Fire Point

by John Smolens

  “Hey, Sean,” Arnie said from the door of the garage. “Sean.” Colby seemed to come out of a trance. “Let it go,” Arnie said. “Come on. Let it go.”

  Martin got in the car and started the engine. As he pulled out of the lot, he could see Colby in the side-view mirror. He was just standing there.

  THE NEXT COUPLE of nights Sean drove by Martin’s house, always in the evening, a little before sunset, just to see their progress. At that point the house had been gutted, the old plaster and lath thrown out the windows and loaded in Pearly’s truck. The tall weeds had been cut down, so the house stood tall on its clean, bare lot.

  He hadn’t seen Arnie since that day at the station, so at night he mostly drove around by himself. One night he drove by Martin’s house around midnight. He was beered up and he felt light, quick, and alert. He knew of a two-track that ran into the woods at the bend in the road, so he parked his truck in there and then walked the shoulder of Shore Road down to the house. He went into the backyard, shinnied up a drainpipe, and climbed into an open second-story window. He could barely see, but after a minute his eyes adjusted to the dark. Interior walls had been torn out, and new partitions of Sheetrock re-divided the rooms. Some windows had been closed in with plywood, while new openings had been cut where none existed before.

  He walked through the house as though he were looking for something. At one point he took a long beer piss on the floor. Then he found a pile of old velvet drapes in a closet and heaped them in the center of the room. He found some newspaper and separated the pages, balling them up and spreading them in a circle around the drapes. Taking a book of matches from his jeans, he was about to strike one when he thought he heard footsteps down in the front yard.

  Quietly he moved to the nearest window, overlooking the road, but couldn’t see or hear anyone. He remained still for at least a minute. Then he heard them. They were walking around to the back of the house. A pane of glass broke down on the first floor, the window slid open, and they climbed inside. They moved across the floor beneath him—whispering voices. Kids, looking for a place to drink beer, maybe smoke a joint, a place a little bit scary.

  He walked to the back of the house and climbed out to the drainpipe. When he was on the ground he went around to the front door. He could hear their shuffling footsteps in the dark, the echo of their voices in the large, empty rooms. There was the sound of an empty tin can rolling across the floor. And laughter.

  He banged his fist on the front door. The kids scrambled for the back of the house, bumping into things, their suppressed cries full of panic. Then he ran down the road and disappeared into the darkness of the woods.

  HANNAH DID ERRANDS for her mother and on the way home she stopped for gas at Superior Gas & Lube. Arnie was changing a tire, so once she started the gas pump, she went to the open garage door. “Hey,” she said.

  “Hey.” Arnie didn’t look away from the tire, which he had just mounted on the rear wheel of a car on the lift. He put one of the lug nuts on with an air gun, the rapid, stuttering blast of noise reverberating through the garage.

  She walked around behind Arnie, but he turned his head so that his face was still away from her. Hannah had always liked Arnie; after all that had happened last year, he never acted any differently toward her. They had been in the same homeroom every year in high school and he always sat behind her. He made fun of everybody and he was good at it. “Arnie?”

  “What?”

  He put the air-gun socket on the next lug nut and pulled the trigger. She closed her eyes until the garage was quiet again. Then from the other bay there was the clang and echo of a steel bar that Arnie’s father dropped on the concrete floor.

  “What’s up?” she asked.

  “Not much.” Still, he didn’t look away from the tire.

  Hannah returned to her mother’s car and topped up the tank, then went into the office. No one was there. She stood at the counter for a minute, staring at the rows of cigarettes and candy. She listened as Arnie continued to screw down the lug nuts on the tire. Finally, between blasts of the air gun, she said, “I’m about to drive off without paying.”

  After a moment, she heard his work boots scuff the concrete floor as he walked in from the garage. His family owned the business; since eighth grade Arnie had maintained that he didn’t have to worry too much about school because eventually he would manage the garage. He came around the counter and pushed some buttons on the machine that read the gas pumps. “Eighteen-fifty,” he said.

  She picked up a Kit Kat bar and slapped it on the counter.

  “Nineteen-ten.”

  She picked up another candy bar, a Mounds, and slapped it on the counter.

  “Nineteen-seventy.” He still wouldn’t turn and look at her.

