by Chris Lynch
Something I will never feel all right about again.
And much as they are the same, much as they are brothers and their own breed, team, planet, whatever they want to call themselves, they all do their own little and big things, by themselves, to deal with the pain and fear and boredom and anger that come with the life.
There is one guy who works at the Hothouse, he uses every single spare moment at the station lifting weights. My dad told me lots of days the guy skipped sleep for working out. He enters bodybuilding contests. He had his shirt off at the cookout. He looks like bookshelves that can walk. Another guy spends hundreds of hours producing a quarterly magazine on beekeeping that he gets printed all nice at a printer’s. Dad said the most bee thing about The Quarterly Bee was the buzzing sound all over the Hothouse when everybody fell asleep at once reading the thing. Lots of them are boxers or martial arts guys.
The Board of Inquiry says Dad, and Dad’s best friend, were a different story.
… and with all investigations now concluded, the Board has accepted the facts as stated in the original report. The two firefighters who died in the blaze were the first ones into the kitchen on the second floor of the structure. That both went in without either masks or radios. That they were quickly overcome by smoke and heat and became disoriented. They attempted to navigate their way out of the situation by using hose as a guideline as one led the other. But in their disorientation had followed the hose in the wrong direction, farther into the fire. When the explosion occurred they would not have stood any chance of escaping the full force.
While toxicology reports revealed significant levels of prescription drugs in one man and illegal drugs in the other, as well as alcohol in both their systems, the Board could not conclude if this contributed to their deaths.
“We aren’t going to just take it, are we?” I ask DJ.
I am standing on his porch with the two fishing rods in my hands. I know that what I look like is the guy in the famous painting standing expressionless with his wife and his pitchfork. But what I feel is defiant.
“I think we are,” he says as flatly as that pitchfork guy would have said it.
“We can do something about this, DJ,” I say. “We have to straighten this out. We can, you and I, as a team. Life is a team sport, right?”
“Nice,” he says. “I mean, definitely corny, but nice.”
“My dad always said that.”
“I remember. Your dad was corny.”
“He was,” I say happily. Sadly. “He was corny. He was true-blue corny. How could people not know that? Only the best people are corny.”
“It would be good if people could just shut up about them now, you know?”
“They should. They should shut up. You know what I loved? I loved when my dad would come home late at night and we would cook stuff. Whatever was there, we would just cook stuff, just to have it, just to do it. People don’t know about this kind of stuff. Great things. One of the … last times, y’know, it was really late and there was practically nothing, but he was gonna do it anyway. And he made us nachos. Even though we didn’t have nacho chips but we had had Chinese food the day before so he tried to make nachos out of these shrimp chips that were there, and he pours hot cheese over them and they just dissolved and fizzled as if we were melting plastic wrap on the stove. We didn’t eat, but we laughed a whole bunch. We laughed a whole bunch, and people don’t know anything about that kind of thing.”
DJ laughs too, for a few seconds and then something a little sadder comes over his face and he looks just a bit sorry for me.
“I’m not going fishing, Russell,” he says.
“The Board of Inquiry is wrong, DJ,” I say.
He is not budging from his doorway. And I am not budging with the fishing rods.
“I remember one four-day-off shift,” he says after a while, “when my dad built me an entire fort for my army men because he thought I wanted one, which I didn’t. But then on the second day he tripped and fell on it and it was like one of those Midwest tornado-wrecked houses, broken into more pieces than before he built it in the first place. Then, by the time he finally went back to work two days later the whole thing was built again. He had spent his whole four-day shift on dollhouse duty. I loved it, then. Then, it had become something.”
“You still love it now. I bet it’s still in your room. You think he did it all on purpose, falling on it and rebuilding it, to get you to love it?”
It was meant as a joke.
“No,” he says, staring at the silvery hook dangling off one fishing line as if he is entranced. “I think he smashed it in a fit when he saw I didn’t really want it. Then he rebuilt it because he felt bad.”
“Oh,” I say. “Anyway, it worked, huh?”
“When I saw the furniture and the army guys inside, and all the obvious repairs, how could I not …” His voice trails off, before he pulls it back up again. “But then, later, I figured it was all because he just fell on the damn thing and that’s what broke it.”
“But you see, DJ, that’s it, that’s the thing. Nobody knew them the way we did and that’s why you and I are the ones to put this all right. This stuff they are saying about our dads is not true, and we will prove it’s not true. We’ll—”
“No, we won’t,” he says crisply.
“What are you talking about? We certainly will. Why wouldn’t we?”
He stares at me, like I’m supposed to work it out for myself. Then he practically spits like he’s angry that I can’t.
“Because the board is right.”
“They are not right,” I snap. “What’s gotten into you? Why are you being like this?”
His two hands are pressed against either side of the doorway like he is Samson trying to break the building apart. He lets his head hang down in a way I cannot see his face, a pose I don’t like at all.
“DJ?”
He brings his eyes up to face me in a way I don’t like any better.
“I have known for some time now what my dad was like, Russell. That’s, pretty much, why I couldn’t face you anymore. My father was a mess, and I knew it. And it was humiliating, especially because I still thought your dad was a hero.”
