ON FIRE
ON FIRE
DIANNE LINDEN
©Dianne Linden, 2013
All rights reserved
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Thistledown Press Ltd.
118 - 20th Street West
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, S7M 0W6
www.thistledownpress.com
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Linden, Dianne
On fire [electronic resource] / Dianne Linden.
Electronic monograph in HTML format.
Issued also in print format.
ISBN 978-1-927068-55-7
I. Title.
PS8573.I51O5 2013 jC813’.6 C2013-900960-4
Author photograph by Gary Ford
Cover and book design by Jackie Forrie
Printed and bound in Canada
Thistledown Press gratefully acknowledges the financial assistance of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Saskatchewan Arts Board, and the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for its publishing program.
ON FIRE
For my beautiful daughter,
For her beautiful daughter,
And for Adrian Jones, wherever he is
“Some people need a story more than food to stay alive.”
— Barry Lopez, Crow and Weasel
CONTENTS
MATTI
1: TOURETTE’S GIRL
2: JAIL
3: EMERGENCY
4: MRS. STOA
5: HOW TO STOP A PICNIC
6: THE GOLDEN AGE OF SUMMER
7: VISITING DAY
8: A SECOND WORLD
9: YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT’S OUT THERE
10: YOU’RE DAN NOW
11: VIRGIL
12: STORIES
13: HYPERVENTILATION
14: THE END OF THE GOLDEN AGE
15: GONE
16: ONE LESS CRAZY PERSON
17: CONFLAGRATION
18: D FOR DEAD
DAN
1: NOTHING CAN TRACK A HUMAN OVER WATER
2: SLEEP
3: THE DEAD ARE ALWAYS WITH US
4: DREAM JUMPS
5: I KNOW YOU
X
MATTI
1: KINGMAN
2: THE CHEERLEADERS
3: KING KOFFEE
4: WHAT A FIRE CAN DO
5: ANYBODY CAN BE VIOLENT
6: DEAD THINGS IN JARS
7: PERJURY
8: A DANGER TO HIMSELF AND OTHERS
9: SHOCK THERAPY
10: BILLY
11: THERE ARE NO ANGELS
12: ANOTHER WEIRDO
13: THE PALACE
14: BEAUTY
15: A BALLOON WITHOUT AIR
16: CHICKEN LEGS
17: HOW IT WENT DOWN
18: THE CHAINS ARE OFF
19: ONE RIGHT THING
20: IN THE SYSTEM
DAN
1: GHOSTS
2: WALKING
3: THE H PILL
4: GRAVITY
5: ATTITUDE
6: FITTING IN
7: BINGO
8: CORPSE MOSS
9: GOING UP
10: FUDGE
11: THE FIRE
12: WINGS
13: WELCOME
14: BEATRICE
15: BUTTER BRICKLE
16: A LITTLE GUY WITH SUSPENDERS
17: Paradise
18: Scars
19: Blue Blazes
MATTI
1: CHARCOAL
2: OUT OF THE PHONE BOOTH
3: LIGHTNING
4: FLYING
5: THAT APPALOOSA AGAIN
6: HOWARD
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Author’s note
MATTI
1
TOURETTE’S GIRL
I WAS OUT BEHIND MY HOUSE practicing Karate when I saw him coming down the trail from the Blackstone Wilderness. I thought he was drunk from the way he was weaving back and forth. I picked up a rock because I’m not exactly a black belt yet.
When he got closer, I saw that one of his shoes was gone and his clothes were torn to shreds. Even closer and I noticed he had bruises and cuts everywhere.
I stood there not knowing what to do and then, right in front of me, he collapsed. There was a sound like a hiccup going backwards, several of them and they all came from me. “Get up,” I said. “What’s wrong with you?”
“On fire,” is the answer he gave me. It didn’t tell me much. Everything was on fire that summer. Prophet Mountain. Sawtooth Ridge. The Skulls. The Wilderness, especially.
“Get up!” I said again. I pulled on his arm. He just stared at me. His eyes were very blue and something was leaking out of them. I didn’t think tears was the right word for it.
“Help!” I yelled. “Somebody,” even though I knew when I opened my mouth it was useless. Most of the folks in Blackstone Village had run away from the fires, so there was hardly anyone left to hear me.
Two ravens flew down into a nearby tree and squawked. That was it. There weren’t even any dogs left to bark.
I decided to run and get the collapsible wheel chair from our back porch at home. It was for my mom, when she still needed one. “I’ll be right back,” I told the on-fire guy. “Don’t move!” Not that he looked like he was going anywhere.
“Help me,” he said.
“I’m going to,” I told him. And then I took off, maybe not like I was in the Olympics, but as fast as I could.
I was used to people making fun of me. At school they called me Tourette’s Girl, like I came out of a phone booth wearing a costume and made weird noises for their entertainment. But I was a serious person who’d been waiting for a serious purpose.
