Burn

by Suzanne Phillips

  “This is one man to another,” Randy says. “A conversation on equal footing.”

  “Now you’re trying to build me up.”

  “Because I called you a man?”

  “I can’t even drive yet.”

  “Experiences age a person, mature them faster sometimes than years,” Randy says. “I think you already know that.”

  “Because my life sucks?”

  “Does it all suck?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “And you don’t see how it’s going to get any better. Not now.”

  “The whole school saw the photos,” Cameron says.

  “Probably,” Randy agrees. “Next week they’ll find something else to talk about.”

  “I doubt it.”

  Cameron flattens his hand against his thigh, the knife filling his palm perfectly. The curved handle against the meaty part of his hand feels right.

  “It’s hard at fourteen to pull yourself out of the moment, to see a few years, or even a few days down the road.”

  Cameron just wants to get through tomorrow.

  “Life will get better,” Randy says. “Sooner rather than later.” He shifts, turns in his chair so that he’s facing Cameron. “I’ve worked a lot of violent crimes. You’re probably real familiar with the anger that follows an assault, but there’s more than that. I think you should be ready for it.”

  “For what?”

  “Delayed reaction. Victims of violent crime move through the aftermath in stages. You’re going to be dealing with this for a while,” he says. “It’s part of moving on, getting past it.”

  “I’m only angry.”

  “Right now,” Randy agrees.

  “What else is there?”

  “Fear.”

  Been there, done that.

  “Anger and fear are a dangerous mix of emotions,” Randy says. “Together they make a whole new person. Make a person do things they wouldn’t normally do.”

  “Yeah? Like what?”

  “Hurt someone. Hurt themselves.”

  Cameron feels like Randy is walking circles around him, that he knows something Cameron doesn’t but needs to, and it’s keeping him rooted. He thinks he should get up, walk into the house, into his bedroom and close the door. It’s what he wants to do. Instead he says, “You think I would hurt someone?”

  “I think you might,” Randy agrees. “You might get yourself a whole lot of hurt, too. I don’t want that to happen.”

  “Why?”

  “The system is filled with lost boys.”

  “You’re just doing your job.”

  “It’s more than that. I have a special interest here.” He places his elbows on his knees and leans forward. “You’ve already acted in fear and anger.”

  Cameron’s hands loosen, fall completely without feeling against his thighs.

  “How did you get that scab on your head?”

  Cameron doesn’t answer.

  “It looks like a burn.”

  “It’s not.”

  “You hear about the fire?”

  “It was on the news,” Cameron admits. “I saw some of it last night.”

  “Did you go anywhere near there yesterday? After you left school?”

  “I went through the woods,” Cameron says. “I go there a lot.”

  Randy nods. “Good answer. Someone reported a kid matching your description cut into the woods shortly before it went up.”

  “And you think I did it?”

  “There weren’t a whole lot of kids out of school yesterday. Sometimes anger can get the better of a person, can cause a whole lot of things to happen a person never intended.”

  “I think I’ll remain silent,” Cameron says.

  “You’ll need to do better than that,” Randy advises. “The fire department found your school ID card not far from that burnt-out car. I’m just wondering, if you did do it, was it a reaction to what happened to you in the locker room? Is it going to happen again? I’ve been thinking a lot about it. Some firebugs, they get into it because it gives them a rush. It becomes an addiction. Others, especially kids acting out of anger, feeling helpless, find it by accident. It scares the hell out of them. They’ll never touch it again.”

  Randy waits for him to work it out in his mind, to decide where he stands. An addict or an accident?

  “You think if I did do it, I’m done with it now? I scared the hell out of myself and will never touch it again?”

  It wasn’t scary, not like Randy means. It was so much bigger than him and impossible to control. But he beat it. Something that big and wild and he beat it. That’s power; it just about makes him a superhero. He knows it, wants it, won’t give it up.

  It’s in his blood and he supposes that does make him an addict.

  “That’s where my money is. My job, too.”