“My dad was a hero!” I shout. “He still is.”
He remains calm, or something that looks like calm but isn’t at all.
“They are right, Russ. Everybody is right. They weren’t heroes, they were losers. And the sooner we let it go, the sooner it will just be over with.”
“Go to hell,” I say, just as fake calmly.
“They should have left us alone a long time ago,” he says. “They should have left us alone with what was ours, but they wanted it to be theirs because they all needed big phony heroes for themselves. I bet they leave us alone now.”
“I’ll leave you alone now,” I say, throw one fishing rod down on the porch and stomp off.
“That’s probably a good idea,” he says.
It feels like a trial. Two defendants sitting at trial except only one of us is here.
Nobody is doing anything wrong. Nobody is even saying anything. Maybe that’s a big part of the problem. The atmosphere in the classroom feels cold and stiff even if it is my imagination.
It is not my imagination. But maybe I am partly responsible for the way it feels. I know from my rigidity, my silence, my unrecognizable expression and even more unrecognizable folded hands that I have brought tension and uncertainty to the classroom just by being here.
But what do they want? Would they rather I leave? Or just stay home in the first place until everything blows over? When will that be? Can somebody tell me? Because I would really, really like to know, and I have never been in this situation before. I have never even heard of anybody in this situation before.
Montgomerie hasn’t said a word to me, hasn’t so much as glanced in my direction. Not a smirk. Almost respectful. You’d have to think this was a good thing, wouldn’t you?
Something’s got to happen today,
though, because we have a visitor scheduled. We have a representative of the fire department coming to speak to us today.
The school requested it. The school needs this put right or at least put neat because everybody recognizes how unbearable it is. The papers and radio and all the other news has not been nice. It’s not saying huge monstrous things—yet—but it is not hero talk like it was before, I can tell you that. My mother has quietly rolled out a news blackout in the house, just short of taping the windows over, but there is no avoiding it because it seeps under and around whatever you do, like smoke.
So we have a visitor. He is coming to speak to our modest homeroom class personally first, followed by a more general address to the school in the gym. And it’s someone we can trust to know what’s what because it is the big guy, Jim Clerk, coming to lay it all smooth for us.
Which, now, is making things more tense. If you tried to lift me out of my seat right now I would have all the flexibility of a garden gnome.
But after an excruciating silent wait, the bell rings for us to get up and go to our first class, which is supposed to be gym. Mr. Clerk was to be here by now, and everybody kind of squirms, looks around, half spilling out of seats but hanging on at the same time. Then, just as we are about to go, Mrs. Boyd waves us back down.
“I believe our special guest is here,” she says, more in relief than actual gladness. She scurries to the door to let him in.
It isn’t him.
It is a representative of the fire department, sure. In fact, it’s three representatives.
Two young guys, firefighters, but so new they have mustaches that could lose a competition with mine, come strolling in in full gear, with axes and masks and everything. Tailing politely behind them is a dog. A dalmatian.
“Okay, students,” a clearly confused but unfailingly polite Mrs. Boyd says, “now please give your full attention to these men … who have come here to … tell us all about life as firefighters.”
What? I know this presentation inside out. It’s the professional-day schtick.
My dad and DJ’s used to do this a lot of years ago. They practiced in our living room.
Where is Jim Clerk? Where is our reassuring talk about what really matters? Telling us all about life as firefighters?
My pose is rigid no more.
“I already know all about the lives of firefighters,” I say, smacking the top of my desk as I shove out of my seat.
“Please, Russell,” Mrs. Boyd says, but it is obvious who is in charge now and it is not Mrs. Boyd. “Please, take your seat.”
I am rolling up my sleeve as I roll up the aisle. “See this, Mrs. Boyd,” I say, pausing and poking my own sore tattooed arm, “I’ve already had the ‘lives of firefighters’ lesson and here’s my badge, okay?” I don’t really wait for her okay. I am still flashing the tattoo when I pass the fire boys. They stare pretty good.
I don’t look back as I storm out the door.
I’m a block up the road when Adrian catches up to me.
“If you are supposed to haul me back, you’re making a mistake,” I point out.
“I wasn’t told specifically what I was supposed to be doing, other than to go after you.”
“That what you’re doing?”
“I guess it is.”
“Well you can escort me where I’m going, but you’re not coming inside.”
“And that’s to the Hothouse, isn’t it.”
“Damn right it is.”
We march side by side with great purpose, almost military. The solidarity, I have to say, feels like blood being pumped into my sad body after having so much of it bled out of me.
“Thanks, man,” I say to Adrian as I deposit him there on the sidewalk outside the Hothouse.
“Y’know, whatever, your dad is still to me a total beast hero,” he says. “Always will be.”
“And to everybody else? What’s everybody else saying, Adrian?”
He stares, I stare. He opens his mouth to speak, and I just about stick my pointer finger right in there.
“It’s gotta be true, Adrian. I mean thanks and everything, but whatever comes out of your mouth next has got to be true because one more particle of bullshit is going to blow the world up.”
