Ralph said almost to himself, “I’ve never needed a match to set a fire.”
In the morning, a quiet permeated the camp, and when the boys trooped out to shout their pledge of allegiance to the dawn, their mouths stopped up as if their tongues had been cut off.
On the side of the barrack wall, the words:
TO BE A GOD
YOU MUST KILL THE ENEMY
YOU MUST BURY THE ENEMY
YOU MUST NEVER GROW UP
YOU MUST BURN THEM
YOU MUST FREEZE THEM
YOU MUST GIVE YOURSELF TO THE CAUSE OF JESUS
There, besides the hastily scrawled revision, written in rough chalk, the body of Jesus de Miranda, held up by barbed wire twisting like vines around his limbs and torso.
Ralph glanced at Jack, who laughed, and then to Marsh who had a tear in his eye. Behind them, Cleft came striding, whistle in his mouth, wearing a green baseball cap and green fatigues. “Into the showers, you pansy ass bitches!” Cleft shouted, blowing the whistle intermittently.
Then the whistle dropped from his mouth. He saw the writing. He saw the boy’s body.
Cleft reached up and drew his baseball cap off, letting it fall to the ground. He let out a whisper that sounded like, “Holy.”
And then the rocks. Jack had made sure there were enough, just enough, for ten of the boys, Ralph included and they leapt on Cleft, stronger now, their own biceps built up from weeks of labor.
Cleft tried to reach for the pepper spray, but he had to raise his hands defensively to ward off the blows. Cleft was like a mad bull, tossing them off to the side, but the rocks slammed and slashed at his face, tearing his hawk nose open, a gash above his eye blinding him with blood flow, and as the red explosions on his face increased, Ralph felt something overpowering within him. He became the most ferocious, ramming at Cleft with all his weight, cutting deep into Cleft’s shoulder with the sharp edge of a rock, bringing the big man to his knees.
Ralph grabbed for Cleft’s belt, tearing it off the loops, holding up the pepper spray and stun gun and baton.
Ralph lifted the baton in the air and brought it down hard on Cleft’s skull.
And then all of the boys were upon Cleft.
“Yes!” Ralph shouted, high-fiving Jack, running with the others — a pack of wolves — across the muddy ground, through the steamy heat, rocks held high, Cleft’s pepper spray in Ralph’s left hand.
Jack held the stun gun, and Marsh, the fastest runner of them all was in the lead, waving the baton that still had Cleft’s fresh blood on it.
They shrieked the words of rebellion they'd written on the Wall. Several of the boys had taken down the body of Jesus de Miranda and hoisted it like a battering ram between them as they flew to the sergeants’ barracks.
They caught the masters in their showers, mid-coffee, shaving, cutting at them with their own razors, scalding them, beating them, until two more were dead, and the others unconscious.
Later, Ralph remembered the feeling of all of them, all the boys together, moving as one, storming the island, like lava overflowing a volcano.
When it was mostly finished and night covered them, Ralph leaned toward Commodore; the man was tied to a chair, his great muscles caught in wire. Ralph held out a cigarette lighter, a souvenir from a downed sergeant.
Stepping forward, Ralph struck the lighter, the flame coming forth.
“Arsonist, murderer,” Commodore said, his eyes bloodshot, his face a mass of bruises.
“Shut up or I’ll cut out your tongue,” Jack laughed. Ralph looked back at him, and wondered if, like Jack, he was covered with blood as well. He heard the shouts of the other boys as they raided the food supply.
“We didn’t kill that little boy, you dumbfuck,” Commodore said.
“Okay, here goes the tongue,” Jack said, coming up to the bound man, clippers in hand.
“Liar,” Ralph said, twisting the lighter in front of Commodore’s face.
“One of you must’ve done it, “Commodore spat, but it was the last thing he said, for Jack had the clippers in his mouth. Ralph couldn’t look, it wasn’t something he enjoyed, but Jack had that glow on him, his whole body radiated with his joy.
