Home Fires Burning

by Robert Inman

  Henry put the truck in neutral, pulled up on the hand brake, left the engine idling.

  “You stay here,” he said to Lonnie.

  “Where you going?”

  “To the phone exchange,” Henry said.

  “What for?”

  “Business. Now you sit right here and don’t you budge. I mean it.” Lonnie gave him a defiant look. “I’m telling you now,” Henry threatened, “if you get off the seat of this truck, I’m sending you home. I got serious business and I want you to sit here and behave yourself.”

  Lonnie shrugged. “Okay.”

  Henry reached behind Lonnie and got the sword. Lonnie’s eyes widened. “You ain’t gonna hurt anybody, are you?”

  “No. I don’t want to hurt anybody,” Henry said. He didn’t want that. He didn’t want anybody to get in his way, just let him do what had to be done. Then he could go home and go to sleep. He felt weary now. He wasn’t just fine anymore, he needed some rest.

  Henry climbed down from the truck and stepped up the high curb to the sidewalk and then started up the narrow open staircase that led from the sidewalk to the upstairs phone exchange. He carried the sword in front of him, point out, careful not to bang it against the wall. He didn’t want to hurt the sword. At the top of the stairs he stopped and looked back to see if Lonnie had followed him. The staircase was empty.

  He paused there on the second-floor landing and listened for a moment. He could hear the soft murmur of Em Nesbitt’s voice inside, the click of wires on her console as she rang up a connection. He waited a moment, knowing she would be absorbed in the conversation on the line. Em listened in, everybody knew that. Especially this time of night, when the calls came spasmodically. Jake Tibbetts had once suggested in his front-page column that the entire town government be turned over to Em Nesbitt because she was the only person in town who knew everything that was going on. At Sunday School the following Sunday, Em Nesbitt — Henry’s teacher — had fixed him with such a withering stare that he wanted to sink through the bottom of his chair and disappear. It was not easy having a father who laughed at people on the front page of the newspaper.

  Henry turned the knob and pushed open the door. Em was hunched over the console, back to him, arms folded, headset on, absorbed in somebody’s trivia. She was smaller than he remembered, shrunken and stoop-shouldered with age, a tiny old woman with thinning white hair, a small pink bald spot at the back of her skull from years of wearing the headset.

  “Miss Em,” Henry called softly. He didn’t want to scare her. “Miss Em,” he said again, a little louder, and this time she spun around in the chair and stared at him.

  “Henry Tibbetts,” she said without hesitation. She still had the same hard gray eyes.

  Henry squirmed a little. “Yes’m. It’s me.”

  “What do you want?” she demanded. “You know you’re not allowed in the exchange. What am I going to have to do, lock the door?”

  “Look, Miss Em —”

  “And if I do that, and fire breaks out up here in this old rattletrap office, I’ll burn to a crisp before I can get the door unlocked. Is that what you want?”

  “No’m …”

  The console buzzed and Em turned back to it. She flicked a switch. “Exchange,” she said, then listened for a moment. “She wasn’t home a half hour ago. Marvel Renfroe tried to call her, but I didn’t get any answer. I’ll try again if you want. Maybe she’s back now, unless she’s gone over to Taylorsville to see the new grand-baby.” Em pulled a wire from the bank in front of her and plugged it into one of the holes on the face of the console, then cranked jerkily on the ringing device. She waited, then cranked again. “No, she’s still not there. All right, then.”

  Em pulled the plug, then turned back to Henry. “Now what do you want?” she demanded.

  “Miss Em,” Henry said, “I’ve got to shut you down.”

  “You’ve what?” She raised the earpiece on her headset to hear him better.

  “I said, I’ve got to shut you down. So they won’t get hold of the phone system.”

  “So who won’t get hold of the phone system?”

  “The Germans.” There. It was out. Having said it, Henry felt incredibly stupid. She would laugh.

  But she didn’t. “Henry, there aren’t any Germans around here.”

  “Not yet,” he said, “but they’re coming.”

  “Coming from where?”

  “The prison camp. Over near Taylorsville. They’ve all escaped and they’re coming here. If they get hold of the phone system …” his voice trailed off.

  “What makes you think that?”