So what if I couldn’t control every little sound that came out of my mouth? So what if I wasn’t average? I meant it when I said I’d help this on-fire guy. In fact I meant to save his life.
I hadn’t been able to do that for my mom, and I was damned if I’d fail again.
2
JAIL
I TOOK HIM TO WHAT WE called the town office. It was also the fire chief’s office, and the mayor’s office. And the office of the Justice of the Peace. But I called it the jail because a bear broke in one fall trying to get at the apples someone had stored there. After that we got bars on the windows.
We also put in a bed there so people who’d had too many drinks at the Hot Spot Restaurant and Pub could sober up before they drove home.
I knew the jail was empty because almost everyone who hadn’t left town earlier was out fire fighting. The door was probably locked, but that wasn’t a problem. I’d opened it before with an expired credit card I carry around for things like that.
The name of the fire chief, by the way, and the major and the Justice of the Peace is Frank Iverly. He’s my father. I had to grow up fast after we lost my mother and I’ve called him by his first name ever since.
I almost lost the on-fire guy going over the doorstop. He’d gone to sleep and I had to grab him by the arm at the last minute and get him straight again. Then I opened the door and we went inside. It was hot because the jail had been closed up for a week or so, but I couldn’t help that.
“Okay,” I said. “You can rest here.”
He just looked at me with his leaky eyes.
“This isn’t really a jail. You’re not under arrest or anything. Lie down. Then I’ll
go and get help.”
He didn’t move.
I pushed the chair across the room to where the bed was. “It’s comfortable. See?” I patted the mattress. “The bed’s a little narrow but it hasn’t been slept on by a murderer or anything.”
Still nothing.
I shook the chair a little. “Get out,” I said.
He went on sitting.
Finally I tipped the chair so far forward that he fell onto the bed face first and stayed there folded over on his side. I straightened out his legs the best I could. “I’m going to get help now,” I said again.
Then I ran off to find Marsh Dunegan, who’s a friend of ours. I knew he was still around. He was part of the reason Frank let me stay on in the village after he left.
3
EMERGENCY
SOMETHING HAPPENED TO MARSH IN THE war that made him not like being cooped up inside, so he didn’t spend much time in a house like other people. I usually tracked him down by watching for his truck.
The day I found the on-fire guy it was parked outside the Hot Spot, which was the only business left open in town, except for the Gas and Grocery. That belonged to Frank and me.
I ran toward the truck and there he was, having a cold one and talking to Allard Grass, the Hot Spot owner. “I’ve got an emergency,” I said. “Come on.”
I grabbed Marsh’s arm and pulled him up on to his feet. Then I ran ahead, but I could hear his hiking boots crunching on the gravel behind me.
Frank keeps a fan on top of the filing cabinet in the jail. Marsh turned it on when we got back and aimed it at the on-fire guy who was lying in the exact same position I’d left him in. Then Marsh sat down on the side of the bed.
“Hello,” he said. Not to me, of course.
“Flying,” the on-fire guy said. His face was bright red. It made his eyes look even bluer when he opened them. “Did you see me?”
“Afraid I missed that,” Marsh said.
“How I got here,” the guy said. “Ravens helped me.”
“I brought you here,” I said. “Ravens didn’t have anything to do with it.”
The guy shifted his eyes over to me and shielded them with one hand like he was looking into the light. “Are you an angel?” he asked.
“Of course not,” I told him. My face suddenly felt very hot. I went and stood right in front of the fan.
He rolled his head over on the pillow until he was looking at Marsh again. “This isn’t heaven then?”
“Far from it,” Marsh said. He wrapped his fingers around the on-fire guy’s wrist and counted his pulse. “How’re you feeling? Still flying?” He stretched the right eye open. Same for the left. “Follow my finger,” he said.
The on-fire guy stared at him like his eyelids were locked open in his head. Then slowly, slowly he let them close down.
Marsh opened the only window in the jail and cranked the speed of the fan up as high as it would go. Then he motioned me to follow him outside. “Where’d you find him?” he asked me.
“I was on the Wilderness trail head,” I said, “practicing my Karate when I saw him coming down.”
“You’re sure you’ve got the direction right?”
“Of course.”
Marsh blew out his breath once or twice and looked off somewhere just past my shoulder. Eventually he said, “What are you expecting to do with him?”
“Look after him, obviously,” I said. “He asked for my help and he’s going to get it.”
Marsh smiled in this sad way he has that makes you think you can see his heart in his face. He took off his sunglasses and perched them up on top of his head. Then he rubbed the marks the glasses left on his nose a few times. After that, he went back inside the jail and watched the on-fire guy sleep.
Eventually Marsh rolled him over. There were rows of round, red marks on the backs of his legs. Some of them had scabbed up. Some were weeping clear liquid.
“Are those burns?” I asked.
“Yes,” Marsh said. “But not from a wildfire. He’s banged up, but he’s not burned like that.” He slid his glasses back onto his nose. “And I’m pretty sure it isn’t because he flew down here.”