The man didn’t even try to scream.
Ralph looked at the blood on Jack’s hands.
“Jesus, Jack,” Ralph said, feeling the spinning world come back to him, the world of sanity that had somehow gotten out of control. “Jesus, Jack.”
“What?” Jack laughed, dropping the clippers, clapping his red hands together.
Ralph looked back at the man, his mouth a blossom of bright red.
The man’s eyes did not leave Ralph’s face.
Ralph was amazed that the man didn’t cry out in pain, that he kept his eyes forward, on Ralph, not pleading, not begging, but as if he were trying to let some truth up from his soul.
“Jack,” Ralph went over to his friend, his blood-covered friend, his friend who had helped him get through this time in Hell. “Was he lying?”
“Yep,” Jack said, averting his gaze. The blood ran down his face like tears. “He’s one of them. They always lied to us.”
“You sure?”
Jack closed his eyes. “Yep.”
Then, “Did you and Marsh kill Jesus?”
Jack opened his eyes, staring straight at him. “If that were true, would it change anything? Jesus is dead. He came here. They did all this.”
Ralph felt his heart stop for a moment, and then the beating in his chest became more rapid.
“We’re just like them,” Ralph whispered, mostly to himself.
“No,” Jack grinned, blood staining his teeth, “They’re weak. We’re strong. They’re time is up. Ours is just beginning.”
“What did you do that got you sent here?” Ralph asked for the last time.
“Nothing,” Jack said. “Nothing that you need to know about.”
“You killed someone, didn’t you?”
“It was nothing, believe me,” Jack smiled. “And you’ve done some killing yourself today, haven’t you?”
“I wouldn’t have if—”
“You’ll never know,” Jack slapped Ralph on the back. “But it’s okay. I understand.”
Later, the man they called Commodore died.
Jack found Ralph in the dark, sitting on a bench outside the barracks. He put his arm over Ralph’s shoulders and whispered, “Now we can go home. We can go home and make them all pay.”
“Are we men yet?” Ralph asked, feeling an icy hand grab him around the chest, under his skin, closing up his throat until his voice was barely a whimper.
“No,” Jack said. “We’re better than men. We’re gods. Come on, let’s play with fire. You’ll feel better after that, won’t you?” He stood, drawing Ralph up by the hand. “You’re good at fires, Ralph. We need you. I need you.”
“I don’t know,” Ralph said. “Yesterday it was one thing. It seemed different. Jesus was dead. They were like the Nazis.”
“I need you,” Jack repeated, squeezing Ralph’s hand tight, warm, covering Ralph’s fingers in his. “You as you are, Ralph. Not what they wanted. As you are. I want you.”
Ralph felt his fingers curl slightly under the weight of Jack’s. He looked down at their hands and then up at Jack’s face. “I can’t.”
“No shame,” Jack said, “Let’s set it all on fire. Glorious fire. Let’s make it burn all the way up to the sun.”
“That’s my dream,” Ralph whispered, a shock of recognition in Jack’s words, a secret between the most intimate of friends. “How did you know my dream? My first night here, I saw it in my mind, a fire going all the way to the sun.”
They stood there, frozen for a moment; then, Jack slowly let go of Ralph’s hand, leaving in his palm a new silver lighter. “Go set fires across the land.”
Before the sun rose from the sea into an empty sky, the fires got out of hand. Ralph realized — putting aside other considerations — that it was the most beautiful thin
g he had ever seen in his young life, the way fire could take away what was right in front of his eyes, just burn it off with no reason other than its own hunger.
Jack said it was the best day he’d ever had, and when the burning was done, the boys ran off to the showers, all except for Ralph who went in search of something new to burn.
People Who Love Life
Why did he always have to follow her wherever she went and bring her back?
