom’s place, people came and went. It was one of those days so clear that the sky blue seems to magnify everything, not bright enough to make you squint but enough light so that everyone is outlined in gold. I parked and gathered the books onto my lap. I left the cake. The windows in front were too small to see if anyone was home. A few people dipped past, too young to not be in school. Everyone looked so young—I couldn’t pick out a single face.

  A man near my age came down the block. Even from a distance, I knew it had to be Dre Hazard. The Hazards all have these pretty features about them—big, rounded eyes and a strut that’s a little too light for a man. He had grown a beard. An ease broke out inside my body. I wondered if he got in any games these days. The books slid awkwardly in my arms as I rose out of the car. The parking job didn’t leave much room to get through to the sidewalk. I had to turn sideways to pass by. I smiled as I stepped toward him. He drew level with the car and slowed down. A book dropped from my arms to the ground. My height made it difficult to scoop it up. As I stood to ask him how he’d been, I saw him clearly. His face was foreign. We stared at each other for a second. I nodded. Got nothing in return. He continued on.

  I sat down on the hood of my car for a while, put the stack next to me, wanting to be caught by someone I knew. A few people passed, but folks weren’t congregating like usual. The tiny front windows of Marissa’s mom’s spot remained dark behind the glass. I put the books on the porch and left without ringing the bell.

  ALL RYE’S FOOTBALL weight slammed through the door. He couldn’t see more than a yard in front of him. His undershirt was already soaked. It took him a little time to steady the can, which felt heavier than usual. Rye and Moss surveyed what they could of the front room. Nothing. They listened for screams. A TV lay smashed on the floor. The heat must have melted the mount. The seconds burned away. Fire danced around the walls, growing, mesmerizing. Rye couldn’t tell if the broken vases and plates on the floor were from a rapid exit or from the blaze eating through their lives.

  Moss looked and looked again, quickly moving through the room. He shouted to
see if the trapped man could answer his voice, but the flames rushed like air through a subway tunnel. Moss yelled at Rye, but Rye couldn’t hear so he just screamed, “What?” His suit was swamped. Moss’s face was blurred. Rye waited for heroics, anything. He thought Moss pointed down a small hallway into the back rooms, but this was a shitty version of two-in-and-two-out—one in and two outside. Rye was going in alone. There was too much heat. He wouldn’t make it out. Flames rolled along the ceilings. Turn-back type flames. Every step crunched beneath his boots. His brain worked quicker than it ever had. Fear made him dexterous but his vision was all but gone.

  Moss came up next to him, got the can vertical, and aimed the nozzle in front of them to cool their path for the search. They couldn’t see well enough to read each other. There were two doors, one straight ahead and one on the left. Orange billows licked around the edges of both. Rye realized he might have to use the Halligan. Again, Moss pointed him into the blaze.

  Rye thought he heard a voice come from the back room. He followed it to the rear, maneuvered the sledge toward the door straight ahead, but the smoke made him dizzy. Even behind the visor’s tint, he felt like he was staring straight at the sun. He crouched and tried to find the handle to open the door, reverting to instinct instead of training. It was stuck and he scrambled to turn back. Moss stood behind him in the hall. Something else caught in the house and exploded like napalm. Rye thought the whole place was coming down. Neither of them could scream loud enough to be understood. Rye took shallow breaths, worried about his air pack, then leaned all of his weight back, raised his tree trunk of a leg, and busted through the door with his boot. Something had caught inside. It was too hot for him to move anymore. He lay flat on the ground, paralyzed. He thought to crawl. Moss had made a mistake. They should’ve waited for the water.

  Babe’s voice bellowed deep enough to be heard behind the home. Rye lost sight of the doorway. He tilted his head back but could no longer see through the flames. Moss would come for him. He started hallucinating—picture frames melted like candle wax on the dresser. A man cried, huddled in a ball by the windowsill, which was also ablaze. The flames from the mattress roared deep, curling all the way to the ceiling, also newly caught, the temperature somehow still rising. He inched toward the man, who danced like the flames. Rye turned his head to find the exit. Everything was spinning. He looked back once more and it was a woman this time. He couldn’t will himself to move.