  She took a twenty from the pocket of her jeans. “What can you get for thirty cents around here?” She slapped the twenty hard on the counter. “A date with Fast Marsha Frohmeyer?”

  Arnie lowered his head, as though he’d given in to something. “Not even that.” Turning around, he added, “She upped her rates to fifty cents.” Then he lifted his head so she could see his eyes beneath his grimy Red Wings cap. The skin around his left eye was black and blue.

  “Jesus, Arnie,” she whispered. “Where’d you get that shiner?”

  He picked up the twenty and punched keys on the cash register—it was an old machine, had been in the office as long as Hannah could remember—and a tiny bell sounded as the drawer slid open. He fished a quarter and a nickel from the wooden coin slots.

  Hannah leaned toward the counter. “Sean?” He slapped the change on the counter. “Is that it? Sean did that?”

  Arnie slammed the drawer shut and walked back out to the garage.

  7

  PEARLY WATCHED HIS COUSIN for some sign of anger, but Martin just stood with his hands on his hips as he looked down at the red velvet curtains surrounded by crumpled-up newspaper.

  “It’s like some pagan ritual,” Pearly said.

  “Vandals would have lit it.”

  “It wasn’t vandals? You know who did this?”

  “It’s more than a warning, it’s a threat,” Martin said. “I just don’t understand why he didn’t light it.”

  “Who?”

  “Sean Colby.” Martin went to the nearest window and rested a haunch on the sill.

  Pearly lifted a curtain with the toe of his work boot. “This is because of Hannah, isn’t it?”

  “Maybe I should talk with Sean’s old man?”

  Pearly lit a cigarette. His hesitation was enough.

  “Bad idea?”

  Pearly squinted at him through smoke. “Hannah and Sean—that’s a pretty tender subject for Frank and June. Funny, when I saw Sean walking around the village playing policeman, I wondered what he was doing back here so soon.” He began to gather up the curtains and took them across the room to a large trash barrel. “Maybe they discharge you now if you’re homesick?”

  “Or if you miss your old girlfriend. I’m not ruling it out.”

  “What? Talking to his old man?”

  Martin folded his arms tightly.

  “Look,” Pearly said, “before you go running to his father, I should—” But then he stopped and laughed. It was inconceivable: Pearly Blankenship trying to reason with Frank Colby.

  SEAN WENT TO the Portage and Arnie was standing at the far end of the bar watching the Cubs-Padres game. There were mostly locals in the bar, people who assumed Sean and Arnie were of legal age, or people who didn’t care if they weren’t. Sean ordered a pitcher, and then walked down to the end of the bar. Arnie wouldn’t look away from the television.

  “I’m here to kiss and make up.”

  Arnie took a sip of his draft beer and wiped foam off his mustache.

  “I brought a peace offering.” He refilled Arnie’s mug.

  “Sally,” Arnie said. “Could I have another draft? This one’s gone flat.”

  Sally poured Arnie’s beer out in the sink and dr
ew him another. She placed the mug on the bar and said, “You two behave, or it’s the back door.”

  They both nodded, and she went down the bar collecting glasses.

  “Your eye’s looking better,” Sean said.

  Arnie picked up his new mug of beer and took a long drink. He still kept his attention on the Cubs game up on the television.

  “Well, what we going to do, Arnie, to settle this up? You tell me.”

  “Buying me a beer ain’t it.”

  “All right.”

  “You got Hannah on the brain, that’s your problem,” Arnie said. “You did in high school and you’ve come back from the army with it. It’s not healthy, it’s not normal, what you got.”

  “I didn’t come here to talk about Hannah, I—”

  “It’s like you got this disease there’s no cure for. And now this other guy’s doing her and you get all bent out of shape, and what do you do? You get pissed off at him, then you walk over to me and pop me a sucker punch? What the fuck?” Arnie picked up his mug and finished his beer.

  Sean refilled Arnie’s mug from his pitcher. “Easy, now. This isn’t a payoff, it’s just that you look a little worked up.”

  Arnie didn’t do anything—a good sign.