Irene liked to go down to the schoolyard because of the children, the little children. Their faces, their faces, their tiny hands, their dresses and shorts and shirts and shoes, so small, so perfect. It bothered her when he volunteered to go, too, because the edge of the schoolyard was her special place, the children were there, and he didn’t know anything about children.
Children had that edge; they could smell things when they were bad, and they weren’t afraid to say it. And when things were truly good, children sensed that, too. Children were the thing.
“Oh, but when we were children,” the girl had said in the kitchen, and Irene had had to stare at her younger sister long and hard before she realized that she wasn’t a girl at all, but a woman in her early forties: Gretchen was still pretty and adolescent, even with her slightly etched face and graying hair.
Irene could not stand her sometimes, although Gretchen on her own was one thing—sweetness and light even though she knew, but Gretchen with this man she’d married was quite another. Irene had never really enjoyed his company, although she couldn’t ever tell Gretchen how she felt; and so, she was often stuck with him, this William person, even when she went to the schoolyard to watch her children play.
“When we were children,” Irene replied. “Good lord, I can’t even remember, barely.”
Gretchen loaded the dishwasher. “I remember like yesterday. Days like today, just like today. Look outside the window, it’s just like when we were children and mother was in here cleaning, looking out at us.”
But, of course, there were no children out the window now.
Gretchen was the most self-assured person that Irene had ever known, but she lied. Irene knew that about Gretchen: she lied. Gretchen could not possibly remember their childhood accurately, she had no head for memories. She blocked them purposefully, like closing doors on useless rooms. Irene remembered just about everything, but she had lied, also. Irene was not fond of remembering: days like today, indeed. All days, like today. Unending. I just want to leave. Why won’t they just let me leave? They had been a family of liars, and had never quite grown out of it, although Irene was tired, today, lying to herself about what she felt and what she wanted. Truly wanted. I just want to go by myself.
“You were undoubtedly two of the most spoiled girls in creation, all those toys and the way your mother used to dress you up for Sunday school like little dolls,” William had said, and Irene thought:
Why do you live here with us when you’re so awful to Gretchen? How you did to her what you did, let alone how I must pay for it, is beyond imagining. But you have no imagination, do you? You think it is the way you see it. In front of your face. The way you see it, with no one else allowed to look.
He was an old man who pretended to be young, but she saw right through that, right to that middle-aged heart with its bloodless beating. He pretended things were all right, that there was good to every purpose.
“We were never really spoiled,” Gretchen said, “but there’s always been someone to watch out for us.”
“Amen to that,” William said, clasping his hands together.
He had decided to come with her this day, and so there he was at her right arm, helping her every few steps as if she were a complete cripple.
“I can handle the steps quite well, thank you, William,” she said, and knew she sounded testy. Her right leg twisted as she stepped down to the sidewalk. Again, she had lied; stairs were difficult for her, the way her feet went, one moving almost against the other, but once she was on flat ground she was fine. But she was tired of his help.
“All righty, then,” he said, and he made it sound like he was trying to be funny.
She could not stand people who spoke like that. People who made fun of everything. People who love life.
If only he’d let her go sometimes, instead of following after her like a yappy dog.
“I am not so far gone,” she told him, “that I can’t walk by myself. You know that, don’t you?”
“Oh, Irene, I was trying to be helpful.”
“Don’t think me ungrateful. You and Gretchen have been kind, since the accident. More than kind. But I don’t want kindness, not anymore.” She had given up on direct sarcasm, and never thought he would get it, anyway. Why couldn’t he just let her go?
“You’re almost all healed.” He reached over and touched around her face.
Irene gasped.
He was always close to touching her, and there of all places, but he had never accomplished more than the slightest graze. She stood still as if he were pulling a stray hair from her forehead.
He touched her scars. His fingers were soft along the place where the skin had bubbled and obscured the vision of her left eye.
Why did his fingers seem so warm, when she knew him to be so cold, so empty? Was he laughing at her, the way he laughed at the whole of creation?
