How to Start a Fire

by Lisa Lutz

  KATE: That’s better.

  George was unconvinced that the twig improved his appearance.

  GEORGE:

  What’s that supposed to be?

  KATE:

  A cigarette?

  GEORGE:

  It looks more like a toothpick.

  KATE:

  Traditionally, a pipe is used, but I searched the house and couldn’t find one.

  GEORGE:

  It’s a nonsmoking house.

  ANNA:

  You know what would be awesome?

  GEORGE:

  What?

  ANNA:

  A crack pipe.

  KATE:

  That would be great.

  GEORGE:

  Now we have to name him.

  Silence.

  KATE:

  Edgar.

  GEORGE:

  Edgar?

  KATE:

  You remember him, don’t you?

  GEORGE:

  Of course.

  KATE:

  What happened to him?

  GEORGE:

  I don’t know.

  ANNA:

  Who are you talking about?

  KATE:

  You don’t remember Edgar?

  ANNA:

  I don’t remember a lot of things.

  KATE:

  Edgar. Apartment 3A.

  1994

  Santa Cruz, California

  Scraps of paper folded into quarters were dropped into a plastic pumpkin. Halloween was still a not-so-distant memory. Anna reached her hand into the orange bucket, stirred the pot with her fingers just to be fair. She handpicked a single scrap from the mass of confetti.

  “‘Kresge. Apartment 3A,’” she read aloud. “Who takes point?”

  “Should we draw straws again?” George asked.

  “Rock, paper, scissors,” Kate suggested. She suggested it because it gave her a fighting chance. To lose, that was.

  “Fine by me,” Anna said, aiming her fist at George.

  Anna won. She picked up a bottle of whiskey and turned back to her cohorts.

  “Give me ten minutes,” she said. “And then you can bring the ice.”

  Anna walked through the Porter College quad into Kresge. Each side of the drive was flanked by student apartments, the bottom floors with giant windows that at night were lit inside, creating a fishbowl view of collegiate life. The curtains on the third window were closed but backlit by a cheap fluorescent lamp. Anna listened at the door. Inside, nothing was stirring. In fact, the silence was such that Anna thought they might have to go back to the pumpkin and draw another room. She knocked, waited, and knocked again. Eventually she heard feet padding toward the door. It swung open, and a tall sophomore who would take ten more years to fill out his emaciated frame stood before her.

  “Hello?” he said.

  “Apartment 3A?” Anna said, looking at the door.

  “Uh, yes.”

  “Oh, good,” Anna said, stealthily slipping through the doorway. “I thought I had the wrong room for a minute.”

  “Jack’s not here, if that’s who you’re looking for.”

  “Where is he?”

  “At the library.”

  “I guess we’ll have to start without him.”

  “Start what?”

  “Do you have a name?” Anna asked.

  “Yes.”

  “What is it?”

  “Edgar.”

  “Edgar?”

  “Yes.”

  “I like it.”

  “What are you doing here?” Edgar asked.

  “Do you have any glasses?”

  “Do we know each other?”

  “Forget it. I have some in my bag.”

  Anna pulled a stack of plastic cups from her backpack and poured Edgar and herself each a healthy serving of whiskey. She handed Edgar his drink.

  “Bottoms up,” she said, tapping his cup with hers and taking a sip.

  Edgar held his drink aloft, still confounded by the surprise visit from this stranger. An attractive woman mysteriously shows up in his apartment with free booze. Surely this was some kind of cruel prank. Cautious by nature, a lover of all things that could be logically explained, Edgar was not quite willing to play along with this game, whatever it was.

  In truth, it had a name, and it had been played at least half a dozen times in the past year. The party con, as the creator was known to call it. News of it had traveled across campus but had not yet reached Edgar, who took his studies seriously and was also too shy to earn the inside line on school gossip.

  “Who are you?” he said, still keeping his drink at arm’s length.