  Randy’s voice is so full of confidence that Cameron feels his guts twist. He doesn’t want Randy’s trust. He doesn’t need the extra weight, another face in his head popping up and trying to turn him into Dudley Do-Right.

  “Maybe you should arrest me,” Cameron suggests.

  Randy taps the arm of Cameron’s chair to get his attention and then looks into his eyes almost like he’s trying to drill for understanding.

  “You don’t want to be in prison, Cameron. What’s been happening to you at school pales in comparison.”

  Cameron nods. He doesn’t think prison could be worse, but it’s probably more of the same. And Randy is right, Cameron doesn’t want that.

  “I’m trying to help you,” Randy says. “You’re still a kid. You’ll get past what happened this week. One traumatic event doesn’t have to make a kid a criminal.”

  Randy sits back in his chair, turns and stares into Cameron’s face.

  “I’ve read studies, real case reports that describe fire as a reaction to trauma and in every single one the flames seem to flow from the hand without conscious thought. Most of the respondents couldn’t remember holding a lighter or a match. They couldn’t remember how the fire started, only that it was.” He turns to Cameron. “I’m going with that. For now.”

  Cameron likes the image Randy created, of fire shooting from his fingertips. That’s exactly what it felt like, fire instead of blood in his veins.

  “Don’t talk to anybody about the fire,” Randy says.

  Cameron nods.

  “Not your friends. Not your mom. Not the police.”

  “Okay.”

  “The police are going to come. I told them you’re not talking unless I’m in the room.”

  He stands up, his gun belt creaking, and looks down at Cameron.

  “You tell them what you told me. You were in the woods yesterday. You go there a lot. And that your ID card has been missing for days.

  “They’ll ask you why you go to the woods. Do you have an answer for that?”

  “It’s quiet there. I can think. Sometimes I hike the trails all the way to the lake.”

  “You go there to hike,” Randy says. “And, Cameron, if you have a problem with them searching your room, your clothes, you go take care of that now.”

  Cameron doesn’t jump to his feet, doesn’t want to give himself away. He rolls the pocket knife under his palm, drying the sweat against his jeans, and holds Randy’s gaze a few seconds longer.

  “Listen to me, Cameron, sometimes we do things we never intended to do. Your whole life doesn’t have to be defined by one mistake.”

  THURSDAY

  8:00PM

  The police didn’t come.

  Randy sat in a chair in the living room, first reading the newspaper and then a magazine on fly fishing, until after ten o’clock. Cameron sat at the kitchen table with his Spanish book and his mother and guessed the best he could at what might have been assigned. They completed a lesson on traveling from Barcelona to Madrid, using phrases that connected them with food, a bathroom, and a place to stay that wasn’t too expensive. Robbie watched TV in their bedroom, canned laughter seeping through the
floor.

  Randy appears in the doorway. “They’re not coming. Not tonight.”

  Cameron feels his mom grow tight, like every muscle went on instant standby. She places the English/Spanish dictionary on the table with too much care and then sits back in her chair.

  “Maybe,” she says, her voice at about thirty degrees below zero, “they found the person who really set that fire. They’re busy arresting the criminal.”

  She accused Randy of being cynical. Of taking his work home.

  “Cameron did NOT set that fire. Have you ever seen him with matches? Does he seem like the type of kid who’d go out and deliberately destroy property?”

  “No. But he went through a traumatic event yesterday —”

  “He didn’t set that fire, Randy. My son did NOT set that fire.”

  “The detectives are coming,” Randy warned.

  “Why?” his mom demanded. “Why do they think it’s Cameron?”

  Randy told her about the witness, about Cameron’s ID card. He told her, when looked at from a police perspective, setting the fire was a natural reaction to what happened to Cameron in the locker room. “Victims of violent crime, of sexual assault, a lot of times they explode or implode.”

  “Sexual assault? No way! That didn’t happen,” Cameron protested. He jumped up from his chair. His pulse slammed in his wrists, in his temples. “They didn’t do that.”