  “We had this situation in boot camp,” Sean said. “Two guys didn’t get along, and one guy took a cheap shot at the other guy. Our DI gets wind of this and he wakes us up one morning at like two A.M., marches all of us outside our barracks in our shorts—and it’s fucking pouring—and he stands the two guys in the middle of all of us and says to the guy who was on the wrong end of the cheap shot, ‘Hit him.’ You don’t refuse your DI, so this guy pops the other guy good. The DI says to do it again. He does it again. Then the DI says, ‘You two men are square now. You are best friends. You are brothers. If necessary, you will die for each other.’ ” Sean finished his beer. “And he was right. From then on they were like brothers.”

  Arnie thought about this for a while. Sean waited. He knew that Arnie understood a day’s work, didn’t take any grief from anyone, and had an unwavering sense of fairness.

  Finally, without taking his eyes off the television, Arnie said, “I’m not going to pop you a couple of times to make things even.”

  “We could go out back like Sally asked,” Sean said. “Get it over with and come back inside before this beer gets warm.”

  “Nah. Cubs are coming to bat.”

  “What then? You tell me.”

  “The element of surprise. That’s what your DI couldn’t replace. The first was a sucker punch and the guy didn’t know it was coming. I didn’t know it was coming. I go out back now and nail you one, you got all the time to get ready for it.”

  “So that’s what you want?” Sean asked. “Element of surprise?”

  “It’d only be fair.”

  “All right. Whenever, wherever you want it.”

  “Fine.” Arnie drained his mug of beer. “But it ain’t gonna make us brothers.”

  “You know I would die for you,” Sean said.

  “I’d rather you buy another pitcher.”

  ABOUT AN HOUR LATER Martin walked into the Portage. The place was busy. He saw Sean and Arnie at the far end of the bar, so he stayed near the front door and ordered a beer. It didn’t matter. Sean saw him, picked up his mug, and shouldered his way through the crowd. He moved like a guy accustomed to having people get out of his way. Arnie remained at the other end of the bar, watching the ball game up on the television. The Cubs had a rally going.

  When Sean reached Martin, he said, “Like your new taillight?”

  “It works.”

  “Glad to hear.” Sean’s voice had a pleasant bounce to it, as though they were old friends who hadn’t seen each other in a while.

  “This an official visit?”

  Sean put his beer on the bar and tugged at the collar of his T-shirt. “Off duty.”

  “Just being neighborly?”

  “Concerned for public safety. You need to take precautions.”

  “Maybe I’ll order a spare taillight, just in case?”

  “Now you’re getting it,” Sean said.

  “And maybe I could talk to someone on the force about my neighborhood.”

  Sean appeared pleased. “You mean that old house you bought?”

  “Right. Little stupid acts of vandalism. You know, kids with nothing better to do.”

  “Imagine that.”

  “Who would I talk to, your father? He handle that sort of thing?”

  Sean’s face went tight for a moment, but then he grinned. “He handles everything.”

  “That’s good to know,” Martin said. “Of course, it’s nothing serious so far, and I don’t want to get someone in trouble over a little thing.”

  Something was rearranged in Sean’s face. His eyes seemed to shut down and it was almost as though the bones had shifted beneath his cheeks. For a moment he appeared unable to speak. But then he said, quietly, “That would change nothing.”

  Martin said, “I hope it would solve—”

  “Wrong. It would solve nothing.”

  “I see.” Martin looked out the window at Ottawa Street. In the dark reflection of the glass, he could see Sean, staring at him, not moving at all. His stillness seemed a preparation, a gathering of forces. Martin believed he knew what was coming. It was beyond talk, beyond any kind of reason, and he turned to face Sean, squaring his shoulders in self-defense.

  Then a fist—Arnie’s fist—came from the right and struck Sean’s jaw. Sean’s knees buckled. His forearms rested on the bar and he could barely keep his head up. Despite the noise in the bar, everyone in the place seemed to immediately recognize this sound, this slap of flesh on flesh, for what it was, and there was a sudden quiet in the room. Only the baseball commentators spoke, their voices languid and reflective as they waited for a relief pitcher to finish his warm-up.

  Arnie said to Martin, “Now you get out of here.” When Martin didn’t move, he added, “You want one, too?” Arnie’s eyes were steady, fierce. “I said you get out of here so I can watch the damn ball game.”