  “Where are my manners?” Anna asked. “Forgive me. I’m Natasha Navarone. Nice to meet you, Edgar.”

  Anna extended her hand. Edgar, polite by nature, shook it.

  “Is there something wrong with your whiskey? Are you a bourbon man?” Anna asked.

  “Um, what?”

  “Your drink. Is it okay?”

  “I was studying.”

  “Would you like some ice?” Anna asked, going to their freezer. As she’d suspected, the ice trays were empty. “How difficult is it to fill an empty ice tray?” Anna asked.

  “I was studying,” Edgar repeated.

  “Edgar, it’s Saturday.”

  Anna drew the curtains open. The whole point of having the party in the fishbowl was the implicit invitation. She sat down on the couch and patted the seat next to her. Edgar warily accepted her silent request. Exactly ten minutes from the time Anna had knocked on Edgar’s door, there was a second knock—or two knocks, to be precise.

  “Don’t get up. I’ll get it,” Anna said.

  Anna opened the door just as Kate was taping a watercolor Party! sign to it. George lugged the five-pound bag of ice. On the way to their destination, George and Kate had shoved sloppy party invitations under random doors. Then they’d made a run for it. The plan was now in full swing. Within an hour, Edgar’s (and Jack’s and Heath’s and Tree’s—yes, that was his name, although he was gone for the night) place would be swarming with revelers, students spilling out onto the steps. The final exchange between Anna and Edgar occurred when she tossed a couple ice cubes into his drink.

  “Now try it,” she said.

  That was the point of no return for Edgar. He gave up and gave in. That night would be a series of firsts for him—his first house party, his first joint, and the first time he fell in love.

  Within two hours, Edgar’s entire apartment had been overtaken by complete strangers. He tried to escape to his bedroom, but soon that also was invaded by revelers. He retreated to his bed and made his last stand on his mattress.

  Kate often found herself drawn to the victims of Anna’s party con. To alleviate their sense of helplessness and confusion, Kate would distract them with conversation, trying to make them feel at home in their own homes. Kate had always been partial to the socially awkward intellectuals.

  Without disrupting Edgar’s study material, Kate sat on the corner of his bed. Rather than ask the customary questions (Sophomore? Junior? They were both sophomores), she used a statement of fact to begin their conversation.

  “So, you’re a physics major.”

  “How’d you guess?”

  “I deduced.”

  “Are you a philosophy major?” he asked.

  “No. Business.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes,” Kate said. Usually when she mentioned her major, the conversation dried up. She veered off the topic with her typical lack of elegance. “Lately I’ve been really into mushrooms.”

  “Taking them?”

  “No. Studying them. People think mushrooms just equal fungus, but as far as fungi are concerned, the range is beautifully broad and complex, from the edible and medicinal to the toxic and psychoactive mushrooms. Did you know that some mushrooms, identified as tinder fungi, can be used to start fires?”

  “Have you ever started a fire with a mushroom?” Edg
ar asked.

  “I wish,” Kate said.

  Unlike the other coeds with whom Kate had shared her mushroom obsession, Edgar was genuinely interested. She sketched a few pictures so that Edgar could, if necessary, distinguish a toadstool from other fungi, although she cautioned against eating any mushrooms one found in the wild, which Edgar thought was stating the obvious. Her current favorite mushroom was Amanita muscaria, also known as fly agaric. It was bright red and mottled with white spots. Kate thought it the most beautiful of all the mushrooms, even though it was poisonous and had psychoactive properties. Still, her readings had informed her, it was unlikely to kill you. Some cultures consumed it as food after it was properly cooked. Kate had drawn a picture of one from a library book and hung it on her wall.

  With Kate, Edgar lost that feeling he often had of always being in the wrong place. Kate broke the ice with her mushroom data, but soon their conversation shifted into warring questions, because they both had more of a need to understand than to be understood.

  EDGAR:

  Tell me the truth. Is this some kind of game?

