Home Fires Burning

by Robert Inman

  So, Henry would have to do it by himself. Hilton Redlinger could have been a lot of help. At any instant, Hilton could have looked up, seen Henry standing there on the roof of the firehouse, could have called up to ask what the hell he was doing. Henry would have told him. He could have turned the whole thing over to Hilton. But no, Hilton Redlinger had shuffled on droopy-drawered toward home and his supper, leaving the whole thing on Henry.

  Henry turned, sat down again on the roof of the firehouse with his back to the still-warm brick of the parapet. He felt fine, just fine. But he had always felt pretty fine, hadn’t he? Well, maybe not. But over the past few minutes, which were all he could remember just now, he had felt just fine.

  But it began to worry him a little, as he sat there, that he couldn’t remember anything past the last few minutes. He knew who he was, by God, he was Henry Tibbetts back from the war. And he knew what he had to do. But here he was up here on the roof of the fire station with an empty pint jar and his great-grandfather’s sword. Now how the hell had he gotten his ass in this particular position?

  Henry thought it would help if he could remember just one thing beyond a few minutes ago. So he strained very hard until the blood pounded in his head and after a few minutes he thought of the captain, the psychologist, in the Army hospital outside Paris.

  He was a young man, younger than Henry. He wore wire-rimmed glasses and he liked to lean back in his swivel chair and put the tips of his fingers together like a tent and look at Henry over the top of his fingers.

  “So you’re not Farquhar,” the young captain said.

  “No, I’m not Farquhar.”

  “But you thought you were Farquhar.”

  “No,” Henry said, “I never thought I was Farquhar.”

  “Who did you think you were?” the captain asked.

  “I didn’t know who I was,” Henry answered.

  “Then why did you keep answering to Farquhar?”

  “Well, I didn’t know I wasn’t Farquhar, either.”

  The captain sat up in his chair, leaned toward Henry, propped his elbows on the desk. “What was it like, being Farquhar?”

  “I don’t know,” Henry said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, I never was Farquhar, so I don’t know what it was like being Farquhar.”

  So it went, on and on. The young captain played word games with him day after day. Until finally they found out that he was Henry Finley Tibbetts.

  “I think I liked it better being Farquhar,” Henry said wearily one day after the captain had been picking at his mind, the way gnats do an open sore, for almost two hours.

  The captain smiled. “But you never were Farquhar.”

  “Yes, but I could have been. If I hadn’t said something about not being Farquhar, you would never have known.”

  “Would you rather be Farquhar?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Farquhar’s dead, you know.”

  “So was I until you dug me up.”

  The young captain stared at him across the top of the finger tent. “Lieutenant, you’re a chronic escapist, that’s what you are. You have a great capacity for separating yourself from pain and pleasure. That’s why you suffered amnesia after you were wounded. That’s why you still refuse to deal honestly with who you are. You just won’t face reality, Lieutenant.”

  “Well, that’s just damn well not true,” Henry said mildly. “That’s not the case at all.”

  And it wasn’t. They missed the point. It wasn’t that Henry was trying to hide from reality. It was that he simply wasn’t paying attention. And he wasn’t paying attention because he wasn’t interested.

  “Is it that you don’t give a damn?” the captain asked.

  “That could be,” Henry said. But that was not quite the whole truth. You had to have a little touch of hostility in you to really and truly not give a damn. But Henry Tibbetts wasn’t mad at anybody or anything. He felt very sad sometimes in a way he couldn’t explain. But mad? No sirree. He just wasn’t paying attention. He had not paid attention to the young captain in the Army hospital outside Paris for a whole month, and finally the guy had looked at him one day in exasperation and said, “All right.” That was it. The guy had tried everything he knew to get Henry to pay attention, but he had finally just given up because he had other fish to fry.

  And that’s where Henry’s memory stopped. He could remember the young captain saying, “All right.” But there was nothing between then and right now, sitting here on the roof of the fire station in the warm twilight with an empty pint jar and Captain Finley Tibbetts’s sword and feeling fine, just fine.