  HANNAH STILL OFTEN dreamed of blood. Blood and embryos. The summer she began her periods she saw pictures in a magazine article that portrayed the various stages of an embryo’s development. It described some of the methods used before the law was changed in 1972. Abortions were performed in “back alleys,” and doctors were often not doctors at all, but butchers, tailors, seamstresses. There was a photograph of several crude instruments on a white metal table, a small knife, a spoon, scissors, a hot water bottle, a plastic tube, a wire coat hanger twisted out of shape. The caption read Tools of the Trade. Another photograph depicted a small room at the back of a shop in New Orleans. The shelves were stacked with bolts of cloth, and the woman, whose face was blurred to protect her identity, wore a turban, as though to emphasize her powers of magic and witchcraft. Her arms were folded over her abundant breasts in a manner that suggested she was both defiant and weary. The caption read: Necessary evil—killer of babies or savior of women’s lives? Hannah kept the magazine hidden in her room for years. As she got older she realized that it was as though the article had been written in code. No one made love; the word love was never used. Only once, at the very end, the article mentioned intercourse. The word made Hannah think there was a secret river flowing inside her, a river of blood.

  In high school she knew girls who had put all sorts of things inside themselves. Their fingers, a hot dog, elongated plastic toys, a test tube stolen from chemistry class. Girls bragged about letting boys put their fingers, tongues, and cocks inside them. Tongues were best; cocks the least predictable. Boys often came abruptly, sometimes before they got inside; they got it on girls’ skin, which had to be cleaned up with Kleenex. It left damp, cold spots on their clothes.

  The other side of come was late. It was usually whispered. I’m late! But then in a day or so there would be a look of relief, and everything would be fine, everything forgotten. Being
late was cool. But not for Hannah. She was too late.

  ONE IN THE MORNING, Sean sat in his pickup on the two-track off Shore Road. The woods were pitch dark. He’d been sitting there for perhaps ten minutes, working on the pint of Scotch Arnie had bought after they left the Portage. They didn’t leave, they were thrown out. Sally rushed down the bar, pointing at the front door, and Arnie took Sean by the upper arm and walked him outside. On the sidewalk, the air was cool, and Arnie said, “Okay, brother, now we’re even.”

  Sean’s window was rolled down and he could hear peepers, millions of them, it seemed, screaming away. Or perhaps they made that sound by rubbing their legs together—he couldn’t remember. He was certain it was a mating thing. Somehow all that noise was intended to get a female’s attention. He wondered if they were the ones that got eaten while they were having sex—the female devouring the male’s head while he’s still pumping away. No, that was the praying mantis.

  When he finished the last of his Scotch, he got out and stood next to the truck while taking a long piss. He realized he was barefoot but he couldn’t remember removing his sneakers. It was too much trouble to look in the truck for them, and there was a fine mist, warm and slick on his face. Arnie had said, “You got Hannah on the brain.” It might have been more accurate to say that she’d eaten his brain. A portion of it anyway. But then, Arnie didn’t really know Hannah. So he didn’t know anything.

  Sean began walking away from the truck, along the two-track out of the woods. Part of him knew he should just drive home, but when he reached the road, he walked around the bend on the pavement. There was nothing ahead but the road curving into the darkness. When he was in boot camp he met guys who had wives and girlfriends back home, and some had kids. It was usually part of a plan; they would enlist, and then once they were stationed, their wives and kids would join them. A couple of times while drunk, Sean had said he had a girl at home, who had a kid, a boy, and they were going to join him, too, after boot camp. It made being there not seem so stupid. It was part of a plan. But it wasn’t his plan, it was his father’s. It was a matter of getting him straightened out, and of course there was no girlfriend, no kid. It had all been a mistake—not getting her pregnant, but not saying he would stick with her, get married, if she wanted. That’s what he should have told his father, though he knew it would have infuriated him. Eventually his mother would have understood, and she would have brought his father around. They would have said, “You two kids made a mistake and now you’re going to live with the consequences”—something like that. But what they wouldn’t have said was he had defied his father and finally broken free. Hannah would have been the one to tell him that that’s what had really happened, that’s what had to happen. Instead, he was in boot camp, making up lies about a family back home that didn’t exist.