  KATE:

  We pulled your apartment out of a pumpkin head. Do you mind?

  EDGAR:

  Not anymore.

  KATE:

  Where’s home?

  EDGAR:

  Duluth, Minnesota.

  KATE:

  Seriously.

  EDGAR:

  Yes. Have you been?

  KATE:

  I’ve been almost nowhere.

  EDGAR:

  Where are you from?

  KATE:

  I’ve lived my whole life in Santa Cruz.

  EDGAR:

  What do your parents do?

  KATE:

  They’re dead.

  EDGAR:

  I’m sorry.

  KATE:

  It was a long time ago. Do you have parents?

  EDGAR:

  Yes.

  KATE:

  What do they do?

  EDGAR:

  My mother is a homemaker and my father is a minister.

  KATE:

  A minister? Unbelievable.

  EDGAR:

  It happens on occasion.

  KATE:

  Did your father want you to become a minister?

  EDGAR:

  My brother is taking on that role, so I’m off the hook.

  KATE:

  How does your father feel about you being a physics major?

  EDGAR:

  Are you asking whether our religion conflicts with science?

  KATE:

  I guess so.

  EDGAR:

  We were taught Darwinism at school, and my father believes in the rational world. He doesn’t see it in conflict with God.

  KATE:

  So are you very religious?

  EDGAR:

  I’m agnostic, but I pretend for my dad.

  KATE:

  That’s nice of you.

  EDGAR:

  It’s no trouble and it makes him happy. Who raised you?

  KATE:

  My grandfather. He has a diner in town.

  EDGAR:

  Is he a mycophagist?

  KATE:

  I hope not. What does that mean?

  EDGAR:

  Sorry. I wasn’t showing off. I just figured a mushroom enthusiast would know the word.

  KATE:

  I don’t. So what does it mean?

  EDGAR:

  A mushroom enthusiast.

  KATE:

  I only got enthused about them last Tuesday.

  EDGAR:

  I see. That changes everything.

  Even minor events such as using the bathroom can change one’s fate. Had Kate not drunk two glasses of water before the party and two vodkas with cranberry juice upon arrival, what happened next might not have happened next. Edgar was unaccustomed to the attentions of women. Kate could see who he would become once he sloughed off that skin of discomfiture. She imagined a caterpillar-like conversion, and she wasn’t wrong.

  Edgar was on a freshly paved road to a crush. Once his wariness passed, and he became certain that Kate’s interest in him wasn’t part of yet another con game, he could feel his hands start to sweat. Edgar hung on to his drink, thawing the ice with his heat. She intrigued him. Being around her made him feel something that had no appropriate scientific name, and he felt that that something had the potential to be reciprocated.

  After Kate departed, he sat alone, but not truly alone, since bodies elbowed and jostled him as if he were on a crowded subway. Once again, the feeling that he was in the wrong place washed over him.

  “Can I get you another drink?” George came in and asked.

  She had noted earlier that Edgar was the silent host. Now he was trapped in a corner of his own bedroom clutching an empty cup. She thought she’d help. However, her primary interest was in keeping as much distance as possible between herself and the groping lug who loitered by the doorway. George stepped over several bodies on the floor to reach Edgar. She wedged herself between him and a semiconscious girl in a skirt too short for her semiconscious state. George tugged at the skirt’s stretchy fabric, trying to cover up the white panties that were on display. She noted a sneer from across the room from a guy who’d been enjoying the view.

  “Show’s over, motherfucker,” George said.

