The Arsonist's Handbook

by L. A. Detwiler

  Now, as I settle back into those shoes, those sinking emotions settle into my weary bones again. I am again the gawky middle school kid desperately fighting to be someone else to get him to notice. Just in the hopes of earning a nonexistent father’s love. For a glimmering moment, I thought this was it. I foolishly believed he would come, that I could win him back with success and achievements. I thought I had the answer.

  But no one has the fucking answers, I guess. We’re all leftover bone remnants in a pot of scalding soup, hoping to get plucked out before our marrow rots away. We are a desecrated carcass of what remains when hope dies and the harsh reality of disappointment usurps everything else.

  I doodle flames in the margins of my notebook around the crow as I think about the glow of the fire I set. The power I felt in my core as the tiny shed on the edges of our town burned. I watched it smolder and smoke from afar, glancing back now and then to make sure I hadn’t imagined it. But it was aglow, a signal in the night sure to catch his attention.

  The fire, though, wasn’t grand enough. It didn’t make the news. No one even batted an eye. All anyone could talk about was his fire, the one at the fancy house in Elmwood that had killed that baby. My masterpiece, my work wasn’t even a blip on the news radar. No one even knew it had existed, just like me. I was an amateur running against a pro, and I would lose every single time.

  Shading in the center of the drawing in my notebook, I scold myself. What did I expect? He’s a prodigy, and I’m only learning from the master second-hand. My first fire wasn’t going to be grand enough to win him back. No one is perfect on their first try, and earning my father back is going to take more work than that. I will have to work more diligently to get his attention, to prove myself worthy.

  I think about him, setting that perfect scene, burning down house after house in Elmwood and putting everyone on edge. I wonder where he was before Elmwood, how many others he set they haven’t figured out yet. An invisible string of canvasses, the whole world at his feet with possibility. I grin, thinking about what it must feel like to both be noticed and to slip away into the night, unnoticed. It is the best of both worlds. Your power is feared, your work is spotlighted—yet in the shadows, you remain. My father is the ghost of a legend or a myth, lurking on the outside of everyone’s psyche but not real enough to get caught. I’m not afraid of him, though. I’m delighted. I’m proud. I’m in awe.

  I wonder if he will come to our town, or if he will keep up his elaborate dance on the outskirts. Maybe he’s calling me forward. I feel the need to go.

  I get up from my seat at the end of fifth period, and I do something I haven’t done in a while. I slip out the back door, a ghost in my own right. No one chases me down. No one notices the boy on the fringes headed for the woods, headed for home, headed to practice what matters.

  I get home and make the flames from my notebook come to life.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Pete

  The motel’s filthy couch smelled of sweat and cigarette smoke, but Pete was drowning in the regrets of a life annihilated. Staring at the ceiling but not seeing it at all, he lay in a sea of chip bag wrappers, beer bottles, and shame. He knew he had work to do. He had made promises. But seeing Anna’s hurt face, knowing it was over—it hit him harder than he’d like. His stoicism was shaky at best as of late. He’d become wrapped up in a wave of depression, and his focus on his project had been drowned in a deluge of sorrow. He hadn’t been to the office, hadn’t answered any calls except from the police. They hadn’t found anything. Of course they hadn’t. He hadn’t expected them to. After all, they’d failed how many times?

  Day after day in that dingy room, he became transfixed on the loss of his son and the loss of the life he once took for granted. It was as if he were pitched into his version of Dante’s Inferno, seven layers of sadness swirling about him. He could not climb out, no matter how determined he was to get his revenge. The steadfast resolve he felt as he marched away from Anna faded into a melancholic lethargy when he returned to the empty hotel room.

  He alternated between tears for Tanner and tears for the wife he now lost. For the man he lost, in truth. For now, he would never be anyone except the man who lost it all. The town, the state, hell maybe even the nation knew his name now. Knew his tragedy. His dream of accomplishing something grandiose was forever marred by the tragedy he was now marked by.