  Henry picked up the sword, laid it across his outstretched legs, studied it for a moment. The blade was magnificent, the intricate engraved scrollwork free of tarnish, the fine silver softly gleaming in the late afternoon light. He pointed it up, away from him, felt the solid heft of it, sighted down the long curving blade. Then he remembered another soft summer evening, peeking around the corner into the parlor, seeing his father sitting in the wing-backed chair with the sword in his lap, polishing and polishing, the soft cloth moving back and forth along the thin blade, Jake lost in thought. The memory of it was fleeting, here for an instant and gone. Henry sighed. It was time to stop trying to remember and get up off his ass and go do what had to be done.

  He rose, holding the sword in one hand, clutching the top of the parapet with the other to steady himself. He weaved a little, but he stood for a moment and breathed deeply a few times. Just fine, he thought. He felt just fine.

  He crossed the roof and opened the trapdoor that led from the roof to the attic of the firehouse. He let himself down, taking care not to bang the gleaming sword against anything, closing the trapdoor behind him. The only light was from a small window at the front of the building, overlooking the street, but it was enough to let him pick his way back as he had come, through the dust-covered rubbish that littered the attic floor, to the open stairway that led down into the bay where the fire truck sat expectantly.

  There was a bit more light down here from the row of high windows that formed part of the big garage door. Henry walked around to the front of the truck and stood for a moment looking at it. It was a fine piece of machinery, an American LaFrance pumper purchased not long before the war to replace an aging balloon-tired truck with a hand-operated pump that took the heaving effort of four strong men to get a feeble gush of water through a single hose. This one had an on-board hydraulic pump operated off the truck’s engine, the very latest. No town within several counties had a fire truck so modern, so efficient, so beautiful. Most of the money for it had come from the Messrs. Harsole and Bingham, whose bolt factory was the most valuable piece of property in town.

  Henry remembered something else now. His first ride on this fire truck, a few months before the National Guard unit got called to active duty — the flush of Lightnin’ Jim’s Best coursing through his veins, the rush of wind against his body. God, it was fast. It had taken two other men to hold Henry onto the truck. When they rounded curves or corners, he wanted to let go of his handhold and simply fly off into space, laughing. But they held him on, drunk as he was. When they got to the fire, a two-room frame house already half-consumed, Henry grabbed the nozzle and ran lurching toward the blaze, pulling hose behind him. When he got so close he could feel the flames curling the hair on his arms, he shouted, “Turn ’er on!” and the powerful force of the water bursting from the end of the nozzle smacked him flat on his ass. He writhed there, laughing and yelling, the hose thrashing him about on the ground like a giant snake, water shooting everywhere, until the others ran and got it under control. God, that was fine.

  Henry touched the side of the truck, felt the smooth cool red metal, ran his hand over the chrome and glass of the valves and gauges, then walked around to the back and looked at the neat folds of hose. Everything was clean, orderly, polished. It was a good volunteer fire company. It had been a very fine thing back before the w
ar when they went clanging off into the night on the old pumper — Hilton Redlinger, Fog Martin, Big Bugger Brunson, George Poulos, the others. The flames made their faces glow as if they wore red masks.

  Now he needed the fire truck. They wouldn’t mind. They would understand, as they always had.

  Henry walked around to the other side of the truck and climbed up in the open driver’s seat. He had not driven the fire truck before — not this one or the old one — because he kept showing up drunk and they wouldn’t let him drive. Fog Martin drove the fire truck. But now Henry would have to drive. He reached for the ignition switch on the dashboard just to the right of the steering column, turned it, heard it click. He checked the gears and hand brake. Gearshift in neutral, hand brake on. Then with his left foot he pushed down hard on the starter pedal and the engine turned over heavily once, twice, three times, grinding loudly in the firehouse bay. Nothing. Henry stared at the dash, then he remembered the choke. He pulled on the handle, pulled it all the way out, then pumped the gas pedal twice with his right foot. He mashed down on the starter again and it ground in protest, trying to coax the big engine to life. Come on, come on, come on. Still nothing. He pumped again lightly on the gas pedal. Then he smelled gasoline fumes and felt a rush of panic, fearing he had flooded the engine. If that happened, there would be nothing to do but shut it off and sit here and wait until the carburetor drained. And by then the last of daylight would be gone. He mashed the starter again and it ground angrily. Push in the choke, stupid. He pushed it in halfway and then the engine coughed and caught and roared to life. Hot damn! He gave it a little gas, goosing the engine, then let it sit and idle for a moment, warming up.