  How to explain? He just knew, that’s all. He didn’t know how or why he knew, but he knew. And a man had to hold on to what he knew, especially when he sometimes couldn’t remember who he was or where he was. When you’re in that kind of shape, you hold on to those things you know for sure — like the fact that the Germans had escaped and were headed this way. And he, Henry Finley Tibbetts, had to do something about it. Rosh Benefield had said it, he was the first war hero to come home. You couldn’t expect these old geezers to do anything, shuffling old fart-knockers like Hilton Redlinger, who didn’t even know when he was walking through a puddle of piss. Hilton had had his chance.

  “Henry,” Em Nesbitt said, “they sent the Germans home a long time ago.”

  “No,” Henry said, “that’s not so.”

  “You’re drunk, Henry.”

  “No ma’am,” he shook his head firmly. “I definitely am not drunk, Miss Em. I may be a little shaky, but I have fortified myself, and I am in complete command of my faculties and as a matter of fact I am also in command of the fire truck.” He was calm — very tired, but calm. The palms of his hands were dry. “Anyway, I don’t have time to talk about it. I’ve got to do what needs to be done.”

  “Henry!” Em Nesbitt half rose from her chair as Henry raised the sword. Her headset clattered to the floor. “You put that thing down, Henry!”

  “You think I’m crazy, don’t you!” Henry shouted.

  “You bet your boots I do!”

  “Well, I’m not. For once, I’m not. I know what the hell — ‘scuse me — I’m doing.”

  He took a step toward her and she froze, terror-stricken. Henry strode quickly behind the console, stood in the space between the console and the wall, raised the sword over his head with both hands, and brought it down on the big trunk line that ran from the console into the conduit on the wall. The sword was sharp, the blow powerful. THUNNNNNNK! It severed the big wire completely and the blade of the sword whacked into the floor beneath it and Henry pitched forward with the force of his swing, sprawling on the floor, his forehead smacking into the wall. He crumpled, stunned, the wind knocked out of him, still holding the sword.

  Henry lay there gasping for breath, eyes glazed. His chest heaved and a horrible rasping sound came from his throat as he clawed for air. Oh, my God, he thought, I’m going to suffocate here on the floor. He closed his eyes and waited for death and as he did he remembered — for the first time in a long, long time — the ache of the bone-chilling hours under the blasted tank on the hillside in the Ardennes with Bobby Ashcraft dying beside him, weighing his own life and finally giving it up. He had died once. Now again.

  But he didn’t. He opened his eyes, blinked, saw Lonnie standing over him. Lonnie’s fists were clenched, his eyes accusing. “What did you do to Miz Em?” he demanded.

  Henry opened his mouth, but only the rasping noise would come out. He turned his head and saw Em Nesbitt sprawled on the floor in front of the console. Oh, God! Not again! Lonnie knelt over her. “She’s still breathing,” he said.

  “Aaaagh. Aaaaagh,” Henry croaked. He gulped a fistful of air.

  Lonnie stood up and looked behind the console where Henry lay. The severed trunk cable dangled from the console and there was a deep slash mark on the wooden floor.

  “You cut it,” Lonnie said.

  Henry nodded.

  “Why
?”

  “Germans,” Henry gasped. Lonnie stared at him. Henry inhaled again with great effort. “Germans. On the way. Got out of the prison camp.” He stopped, chest heaving. “If they’d got hold of the phone system, it’d be all over.”

  Lonnie gawked at him, speechless. Henry struggled to get up and Lonnie backed away. He made it finally, one hand pressed against the wall to steady himself, the other making a crutch of the sword, digging the point into the floor. He stood, weaving, his head throbbing, eyes glazed. I’ll stop now, he thought. This is enough. Somebody else will have to do the rest of it.

  But who? This scrawny kid? He can’t even drive the fire truck. And somebody’s got to warn them.

  Henry looked over at Em Nesbitt crumpled in a heap on the floor. He knelt beside her, pulled one of her eyelids back with his thumb. There was nothing but white. He touched the side of her neck, felt for the jugular under the soft folds of skin. The pulse was weak but regular. A soft snore escaped from her mouth.