  Where did life go so fucking wrong? He’d had a plan. Had a vision. Had goals and a roadmap to success. Even when disappointments stacked up, he told himself he would find his way to the top. He always did, didn’t he? He always found a way to claw himself out of the shithole that was his life.

  His mind danced over the past, though. Memories of her in her wedding dress, swirling on that shiny dance floor. The honeymoon, the first year where they ate ice cream on Sunday nights and kissed in the rain and had sex in the middle of the living room on a random Monday. Their life was beautiful, magical, and he couldn’t imagine how anyone’s marriage could fall apart. They would never be those people. He loved her, and she admired him. She was proud of him. She saw that he could be more.

  And then she started climbing the ranks at her marketing firm, taking on more responsibility. Three years into their marriage, she went straight to the top. Her own office, her own clients, a six-figure salary that made their life much easier. They’d celebrated the night she broke the news of her promotion. She bought him a Rolex, the watch he always dreamed of having.

  He told himself he was happy for her. For what it would mean for their lives. He was for a while. He loved her, after all. He wanted to see her succeed. Still, as she became a marketing force who was highly sought after, Pete felt something he had always feared.

  He felt the shadow life growing closer.

  His dreams of being the powerful, strong leader of the family, the successful alpha male—they faded as she started to glow in the spotlight. And now that he could be honest with himself, he knew it wasn’t her promotion that changed it all—it was his jealousy. It was about him. Why didn’t he realize it then?

  A distance started to creep in. At first, her return from business trips was met with hot sex and champagne. But slowly, as the months passed and her stories about her trips stirred an ugly green hue in Pete, an iciness emerged. He was too tired to hear her details. The champagne became beers for one. He traded their lustful romps for extra hours of sleep.

  And then came the nagging, the final nail in the coffin.

  The nagging about why the house was such a disaster when she got home. The pointed remarks about her long workdays compared to his. The accusations he wasn’t trying anymore, that maybe he wasn’t into her anymore. Her fears started to crop up, and jealous rages became commonplace. Eventually, perhaps because he knew her fears, her allegations started to ring true.

  There were times he had stepped back, had questioned what he was doing. He’d pinpointed more than once that his insecurities and issues were shoving her mercilessly away. But he did nothing to stop it. He told himself they were enduring growing pains. He convinced himself if he threw himself into work, maybe he’d get promoted, too, and then the distance between them would be bridged. When she got pregnant after a weekend they had away together in hopes of rekindling something, he told himself the baby was what they were missing. He told himself all the lies he needed to hear, even when he was traversing further and further down the path away from her.

  Pete sat up on the couch, his head pounding and his throat dry. Now, it was too late. There was no fixing it. Because the path he’d traveled down had led him so far into the brush, he hadn’t seen the danger coming. And the manly man he thirsted to be was too busy with his hedonistic pleasures to be the man his son needed. He walked across the room to the dust-laden, cracked mirror hanging on a closet door. He stared at the man who was disheveled in front of him. He was no force to take on the world. He was not a gift to the fucking planet.

  Fists clenched, though, Pete remembered somethi
ng his mom had also told him—and had modeled, as well.

  “Look, Kid,” his mom’s voice bellowed in his memories, “being a screw-up isn’t so bad. Because when you’ve got nothing to lose, the world is yours on a silver platter in a way. Because there are no longer rules when you’ve got nowhere to go but up.”

  His tears assuaged, Pete began mumbling the words over and over, lighting himself up to become a man of worth, even if it was in a way he hadn’t expected. The memories of Anna, the sadness over their lost love had to be put away. He had nothing to lose, after all—and that was a freeing thought.

  The Boy

  Most days, he felt invisible to her. Ever since his father left, he felt like Mama wasn’t paying attention other than to scold him. To tell him he wasn’t a good boy. To tell him he was a failure, that he was worse than his father.