  Randy turned to him. “We’re treating it as a sexual assault, Cameron. They held you against your will, exposed you, and took pictures they later put on the Internet.”

  As if that settled it. As if that was all that mattered. Everyone knows sexual assault means rape. Everyone will know, will think that’s what Patterson did to him.

  “But they didn’t touch me.” Cameron heard his voice rising, turning sharp. “It was nothing like that.”

  “When are the police going to talk to Cameron about that?” his mom wanted to know. “That was a crime.”

  “We know that, and Cameron will give his statement, but the situation is contained. The boys were arrested.”

  “Are they still in jail?” Doubt dripped from his mother’s voice. “They aren’t, are they?”

  “They were released to their parents this morning,” Randy admitted. “Neither one has a history of trouble with police, or at school —”

  “Neither does Cameron. But the police are still coming. Not because my son was hurt, but because they think he committed a crime.”

  “It wasn’t sexual assault,” Cameron tried to interrupt them. He wanted to scream but his heart wasn’t cooperating. It kicked into slow and he couldn’t get his breath to do more than whisper.

  “The fire is an open case and the evidence leads to Cameron.” Randy pushed his hands through his hair and looked down at both of them. “You need to know that. You both need to know that. This isn’t about guilt. Right now, right here, our concern is damage control. The fire torched a lot of land, damaged public access, and came within three hundred yards of a domestic residence. The case will stay open until someone is arrested.”

  “Stop. Stop. Stop.” Cameron raised his hands to his face, felt the tears, hot and sticky and girly, and curled his fingers, dug them into the skin around his eyes. “It wasn’t sexual assault. They didn’t do that. They didn’t.”

  He felt his mother’s small hands on his arms, pulling. Heard her call Randy’s name and then Randy came at him from behind, pried loose Cameron’s hands, and held them to his chest. He couldn’t move. It was as good as wearing a straitjacket.

  “They didn’t rape me,” Cameron sobs.

  “We know that, Cameron,” Randy said. “Assault isn’t always rape.”

  “That’s a lie. Everyone at school knows it’s rape.” He opened his eyes. His mom was standing in front of him, crying, her nose running. She knew. He could see it in her eyes. She knew exactly what it would mean to him if the police called it a sex crime. “Mom. Mom, don’t let him do this. This can’t be me. I want to die.”

  “Randy?”

  He felt Randy’s shoulders lift. “It’s real clear. The attack meets the criteria for sexual assault.”

  “No! Make it go away, Mom. Please.”

  “Can we do that?” she asked Randy. “How can we do that?”

  “You can drop the charges,” Randy said. “But I don’t think that’s the way to go.”

  They argued about it, Randy insisting that Cameron needed to know that Patterson and his stooge were prosecuted. That what happened to Cameron was wrong and society said so, too.

  “I can’t be the boy who was raped.”

  His mom agreed with him. She promised she’d talk to the D.A.

  “He can decide to prosecute without your cooperation,” Randy said.

  “But that’s not likely,” his mom pressed. “Is it?”

  “You might get him to lessen the charges. Make it aggravated assault,” Randy agreed.

  “He didn’t do it, Randy,” his mom continues, pulling Cameron from his memories. “I want you to believe that. I want to hear you say it.”

  Randy looks at her a long time, then lets his eyes connect with Cameron’s.

  “If the detectives come by in the morning, call me,” he says. “Don’t talk to them without me.”

  He didn’t say so, but Cameron can tell Randy isn’t relying on his mother for help. It’s up to Cameron to save himself.

  “I remember.”

  “I’m going home.”

  He leaves through the kitchen door. Cameron listens to his boots on the wood deck, in the gravel driveway, the slam of his car door and then the metallic scratch as the engine turns over. He turns to his mother. He feels a slow burn where his heart should be.

  “He never said I did it,” he tells her. “He never came right out and said I did it.”

  “But he thinks it,” she insists.

