--I HOPE YOU HAVE THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE
...A friend of mine had a story published in the prestigious lit journal, Tin House. Since then, he's had three agents query him, asking if he has a novel. That's pretty impressive.
So yesterday I wrote something for TH. It may be too traditional, but I like how it turned out.
Here it is:
Smokejumpers
From our tree fort,
using Benny’s stolen Boy Scout binoculars, we watched the fast-moving fire
scream across the Cascades, watched the flames twist and spark and rage.
“It kind of looks
like a dragon,” I said, my teeth chattering despite the summer heat.
“A dragon straight
out of hell.”
Even though the
fires were still far away, the air around us had turned spicy, hot and thick
with soot. Breathing felt like sucking
down sand.
We were kneeling,
looking out the opening. My foot
wouldn’t stop twitching and it made dull, rabbit-thumping sounds on the slatted
wood floor. “You think it’ll reach us?”
I asked, hoping my voice didn’t sound reedy.
“I hope so,” Benny
said.
“Are you nuts?”
“Man, I hate it
here. This place sucks.”
He meant his life
sucked. Benny’s sister had gotten
pregnant at sixteen, just a year older than us now. She wouldn’t say who the father was, though
town gossip had it being Benny’s Dad.
Into her second trimester, the girl ran away and no one had heard from
her since. Benny’s father used to work
for the lumber mill, but being perpetually drunk, consequences caught up with him
one day when he cut his arm off at the elbow.
Since then he spent his days drinking away insurance checks at “The
Silver Dollar.” Because of that, and
because Benny had been motherless as long as I’d known him, Benny was left with
more freedom than anyone our age.
“Whoa!” Benny said.
“Let me see.”
“Just a sec.”
I wondered about
the animals, if they could outrun the flames.
I had a dog, Rosie, named after my favorite baseball player, Pete Rose. Imagining her on fire gave me the willies and
prickled my forearm flesh until it looked like one of those bald chickens Mom
bought home to fry.
I kept wondering if
we shouldn’t get down, go inside the house and watch the news. There was talk that we might have to evacuate,
depending on the strength of the winds. Outside
the fire split into two’s, then three’s, like a burning hydra, torching pines
and evergreens, leaving a smoldering, black rug in their wake.
The blaze crested
the mountains and swung down the slope at a rapid speed. I squinted my eye, trying to estimate how
much distance the flames covered over the span of a minute, then factoring in
the expanse between us and the fires.
Math was my weakest subject, but if my guess was even partially correct,
the fire would be on our heels in less than two hours. I told myself that couldn’t be right. I was an idiot at math. We were safe.
God was a busy guy, but he’d never allow us to roast.
“It doesn’t seem
real,” I said, having difficulty speaking.
“Oh, yeah it does.”
“It looks like a
movie.”
“Don’t smell like
one.”
Earlier in the
year, Benny and I had seen “Towering Inferno” starring Steve McQueen and Paul
Newman. Afterward, I’d thought I might
want to be a fireman someday, but now I knew I didn’t. I could never be that brave.
Benny handed me the
binoculars and reached into his sock, pulling out a pack of Tareytons he’d
lifted from his dad’s dresser. “Want a
smoke?” he asked, grinning, remembering the last time I’d taken a few drags and
ended up vomiting in a black berry bush.
“Nah.”
“Didn’t think so.”
Benny was an
excellent smoker. He blew tight circles
that looked like fuzzy onion rings and each time he’d break the ring in two
with his forefinger.
“Are you hungry?” I
asked. I wasn’t, but figured it might be
a way to get us out of the tree fort.
“Man, we ate like a
whole box of Twinkies.”
I’d forgotten. Those, too, we’d filched from Benny’s
dad. The man was drunkard with a sweet
tooth. Benny had opened up the cramped
closet inside his father’s bedroom, revealing a treasure trove of
goodies—Hostess Fruit Pies, Ho Hos, Ding Dongs, you name it. There were Playboy magazines, as well, old
ones. Playmate of the Year for March,
1970, was Chris Koren. Benny ogled the
centerfold and said, “Man, isn’t she hot?” which troubled me because Chris
Koren looked just like Benny’s sister, only naked and wearing makeup.
Benny tilted his
head back, blowing smoke at the ceiling, watching it meander ghostlike into
each cobwebbed corner. He sang, “Come on
baby, light my fire.” Then, “I fell into
a burning ring of fire.”
“Stop.”
“Lighten up.”
I already felt
light, dizzy, too. Nails moaned and
boards creaked as the wind sashayed our fort.