  Ever since his father left, the boy took the brunt of her anger, her frustration, and her cursing. It was okay, though. He’d learned to toughen up. And when he forgot that men were supposed to be warrior strong, she reminded him with a kick in the ribs, a slap in the face. A shrieking of profanities and insults threatened to bury themselves deep in his stomach.

  He wanted to make her proud. That was all he wanted, more than he wanted a new remote-controlled car or a horse or a trip to Disney. More than he wanted his father to come back even. If he could win her over, could make her see him, he would be worth something. She was so strong and powerful. He wanted to be like her someday. He wanted to be the one calling the shots and making the rules and showing people what it looked like to be strong.

  That was probably why it happened. He thought if he could impress her this once, maybe she’d be proud. God, he wanted her to be proud. And deep down, he thought in his nine-year-old mind, that if she was impressed by him, if she saw his worth, she would love him. Wasn’t that what love was? You had to earn someone’s love by being something great. That’s what he’d come to realize.

  He inhaled, eyeing up the road once more. His hands squeezed the handlebars tightly, sweat making them slippery. He wiped them on his jeans.

  He didn’t know why he thought this would work. Maybe it was because he’d overheard her saying about how she used to ride the jumps back in her day. That she learned how to do a flip at age seven. Or maybe it was that she liked watching BMX on television and smiled a little when she did. It seemed like the way to win her over, at least in his mind. It was the only thing he thought he could do.

  He studied the jump ahead, telling himself he’d make it this time. He’d get good enough to make it and then he’d bring her down, show her. He’d show her what he could do. He’d show her how brave he was, unlike his father.

  He’d watched them on TV enough. He’d done some mini practice jumps. He’d get so good at it that maybe he’d be on TV someday, too. And she’d be wowed by him. She would stop telling him he was worthless like his father. She’d see.

  He started pedaling hard, standing and gaining momentum as his bike screeched over the dirt mound someone had left behind in this semi-secret, semi-sacred place. He prepared to jerk his body for the flip like he’d studied.

  But something went wrong.

  Everything was a whirling blur, there was pain like he’d never experienced before in his left leg, and confusion racked his brain.

  And then it all went black.

  ***

  Searing, insufferable pain. That was what awakened him. He didn’t know where he was at first. His face was in the dirt, his head pounding. But all of that seemed like nothing compared to his leg.

  He turned his head, screaming out as he did. He glanced back to see the odd angle his leg was sitting at. He couldn’t move it. Vomit started to rise in his throat and tears welled. His bike was nowhere in his line of vision.

  Tears started to well, against his best efforts to hold them back. Men didn’t cry. He knew that. Still, it was hard. It all hurt so bad. Plus, terror was starting to creep in. He was in the back of the woods, no one around. His leg clearly looked broken. How would he get out of there? He couldn’t even move. He tried shifting his weight again, but he collapsed back to the ground as a blinding pain racked his entire body. His vision blurred.

  He was screwed. No one would wander back to find him. He hadn’t told anyone where he was going. He was all alone in a mound of dirt. Fear caused the vomit to quake again. This time, a little bit came out of his mouth and dribbled into the dirt. The sour taste and smell made him want to cry more.

  Perhaps this was where he would die. The thought struck him as scary, but not because he was afraid to die. He was terrified of her finding out this is how he died. He could hear her insults already, that he hadn’t even killed himself properly. That he wasn’t a real man, a strong man. That he was pathetic.

  And the saddest thing of all about dying in the middle of the dirt mound? No one would miss him. Especially not her.

  ***

  Darkness was falling when his savior came.

  Not in the form of his mother, but the form of a random hiker. He didn’t care if the man was a serial killer at that point. He was so thirsty, his body convulsing with fever and pain.

  “Holy Christ, what happened?” the man asked as he rushed to the boy’s side.

  But he had no words. He lay back and let it all fade again. He was saved, at least for now, by a man with an awesome beard that reminded him of his father’s.

  ***

  “Do you know how much this will cost me?” she bellowed after yanking the nearly transparent shower curtain on its track so hard, he flinched.