  Henry looked up at Lonnie. “She just passed out, that’s all. Just fainted.” He looked back down at Em Nesbitt. “You didn’t think I’d hurt her, did you?”

  Lonnie didn’t answer.

  “I didn’t mean to hurt anybody. I didn’t start out to touch a hair on anybody’s head. See?” Henry laid the sword down on the floor, held his hands out for Lonnie to see. They both saw how badly his hands shook, how rawboned and grimy and shaky they were.

  Henry stared at his hands. “I never meant …” he started, then choked. The tears washed down his face and he let his hands fall into his lap and squeezed his eyes shut, but the tears wouldn’t stop. He felt miserably ashamed, crying in front of his son, but he was powerless to stop. The sobs racked his body like silent explosions and he rocked back and forth on his knees, digging them into the hard floor. Stop! Stop! But there was no stopping. Henry cried for his own wretchedness and weakness, because he had screwed up so many times and had stumbled drunkenly through his life with a burden of guilt and shame that weighed him down like a sodden greatcoat. He cried because he had killed his wife — that’s what Jake Tibbetts said, he had killed Hazel — and he had abandoned his son and he had lost the one chance he might have to die honorably. And he cried because now, when this job was half-done, he wanted to quit and go home and go to sleep.

  Finally, after a long while, he stopped crying and then he opened his eyes and Lonnie wasn’t there. There was only Em Nesbitt, unconscious on the floor, snoring peacefully with her thin wrinkled lips slightly parted. It was dark outside. The harsh light of the single bulb hanging from its cord made him think suddenly of a barracks, of the bleak, sparse, hot existence of Texas, of a woman, of a few blessed hours of sanity.

  He got up then, brushed off his clothes, picked up the sword. It was time to finish things.

  Down on the street the fire truck was still parked at the curb where he had left it, motor idling. Lonnie was sitting up on the high seat behind the steering wheel. Henry stood next to the truck with one foot on the running board. “I can’t leave it like this,” he said. “I’ve got to warn ’em. About the Germans.”

  “I ought to go tell Chief Redlinger what you done,” Lonnie said.

  “Okay,” Henry said. “Go ahead if you want. That ain’t gonna stop me. Not you or him. You don’t believe me, do you.”

  “I reckon not.”

  “Well, I know what I know,” Henry said. And he did. He might not know who he was or what he was doing sometimes; but he knew this. And he clung to it as he had clung once before to life itself, even when he told himself he was ready to die. “So,” he said to Lonnie, “you can get your ass out and run tell Hilton Redlinger, or you can go home and let Mama blow your nose, or you can help me get my business done.”

  Lonnie looked at him a long time. Then he moved over on the seat to let Henry in.

  Henry laid the sword down on the floorboard of the truck and climbed up, gripping the steering wheel. He pressed down on the accelerator a couple of times and the engine roared with life. He eased down the hand brake, shifted into gear, and pulled away from the curb. Then he glanced over the dashboard, found the siren switch, and clicked it on.

  It started slowly, a deep throaty whine, and then rose in pitch and volume until it cried out like a banshee across the empty expanse of the courthouse square. Damn, what a siren!

  Henry shifted into second and took a hard right at the corner. The siren wailed, bouncing back at them off the buildings, as they rumbled past Biscuit Brunson’s cafe and the bank building with the radio station, darkened now, upstairs. He saw Biscuit come to the corner of the counter inside the cafe and stare out the window at them. He switched on the truck’s headlights and the revolving red beacon mounted just behind the driver’s seat. It sent a throbbing flash of red against the side of the buildings. He took another right at the corner and looked over at Lonnie, who was standing up now, feet wide apart on the floorboard, holding onto the hand rest on the dashboard to steady himself, peering out over the top of the windshield. He took the next corner, swung by the fire station with the bay gaping and empty, then another right. As they passed City Hall, he looked up and saw Em Nesbitt at the open upstairs window of the phone exchange, watching them, mouth agape. Henry felt a surge of excitement. The siren wailed powerfully, the headlights cut a swath of white on the pavement ahead of them, the red beacon throbbed.

  “We gotta wake ’em up!” he shouted to Lonnie.

  “Where we goin’?” Lonnie yelled back.