Finally, he removed his hand. “Does it hurt?”
“Not now. Like a headache, sometimes, but the pills take care of that, but please, let’s not talk about it, I feel all talked out, and I see it in the mirror every morning, so I don’t find it interesting.” Would that shut him up? She would like to just have a nice day and watch the children in the schoolyard.
“God loves you, you know, Irene. He really does, and in His infinite wisdom,” and he would’ve gone on with his smug little litany, too.
But she spat at him, “I don’t care for your God, William, and I don’t care for you. I was going to spend the day alone, in my own way, and you have to come along with your almighty creator and ruin everything once again.”
“I know you don’t mean that,” he whispered, like a hurt child. “I know you’re saying it because of great pain.”
“You,” she said, “you are my great pain. You and your miracles.”
He was walking several steps behind her, and she thought of trying to lose him in the village, but she really must go and see the children when they went out to the playground. She must not miss them.
Perhaps she’d stop in for a cup of coffee, but only for a minute, because the children would be waiting to see her.
Only the children knew how to treat her, how to respect her wishes. They had almost come through for her last time: their tiny hands, so willing, so lovely. It was because children knew things instinctively, they had gut reactions, they were so close to the real pulse of life.
Grownups had lost it all, and certainly men like this William person that Gretchen had married were so out of touch, so clueless, that everything was like a car: maintenance and repair, tinkering around with things that were best left to the junkyard. And always the male need for possession.
Well, I do not belong to you.
She limped another quarter mile through the village, and it was empty. It had been mostly empty when she and Gretchen had been girls, and it was empty when they were in their twenties and thirties, and now it was desolate. She had wanted to leave the village for as long as she could remember, but she’d never had the nerve.
Now she knew of only one route, and damn him, he was going to shadow her.
The sunlight was flat and nothing escaped it: she saw her reflection in the bookstore window. The scars weren’t healing at all, they were simply drying. Her mouth looked terrible, and she couldn’t bring herself to look at her jaw. Her hair was mostly gone, but the scarf hid that.
The clerk inside the bookstore pretended not to stare at her from behind the counter, but she saw him stealing glances. I don’t mind, she thought, nodding to him, let this be a lesson
to you. When it’s time, it’s time.
William stood behind her. She saw his reflection. “My sister told me once that life was precious,” Irene said aloud, knowing he would hear. “And I believed her. But she meant something different than this.”
“Life is the greatest gift,” he said. He sometimes had a voice like nails on wood, and in the county they said he had a voice like thunder, but he sounded to her most like teeth grinding. Nothing more than teeth, one bone wearing away at another.
She turned to face him. She counted to ten, silently. Her tongue went dry in her mouth. “I am going to have some coffee, and I want to be alone.”
She walked on down the sidewalk, trying to stay in the shade.
She passed Fred Smith, whom she hadn’t seen since just after the accident when the town meeting was called, and he actually tipped his baseball cap to her, which seemed a rather pleasant gallantry, considering what he’d said about her in the past. “Way I see it, you belong somewhere between a freak show and a wienie roast,” Fred had muttered from the safety of his pickup truck, but she hadn’t blamed him because he was right.
“Well, hey, Miz Hart,” he said this time, but he didn’t look at her, not directly. Her shoes, but not her face.
She didn’t blame him: she was surprised that the young man in the bookstore had tried. They’re all afraid they’re going to turn to stone.
She walked around him into the Five & Dime, but not before she heard Fred say, more stiffly than when he’d greeted her, “Hello, preacher.”
And William’s absurdly heartfelt reply, “This is the day the Lord has made, Fred, rejoice.”
“Yeah, well…” Fred had nothing more to say.
The lunch counter was grease-spattered and vacant.
Ever since the freeway had been built closer to Blowing Rock, the village didn’t even have the trucks coming through. As if the world knew not to come through here. It’s a cursed place. Unclean, like in biblical days.
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