  Henry felt the truck vibrate happily under him, the big engine running smoothly now. It was Fog Martin’s engine and he kept it finely tuned. Fog lived a couple of blocks away and he got the first alarm from Em Nesbitt when a fire call came in at the phone office. Fog would pull on his pants and rush to the firehouse and climb quickly up on the roof and crank like hell on the hand-operated siren, sending a wail across the town to signal the others. Then he would scramble down and crank up the truck so that by the time the volunteers came running from wherever they were, Fog had the door open and the truck halfway out into the street. When he had three or four other men, he would take off, and anybody who arrived late had to get to the fire the best way he could. There were two dozen volunteers in all, and when they all got there, they milled around getting in each other’s way while Hilton Redlinger tried to keep order. And when it was over, somebody would bring out a jar of Lightnin’ Jim’s Best and they would pass it around and re-fight the fire. It was all very fine.

  Henry sat thinking of them while the truck warmed up and then he climbed down from the seat, went to the front of the bay, hauled down on the big counterweight and sent the huge hinged door rattling up into the ceiling, opening the bay to the evening. He blinked, looking out at the still-empty square, the courthouse hulking like a brooding red beast in the middle. Then he turned and saw Lonnie, standing on the sidewalk next to the firehouse, staring at him.

  “Whatcha doing with the fire truck?” Lonnie asked.

  Henry turned, looked into the bay at the truck idling throatily. “Just warming her up,” Henry said.

  “I ain’t heard the siren,” Lonnie said.

  “No,” Henry shook his head.

  “Is there a fire? Where’s the rest of the men?”

  “No, there ain’t exactly a fire. I’m just warming her up, that’s all.”

  “Does Chief Redlinger know you’re warming her up?” Lonnie asked.

  “He was by here just a little while ago,” Henry said, not wanting to lie about it.

  Lonnie crossed his arms over his chest. “You gonna take the fire truck out?”

  “Maybe,” Henry said. “Look, ain’t you supposed to be home eating supper?”

  “I ain’t hungry,” Lonnie said. “What if there’s a real fire and you’ve got the fire truck out tootin’ around town?”

  “I didn’t say I’m going tootin’ around town,” Henry said.

  “But you got the motor running and the door open,” Lonnie insisted.

  “That’s so the fumes don’t get so bad in the bay while I’m warming her up.”

  Lonnie gave him the fish eye, the same don’t-give-me-any-nonsense look he remembered from the Pastine Tibbetts of his ancient youth. Lonnie looked inside the bay, checked the truck over carefully, then stepped inside and looked up in the front seat of the truck. “Naw,” he said finally. “You’re getting ready to take her out.”

  “Don’t sass me, boy,” Henry said.

  “I ain’t sassing. I’m just saying what I see. You got the motor running and the door open. And you’ve got Captain Finley’s sword up there on the front seat. What you got the sword for?”

  “Protection,” Henry said. He felt a rush of panic, a powerful need for drink. He wanted to pull down the big bay door and shut off the engine of the fire truck and make a beeline for Lightnin’ Jim Haskell’s place. But he fought down the urge. Not now. He knew what needed to be done and time was wasting. The light was fading fast.

  “All right,” he said. “Come on.”

  He turned to go back into the open bay, but Lonnie stood rooted to his spot on the sidewalk.

  “What you gonna do?” Lonnie asked.

  “I can’t tell you,” Henry said. “Not yet.”

  “You afraid I might squeal?”

  “No, but it’s a secret. Look,” he said, the urgency rising in his voice, “I’ve gotta get moving or it’s all over.”

  “What’s all over?”