  The dude identified as the motherfucker slunk away when he realized all eyes were on him. Eventually George’s heart rate slowed. She returned her attention to Edgar, who had, in the midst of all the chaos, focused his attention on George’s legs. Long, tanned, and muscular. He’d seen great legs as defined by the cultural consensus—the long, bony, runway variety. But George’s legs were more complicated than that, sinewy and strong, bruised and scarred, war wounds that she proudly displayed. Her knees got most of Edgar’s attention. An array of new and fading scars in the shape of scythes convened around the joints. Edgar saw art in the shadow of injuries. He wanted to hear the story behind each one and was intrigued by the fact that she wouldn’t hide them. He could never admit something so utterly preposterous, but Edgar was now in love. He was mostly in love with a set of legs, obsessed with a pair of knees, but the legs were attached to a body and mind, and the sudden, heady emotion washed over everything connected to those limbs. There was definitely no scientific name for what he was feeling at that moment.

  “Do you want to get out of here?” George asked. “I need to go for a walk or something.”

  “Yes,” Edgar said. He would have said yes to anything she’d asked.

  The pair traversed a jungle of bodies to make their escape. Once they reached the door, George overheard Anna describing in great detail the ankle break that had destroyed her figure-skating career.

  “See you later, Natasha,” George said, closing the door to apartment 3A.

  A month later, Edgar was a habitual visitor to the tiny Fury/Smirnoff/Leoni dorm room at Porter College. For the first few weeks, Anna always screwed up his name—Ernest was the most common error, because earnest was the word that described him best. Years later, Edgar had scarcely any memories of talking to Anna (he eventually learned her real name), and when they did speak, their conversations were always rather superficial.

  Once, when Edgar knocked on the girls’ dorm-room door, Anna opened it and asked him, “What does this building remind you of?”

  “I don’t know,” Edgar said.

  “Think about it,” Anna said.

  “A college dorm?”

  Anna motioned for Edgar to gaze down the long hall.

  “Now do you see it?”

  “The hallway?”

  Anna grew impatient and gave him the answer she’d been trying to extract. “Very institutional. Don’t you think?”

  “I guess so.”

  “The architects designed prisons. That’s what they were known for.”

  This was an exaggeration based on a shred of truth. After Anna had imparted her bit o
f misinformation, she left, an attempt to facilitate his budding romance with the roommate she thought he was courting. She assumed the object of his affection was Kate, since Edgar and Kate were an obvious pairing. The fact that George was always in class or at basketball practice while Kate was present for Edgar’s visits supported that notion. And Kate too began to think the visits were for her. But Edgar assumed he and Kate were forging a friendship. He had few female confidantes and found comfort in the idea that one day he might be able to tell Kate everything.

  An hour after one of Kate and Edgar’s study sessions had begun, George returned from basketball practice. What Kate hadn’t yet deduced, George already knew. She had seen that look before, but behind Edgar’s harmless eyes, there was no threat, and so she let his emotions take form without doing anything deliberate to lead him on. George never knew that Kate had met Edgar first and that she thought of him in ways George never would. Had she known, she would have discouraged him at every turn. Instead, she maintained a level of friendliness that could easily be misinterpreted as encouragement by someone inclined to misinterpret.

  “Turn around, Edgar,” George said as she proceeded to disrobe.

  Edgar looked away, stared at the poster of the gaunt man with his jeans partially undone, and tried to control his sudden erection. That was the tell that Kate did not miss. After George wrapped a towel around herself and headed for the showers, Kate decided to test her instincts.

  “I think I need to go to the library. You in?” she said, gathering her books.

  “No. I’m almost done with the assignment. I think I’ll head back,” Edgar said.

  They collected their respective study materials and departed in unison. Only Kate noticed that Edgar had left one of his physics books behind. Kate had grown accustomed to being invisible to men when in George’s company, but she’d always thought that Edgar saw her. Discovering otherwise hit Kate hard, although no one would see it. Kate thought that pining over a guy was the ultimate indignity. She went to the library to wait out whatever was going to transpire at Porter College. She tried to lose herself in a book on Morse code.

  As it turned out, nothing transpired. George returned to the room, put on her pajamas, and studied for a biology exam. Edgar knocked on the door exactly twenty minutes after he’d left and inquired as to whether she had seen his physics book. George retrieved the physics book and handed it to him as he stood outside the door.