  “He’s a cop and all the evidence points to me,” Cameron says. He wants his mother to admit it, that her son is possibly a criminal. He wants to see what she’ll do with it.

  “He shouldn’t think it,” she says. “He knows you. He knows me.”

  “He doesn’t know me that well.”

  “Apparently not.”

  Silence gathers.

  “You won’t ask me if I did it,” he says. “If I started the fire. Why won’t you ask me?”

  “I don’t need to. You’re my son. I know you.”

  Cameron lets his face flood with the certainty of his crime. He wants to be as transparent as a ghost. He wants her to doubt him. He wants her to know. His mother is great at escaping the truth and for once he wants her to face it.

  She turns away.

  “Ask me, Mom.”

  “No.”

  “I want you to.”

  She looks up from the counter she’s wiping down. She’s tired. Her skin always gets a shade lighter, her eyes darker, when she’s worn out.

  “Don’t do this, Cameron,” she says.

  “What? Make you face the truth about me? Is that what you don’t want?” he demands. “Could you still love me, Mom?”

  “I love you,” she says.

  “Ask me.”

  “Okay. Did you? Did you start that fire?”

  Her hand, still wrapped in the dish towel, trembles.

  She already believes it. Part of her, anyway. Most of her refuses to let it be the truth. She’s lived her life that way for as long as he can remember. She knew their father was a bully, a creep, but refused to let that be their reality until it was almost too late. Same thing with Patterson. She had to know that talking to the counselor at school wouldn’t be enough. She had to know that the blood on his shirt the next day was from his nose. She knew that it wasn’t over. And now it’s too late.

  “I’m taking the Fifth,” Cameron says.

  He leaves her standing at the counter. On his way out of the kitchen he flips the light switch. His last look at her shows half of her aglow from the range light, the other half in darkness, and he
thinks that’s about right. That’s his mom.

  FRIDAY

  8:35AM

  Cameron’s mom insists on parking the minivan in the school lot and walking him into the principal’s office.

  “No way!” Cameron protests. “I’m not walking into school with my mommy.”

  “Then walk ahead of me,” she offers. “I’m talking to Mr. Vega first thing. And I’m not letting you out of my sight until I hear what I need to hear.”

  “What’s that?” Cameron asks, keeping a space of three feet between them, looking around him at the groups of kids. No one seems to notice him. Yet.

  “That those boys aren’t in school today. I won’t be happy until I hear that they’re never returning.”

  “They have to go to school, Mom. It’s the law.”

  “But they don’t have to go to this school,” she says.

  The halls are musty and damp. Too many bodies, too little air. Cameron increases his pace, wants to shake his mom loose, wants to go looking for Patterson, find him before the asshole finds Cameron. His blood throbs through his veins. He flexes his fingers. He’s primed. He’s ready. He’ll take Patterson so fast the guy won’t have a chance. He presses his hand against the outside of his pocket, traces the shape of the pocketknife, and feels his breath change. It becomes as fast and shallow as when he’s running.

  “Wait up.”

  His mother’s heels click against the linoleum as she rushes to catch up. They’re not even close to the office when he sees Vega’s dark head turn toward them. Recognition plays with his face, makes it look happy to see them and sorry for it at the same time.

  Vega extends his hand to Cameron’s mother, but she ignores it.

  “I’m dropping Cameron off for school,” she tells the principal. “Those boys aren’t here?”

  “No. We’ve given them a formal suspension of five days. Like I told you, there’ll be a hearing. That’ll help us determine the next step.”

  His mother nods.

  Five days. That means Patterson and Murphy won’t be back until Wednesday. Cameron will have to wait. He doesn’t like that. His veins are swollen with anger.

  “I’m holding you personally responsible for my son’s safety,” his mom tells the principal.

  “You have my guarantee,” Vega promises and places a cool hand on Cameron’s shoulder. “I’m real sorry about what happened here Wednesday,” he says to Cameron. “We’re taking care of that. All you need to do is think about academics. And maybe you’d like to talk to Mr. Elwood?”