  “Dammit!” Henry shouted. “Get in the truck or go home!”

  “Okay, okay. You don’t have to yell. I’m coming.”

  They climbed up into the high seat. Lonnie’s legs dangled over the edge. He pushed the sword against the backrest behind him. Henry revved the motor a couple of times, then shoved in the clutch and eased the gearshift lever into first. He let out on the clutch and mashed the gas, but the truck lurched forward a few inches and died. “Shit!” Henry cried. He cranked it again, geared up, eased the clutch out, gave it some gas, and it lurched again, coughed and expired. He banged the heel of his hand angrily against the steering wheel.

  “Why don’t you let out the hand brake,” Lonnie said.

  Henry stared at the brake lever sticking up through the floorboard between them. He shook his head, grabbed the lever with his right hand, squeezed the hand release, heard the click as the brake disengaged. He cranked the engine again, gunned it, slipped the truck into gear, and eased it out of the gaping door of the bay and into the street. He was halfway across the street before he turned the steering wheel hard to the left. It wasn’t enough. The truck rolled across the street in a broad arc and the right front wheel whumped against the curb and bounced up onto the lawn of the courthouse.

  “Shit!” Henry yelled. He jammed on the foot brake and Lonnie flailed the air beside him, fighting for balance. Lonnie threw out his arm and jammed it against the dashboard. “Ow!”

  “Goddammit, hold on,” Henry shouted at him.

  “Awright, awright. Can’t you drive?”

  Henry glared at him. The little bugger had a big mouth. Just like Jake Tibbetts. Jake Tibbetts could jaw and jaw and jaw at you until you felt like he had stripped off all your flesh with his tongue. Jake Tibbetts could make you weary with his jawing. He could make you not want to pay attention at all.

  “You all right?” Henry asked.

  Lonnie squeezed his wrist. “I think it’s broke.”

  “No, it ain’t broke. You just jammed it. Now hold on.”

  “I ain’t got nothing to hold onto,” Lonnie said. The handhold on the dashboard was beyond his reach.

  Henry felt a little crazy. They were sitting there in the fire truck with one wheel hiked up on the courthouse lawn and the ass-end of the truck blocking the street and he had a job that needed to be done and they were farting away the shan
k of the day jawing.

  “Put your feet up against the dashboard,” Henry said. “You got on sneakers. It won’t scratch anything.”

  Lonnie scrunched down in the seat and braced himself against the dash with his feet. “Now I can’t see out the windshield,” he complained.

  “Goddammit, you ain’t got to see out the windshield. I’m driving.”

  “Well, you ain’t doing too good.”

  Henry balled up his fist and jammed it under Lonnie’s nose. “You shut up, you hear! Shut up or get out!”

  “Awright, awright. You don’t have to be so mean,” Lonnie snuffled, tears welling in his eyes.

  “Okay. I’m sorry,” Henry said. “You okay now?”

  Lonnie stared straight ahead at his feet, lips tight. Damn, Henry thought. Fresh-mouthed little kid. Scrawny neck and arms, thin features stretched tight with growing, spattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose, unruly hair, a semicircle of dirt behind his ear. Henry could feel a tingle behind his own ears, the rough scrubbing of a long-ago washcloth, Pastine saying, “You could farm behind here.”

  Henry shifted the fire truck into reverse, grinding the gears loudly. “Look,” he said. “It’s gonna be all right. You just hang on, okay?”

  Lonnie nodded.

  Henry eased out the clutch and backed the truck off the courthouse curb, straightening it out in the street. He stopped, looked around the square. Still nobody in sight. Damn wonder with all the racket going on. It was getting late now. The sun was only a trace of violent orange over the roof of the City Hall building and the light in the upstairs window of the telephone exchange was a square of bold yellow against the darkening face of the building.

  Henry shifted the truck into first gear and headed down the street, turned right at the corner, then veered left across the center line and pulled up in front of City Hall. The front door of the city office was padlocked, the big plate-glass window giving only a faint reflection of the square and the red fire truck and the gaunt man and scrawny kid sitting on the high seat.