“How old’s this thing?” I asked.
“Ancient.”
“How ancient
exactly?”
“It was here before
the Indians.”
Bennie knew how to
get my goat. I felt like puking and had
to pee.
“I’ve got to take a
leek.”
“Be my guest,”
Benny said, wanding his arm like an usher.
He meant for me to pee out the opening, down into a heap of beer cans
and moldy cardboard boxes below. That
was what we always did, wanting to stay in the fort as long as possible.
“I think I have to
do the other, too.”
“Take a dump?”
I hated the word dump.
I hated crap as well. “Yeah,” I said.
Benny raised an
eyebrow. He didn’t believe me. He knew I was scared. “Better do it before you drop a loaf in your
shorts.”
Loaf.
I told him I’d be right
back.
“Grab a couple of
Pabsts while you’re at it.”
“Sure.”
“And a couple of
Playboys, the newest ones you can find.”
Going down the
latter, the wind whipped my shoulders, threatening to throw me off. The air was filled with chaff and tiny bits
of dirt. My eyes stung, then started to
water. I hoped Benny wasn’t watching
because I worried he might think I was crying.
“Oh boy!” I heard
him squeal. “The earth’s turning into
one giant weenie roast.”
I made it to the
house, turning on the television. Benny
only got three channels. Soap operas
were on two and a game show on the other.
No news coverage of the fire.
In the fridge, I
found two whole shelves filled with Pabst Blue Ribbon. I opened one and swallowed half a can. It burned going down, but tasted delicious,
just the right kind of sour. Benny’s
trailer was no more than thirty feet long.
Wood paneling lined the walls.
When I thought how much the fire would enjoy those walls, I got scared
again and gulped the rest of my beer.
Outside, in just
the few minutes since I’d left the fort, the air now wore a thick, charcoal
fog. It was mostly overhead, but it
hadn’t been there before. I yelled up at
Benny, “How close is it?”
He leaned over the
opening, only holding on with one hand as the fort swayed and convulsed.
“Where’s my beer?”
“Damn it, Benny.”
“I’m dying of
thirst up—“
A violent gust came
out of nowhere, jarring the tree fort. High
up, a branch cracked, flying off, then smacking the ground inches from my
foot. It took a moment for the dust to
clear, longer for my fear to ease.
“Holy crap, you
almost got nailed.”
“Let’s go,” I said.
“Go?”
“It’s crazy to
stay.”
“Are you kidding
me? This is like the world’s greatest
fireworks show.”
I didn’t always
understand Bennie, and right then I didn’t know if he was brave or dumb, or if
he enjoyed the thought of being burned alive.
“Don’t be stupid,”
I said.
“Stupid is as
stupid does.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
“I’m leaving.”
“Have a swell trip.”
“I mean it, I’m
leaving.”
“Safe travels.”
“Screw you.”
“And you the same,
my good buddy.”
I watched him turn
and go back inside. I considered
pleading again, but knew it would be of no use.
I walked past the
house fast. When I was a good block away
I started to trot before breaking into a full sprint.
*
* * *
*
“It’s a big one,”
my partner yells.
He’s the one flying
our helicopter, a Bell 205, fully loaded with water. Half a mile in front of us, the canyons roil
and flicker and smolder. Plumes of black
float away in the breeze, erasing much of the landscape.
“Looks like
Armageddon,” my partner says.
It does. Most of the fires we fight do.
After we dump our
load, four of us in the chopper will drop down and start working the eastern
rim where the spread is expected. We
have our chutes, shovels, picks and other gear.
“You doing
okay? You seem a little more out of it
than usual.”
“I’m fine.”
“Hell you are.”
I look down at the
inferno engulfing acres by the minute.
It’s nothing I haven’t seen dozens of times, though each battle has its
different nuances, nature often outwitting man.
“I knew a kid
once,” I say, “thought he could beat a wildfire by himself.”
“Yeah?”
I think about Benny
that day, how I’d run for help, not getting there fast enough. Benny must have come down from the fort after
I’d left, and walked straight toward the hills.
That’s the only explanation I could think of, because smokejumpers
eventually managed to contain the blaze before it hit any homes. As far I know, that tree fort might still be
standing today.
“Hey, you awake?”
“Sorry,” I say.
“So what happened,
to that kid?”
I picture Benny
leaning out over the opening, asking for his beer. I picture him leaping into a smoke-filled
heaven.
“You’ll never
believe it,” I say.
“Try me.”
“He won.”