I pull back and wait.
Adrian nods at me, and shuts his mouth.
I turn right away from him, because I have a job to do and I have to be able to stand up and I feel strength seeping out of me by the second.
“Jim Clerk,” I call out, standing up, but still so small in between the two big machines, engine and ladder. “Jim Clerk!”
I had forgotten, totally, absolutely, how much I loved this place. The gleaming machines, the size and scale of the place, the smell of the guys, which is with you no matter where you go. The hoses and axes and endless array of cleaning products and gadgets which always, always suggested to me that this was the place in the universe that was more dedicated than any other to the ideal of doing important, heroic stuff, doing it right, keeping things right. I still remember out there at the farthest reach of my memory, coming in here the first time with my dad and being convinced beyond all reason that this place was what heaven must be. Only better, because heaven didn’t need heroics, and this place demanded it.
I cannot believe how soon all that was wiped off my board.
Jim comes out of his office.
“Shouldn’t you be in school right now?” he asks.
“Shouldn’t you be in my school right now?” I answer.
“As I’m sure you can understand, Russell, I am extraordinarily busy right now.”
“That’s the thing. That’s exactly the thing, you see. I don’t understand. I don’t understand. Why won’t you stop it, Mr. Clerk? Can’t you just make it all stop, right now and for good?”
He lets out a great sigh and with Jim Clerk’s voice even a sigh is something that reassures you and calms you right down.
Unless you are here and now.
“Is that your answer?”
“No,” he says patiently. “I apologize. I just want to say the right words. Please understand, I am doing what I can. But I can’t force things. The different investigations have to be allowed to run their course in order for people to have confidence in the results. Don’t you worry. The fact of the matter is that both your dads were heroes and will continue to be heroes in the eyes of everybody who appreciates what we do, no matter what happens. Great men are great men, and nothing can alter—”
“Is that what I think it is?” I say, as my eye drifts past Jim, to the wall beyond.
“Oh,” he says, brightening up at being able to get off the subject. Sort of. “It is of course. They did a great job, didn’t they? Fitting, and beautiful?”
He leads me to that back wall, where the shiny new tribute sits.
Sits. Propped against the wall in front of the two great beastly machines.
“Yeah,” I say, “it’s beautiful. But I thought it was going to hang in some big open conspicuous spot, a place of honor, like.”
“The thing is,” Jim says, putting a hand on my shoulder as we admire Dad’s badge together, “with things the way they are right now, it was decided that anything showy would not be appropriate, at this time.” His voice gets smaller, slower, and a little less reassuring toward the tail end there. Then it comes all the way back. “But the guys, oh, I’ll tell you, the love and devotion in this house for your fathers, is an overwhelming thing. The guys wanted to have that thing up, and there was no two ways about it, so we have our own small quiet thing here. It’s temporary.”
“Your own?” I say, like he has said something in Russian. “Your own, quiet, thing?”
“Don’t you worry, though. There will be something a little more prominent down the line....”
I don’t say anything to that. I nod, even. But I feel my tight fists bouncing lightly off my thighs. “Thank you, Jim,” I say, and start walking out.
I repeat the thanks, walk more slowly. I look back
at the big shiny tribute sitting on the floor. If one of those young kid firefighters drives the ladder truck a couple of feet too far, the thing is smashed. I walk between the world’s shiningest trucks, touching them, sorry about the fingerprints but unable to not touch. I look up and around and around again, turning and walking until I am a bit dizzy walking out into the sun.
“You okay?” Adrian says, steadying me with a flat palm on my chest.
I wait a bit, think a bit.
“Of course I am,” I say. “I’m a fireman. We can take it. Whatever it is, we can take it.”
I turn and go back to Big Jim.
“Jim,” I say as big as I can be, “I want that.” I point at it.
There is no discussion.
BURNT OFFERINGS
Life is a team sport, son, is what my dad told me over and over and over again.
Is it, though? Is it a team? Was it a team? What is a team, in the end?
Who is your team?
Who is mine?
I am staring at my computer, at today’s edition of the paper, and yesterday’s, and parts of tomorrow’s as it is being assembled because that’s the beauty, isn’t it, of the electronic paper, that you can watch all the new elements fly right up onto the screen and stick there, stick right onto the story, just as fast as it all comes in. And then you get to watch as people digest and regurgitate the story and let you all know what they think about the story even if they haven’t had enough time to give the story a proper think. You almost don’t want to look away to grab a peanut or wash your hot face because you might miss the next micro-development of the story and two thousand people’s well-considered instantaneous reaction to it. It is a beautiful thing to watch the construction of it all in 3-D, not to mention dimensions you never even asked for.
“How could nobody know?” I ask, stomping into my mother’s bedroom feeling the heat rise off of me. “Ma? About these guys? How could nobody know, with how close they were with each other. With everybody. Is that even possible, that nobody could know?”
She stares at me now, with the old-fashioned slow-mo newspaper folded in her lap, on top of the blankets. Her lips are slightly parted like she is going to tell me something but she’s not telling me anything.