  Right. Where the hell are we going? What’s the plan, Lieutenant? “Around the square a few more times,” Henry said. No sweat.

  By the time they passed Biscuit’s cafe again, Biscuit was standing out on the sidewalk with two other men, wiping his hands on his apron. Biscuit yelled something, but Henry couldn’t hear him over the siren and the roar of the engine. Henry waved and the truck rolled on. One of the men standing with Biscuit dashed across the street as the truck passed and headed across the courthouse lawn.

  Henry felt better now. There was a little breeze on his face and the noise of the truck and siren got his blood up. He felt a surge of energy. It was a fine evening, still warm but soft like summer twilights are supposed to be. He felt fine now, just fine. And he was paying attention. He was, by God, taking things in his own hands. He turned right at the next corner and thought how good it would be to keep doing this for a long, long time — maybe the rest of his life — making right turns in a soft evening atop a powerful machine that ran on time itself. It might not get any better than this. It never had before.

  “Lonnie,” he called over the noise.

  Lonnie’s eyes were bright with excitement. “Yeah.”

  “You okay, boy?”

  “Yeah, I’m okay.” He looked at his father. “You okay?”

  “Fine. Just fine.”

  And he was. He didn’t even, for just this moment, want anything to drink — and he couldn’t remember a time like that, ever. He didn’t want a cigarette, either. He didn’t want a damn thing except just what he had here and now. He felt a sense of equilibrium, of delicately balanced time and place, so tenuous he must take small shallow breaths so as not to scare it away. Right turn, right turn, right turn, with the throaty roar and the banshee wail bearing him on. A man had to hold fast to the one thing he knew for sure and find some boundaries to put it in. A simple thing like a square, bounded by four right turns and enveloped in a summer night.

  He almost ran over Hilton Redlinger. He felt Lonnie jerking on his arm and then he heard the boy hollering and he looked ahead in the street and saw Hilton standing there, caught like prey in the stabbing beam of the headlights, waving his huge pistol, eyes wild and thin white hair falling down over his forehead. Shit! Henry slammed on the brakes and Lonnie lurched against the dashboard. Henry reached out and grabbed him, hauled him back against the seat, jammed in the clutch with his other foot. The truck screeched to a halt a couple of yards from Hilton.

  “Stop!” Hilton b
ellowed. “Stop or I’ll shoot hell out of ya!”

  Henry could just hear him over the dying wail of the siren. He could hear shouts off to his right on the courthouse lawn, had a quick vague sense of people running toward him. He turned to look and his foot slipped from the clutch and the truck lurched forward, leaping half the distance toward Hilton, and the old man jerked his pistol down and fired. A huge roar, the whang of bullet on metal, the shattering of glass, a dull sickening whumpf as it hit something else. It all happened very fast, the sounds mashed together. Then Lonnie turned slowly toward him, mouth open, a quizzical look on his thin face. There was blood everywhere, bright red, spreading. Lonnie rose up and then his knees buckled and he began to topple sideways out of the truck. Henry clawed frantically for him, clutched only air, watched Lonnie fall away from him, down into the waiting arms of Jake Tibbetts, who caught him roughly around the chest and stood there for a frozen second before Jake’s face contorted horribly and his own legs gave way and he went first to his knees and then fell onto his side with Lonnie on top of him. There was blood on both of them. Jake’s face was riven and twisted with something that went far beyond grief and rage. His mouth opened and the muscles and sinews along his jawline stood out like ropes and a terrible growling cry wrenched itself from his throat. Henry stared into the gaping mouth of the beast, transfixed. And somewhere out beyond it all he could hear Hilton Redlinger, screaming and sobbing. “Ain’t no Tibbetts gonna get the best of me! I’ll shoot you all! Sonsabitches! Sonsabitches!”

  Then Henry laid his head down on the leather seat of the fire truck and went quietly away.

  Eight

  FOR A LONG TIME he was a prisoner of his own mind. He was unaware of his body, suspended in a state of pure consciousness in which each thought was perfectly defined, like small birds perched on a high-voltage line, seen against a bright sky. He marveled at the sweet clarity of it, an initiate in the first flush of religious grace.