  “Sorry, Mama,” he murmured, fighting back tears. He always called her Mama when he needed to soften her. It never worked. He still tried.

  The paper-thin robe didn’t protect him from the icy chill of the E.R., but his cheeks burned. This was not what he’d hoped for. Now he’d done it.

  “Sorry? What the hell were you doing back there?”

  “Trying to do the jumps on my bike, like on TV,” he confessed. He eyed her, waiting for a hint of understanding. Waiting for her to realize he just wanted her to be proud. That was all he wanted.

  “You idiot. You cost me how many month’s rent for a trick? That you failed at?”

  He wanted to ask why she hadn’t come looking for him. He wanted to ask if she’d have been sad if he died out there. Because he knew with unwavering lucidity he could have died. Some would have called it a miracle. Some mothers would have cried tears of joy when they understood what they’d almost lost.

  But he knew. Deep down, he’d always known. She’d have rather had him dead than costing all that money.

  As the harsh truth surged in his heart, one tear gave away despite his best efforts. It slid down his face. She grabbed his chin between her long, dry fingers and squeezed as hard as she could. Her pointy red fingernails dug into him so hard, he was certain he felt blood dripping.

  “What’s the rule?” she asked.

  “Men don’t cry,” he chanted. In her house, they were a mantra, a holy phrase to be announced with reverence and obeyed as law.

  “That’s right. And you know what? Boys don’t cry, either. Not under my roof.”

  She flung his chin out of her hand and made a noise of victory. Then, she stalked out of the room presumably to let him sit in the sorrow of what he’d done.

  He did just that, wondering if life ever stopped being a sorrow. Wondering if he’d ever be something worth loving.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Jameson

  I’m sitting at the bus stop lighting a cigarette when a girl from math class plops down on the bench beside me. I’ve been feeding the mangey stray dog that came running up to me. I move my backpack over to make room for her before exhaling a puff of smoke to the side. It’s the first cigarette I’ve smoked in a year, and I’m inexplicably embarrassed to be caught.

  “Jameson, right?” she asks, turning to me with her red pigtails that are mostly covered by a black beanie. She’s tucked into her black
hoodie like she wants to disappear. I toss the cigarette on the ground and stomp it with my foot, grinding it into the cement. The stray dog sits at my side.

  “Yeah,” I reply. “Ashley?” I know her name is Ashley. I know everyone’s name, even if I won’t admit it. Benefits of being an observer.

  She nods in reply.

  “Is that your dog?” she asks, looking at the filthy mutt beside me. My hand still aimlessly scratches him.

  “No. I wish.”

  “He looks kind of rough,” she observes.

  I shrug. “He’s a stray, I think. I wish I could take him home, poor guy.” It’s true. I’ve always loved dogs. I used to ask Santa for one every year, but Mom claims she’s allergic. I wonder if my father likes dogs.

  “Oh, that’s sad. I had a dog when I was little. It died last year. Anyway, where are you headed?” The streetlight illuminates her in a way that makes her look otherworldly. Her words all run together like a riddle to solve. I like dissecting her phrases to figure them out on the fly, a word puzzle uttered by a morose yet somehow bubbly redhead.

  It’s a chilly night, the scent of dead leaves and the approaching winter floating about. We’re at the dead-end of the town center, near the post office.

  “Just visiting some friends,” I murmur, my backpack shielding the truths I can’t reveal. It’s nine o’clock on a Friday, and I’m waiting for a bus ride out of town to do some scoping. I have my lighter with me in case a surge of bravery should take over, but no accelerants or supplies. It’s just me, looking for a place to mark. A bigger place in Elmwood, the family stomping ground. Still, my lighter is with me in case I run into him. I’ve spent the week thinking about what it would be like to find him while on this trip. I daydreamed about our reunion. Would he recognize me even though it’s been so long? Would I know with one glance who he was? I could finally fill in the faceless man’s visage from my dreams.