Marsh got up and motioned me outside again. The bench in front of the town office was in the sun, so we sat on the ground in front of a fir tree. It was still hot there, but the shade at least gave us the idea of coolness.
“We can’t keep him here, Matti,” Marsh said.
“Why not?”
“He needs to see a doctor.”
“You were a medic in the war,” I said. I wasn’t supposed to mention those days, but I’d seen the medals he kept in the glove compartment of his truck. And Frank told me once that Marsh had saved his life. “Didn’t you just give him a checkup?”
“I wouldn’t call it that. And my medic certificate isn’t up to date.”
“Okay,” I said. I was trying to think fast. “Then you really don’t know what he needs, do you? Professionally speaking, I mean.”
Marsh started to comment, but I went right on. “Besides, it’s like I said. I’m going to save his life. You ought to understand what that means.”
A whole flock of ravens flew down and landed on the roof of the post office. I couldn’t remember seeing so many together there before. They bobbed up and down and made little clicking sounds. “Fire’s driving them down,” Marsh said.
The ravens got louder and louder, like they knew something we should and wanted to get in on the conversation.
“All right. We’ll keep him here overnight. I’ll park my truck out in front so I can be close by. But after that . . . ”
“I could sleep here,” I said.
“No, you couldn’t.” Marsh got up and dusted fir needles off the seat of his shorts. “Cripes, Matti, you’re only fourteen. And if he’s not better in the morning, I’m driving him down to the hospital in Kingman.”
I crossed my arms over my chest.
“I’ll also have to get in touch with Frank.”
“Good luck with that,” I told him.
What Marsh meant was he’d promised to look after me while Frank was gone and he’d have to make sure Frank agreed with what he was doing. That was nothing new.
And what I meant was that out where Frank was fire-fighting, and even most places here in the village for that matter, cell phones and even TVs and computers didn’t work very well because we lived in what you call a blackout zone. It would take a few days to get a message through to Frank on Allard’s CB radio. Then probably a few more to hear anything back.
Marsh told me to go home and come back around seven, when it was at least a little cooler. “I could just wait here,” I said.
He told me I couldn’t because I didn’t know how to wait.
He was wrong about that.
It’s true, when I was younger I didn’t. I’d stand and stare at the clock in the kitchen until I got a nosebleed, trying to make the hands go faster. But as I got older I understood how time worked.
If I absolutely had to wait I went off somewhere to be alone and blow off a little steam. Sometimes I made sounds like a teakettle when it’s boiling. Other times it was more like I was pushing a big rock up a hill or pulling back a hiccup.
Then there were my hands. They were hardly ever still.
I pretended to people that I was practicing sign language when I made shapes with them. But I wasn’t signing anything. Just releasing energy.
When you have Tourette’s, it can feel really good not to be in control of everything your body does.
4
MRS. STOA
THE OTHER REASON I COULD STAY at home while Frank was away was an old lady named Mrs. Stoa. She was Frank and Marsh’s English teacher in high school. They’d brought her down from Riker’s Creek at the first of the week when it got too smokey to breathe up there.
She’d made a fuss about leaving, of course. Most of the old-time mountain people did. But now she was here, she seemed to think she owned the place.
I went out on the front porch about five-thirty to kill some time. I like sitting in the swing out there. It helps me stay relaxed. Mrs. Stoa got there before me, though. She’s as quiet as a lynx when she wants to be, and tiny compared to me. I’ll admit I was a little jealous of that. I’ve been wearing women’s clothes since I was ten.
I’ll also admit I’m not very good with the elderly. But I swear I did not mean to sit down on top of her.
“Good Lord, Matilda,” she said. She swatted me with a paperback book she was reading and I jumped a mile.
“What are you doing here?” I snapped.
“Reading,” she told me. She was wearing a light green surgical mask like we’re all supposed to as protection against the smoke in the air.
I thought it looked revolting when she moved her mouth underneath the mask to talk. “Please take that off,” I said, “if you’re addressing me.”
She pushed it up on top of her head like a little green party hat. “What I’m doing is called reading,” she said. “You should try it.”
I scooted over to the opposite side of the swing. It wasn’t the same as being alone and I was nervous about going down to the jail, so I suppose I made a few noises.
“You sound like both sides of a wrestling match,” she said. I thought that was pretty harsh.
“I have Tourette’s Syndrome, as I’m sure Frank told you. I come out here to be alone and ticoff.”
“Who is it you’re trying to tick-off, as you say?”
I didn’t bother to answer her question.
“A tic,” I said, “is like a twitch or a spasm. Some people with T. S. show it in their muscles. I mostly have vocal tics.” I didn’t mention about my hands. She could figure that out herself.
“As long as you don’t start swearing,” Mrs. Stoa said. “I draw the line there.”
“Most people with Tourette’s don’t burst out with four-letter words,” I told her. “If you don’t know any better than that, you should start reading hardcover books that are more educational.” She puckered up her lips, but neither of us said anything for a while.
On Fire Page 1