“Are you Alvaro?” Frucci asked, standing in the doorway.
The boy looked up, then quickly averted his eyes. “Yes,” he said quietly.
Frucci closed the door behind him.
“Hi. I’m John Frucci, the investigator from the prosecutor’s office. It’s great to see you, Alvaro. I’ve heard so much about you. Is it okay if we talk a little bit?”
“Sure,” Alvaro replied, still looking away.
Frucci didn’t show it, but he was shaken. The blinds on the windows were all drawn, blocking out the brilliantly sunny day. A TV droned with sports talk. A plate of rice and beans sat half-eaten on the dresser, next to a Coke can with a plastic straw protruding from it. The boy had sequestered himself in this darkened room, away from the possibility of prying eyes, and it looked as if he rarely left.
Frucci tried to be dispassionate about his work. He had been trained that way, after all. But looking at Alvaro, he wanted to cry. He had heard so much about the boy, about his kind heart and how he had always looked after his family. This all seemed so cruel, so unfair. With the flick of a lighter or a match, this happy, handsome young man had had his future annihilated.
“I have to ask you about the fire,” Frucci said gently. “Everyone who was in the building that morning has been questioned, and I need to know what you remember about that morning.”
“No problem,” Alvaro said, glancing at Frucci. They talked for an hour or so. Matter-of-factly, Alvaro recounted the story of how he had fled from the dorm, but he had not seen or heard anything that could help the investigation.
Sitting with Alvaro made Frucci even more determined to prove who started the fire. He had had plenty of motivation before, motivation fueled by the smugness of students who had stonewalled the investigation. Suddenly, Ryan’s fraternity brothers didn’t remember saying certain things during those early interviews. They were either unavailable or obnoxious when investigators tried to speak to them. Some had been among the students subpoenaed during the raid on the bar a few months earlier, but there still was not enough evidence to present the case to a grand jury.
Sean Ryan and Joey LePore, meanwhile, had gone on with their lives as if nothing had happened. Ryan still attended Seton Hall. He partied at local bars and frat gatherings. LePore had transferred to the University of Delaware shortly after the fire, and investigators had kept an eye on him there. Sometimes they would take the three-hour ride down the New Jersey Turnpike and try to talk to his friends there. But they were just like Ryan’s pals — arrogant and hostile. “Why are you doing this?” one girl asked a detective who approached her on the Delaware campus. “Why don’t you just leave Joey alone?”
Frucci had been unnerved by the callousness of the students and by their complete disdain for authority. He wasn’t all that much older than Ryan and LePore and their friends — a decade or so — and it would never have occurred to him, at that age, to thumb his nose at the cops or to lie about something so important.
Frucci couldn’t help wondering, Why did someone do this? And why won’t they tell the truth? He wanted to think that there was some good in everyone and that one day these kids would say they were wrong and they were sorry. And he hadn’t wanted to think people could be so bad that they didn’t give a damn about what they did, even when their actions caused others to die.
Maybe they should see this boy, Frucci thought, looking at Alvaro. Maybe if they saw the damage they had done, saw the pain that had been inflicted, they would find a conscience.
Somehow, he doubted it.
He didn’t think there was a conscience in the bunch.
At first, Alvaro had been against the idea of attending the burn support group meeting at Saint Barnabas. When Shawn first suggested it, Alvaro said he had all the support he needed from his family and his friends. Trying a different tactic, Shawn then said he didn’t really need a support group, either. But maybe it wouldn’t hurt to follow his mom’s advice and try to help someone else.
“I mean, we know about what it’s like to be burned,” Shawn had said. “So why not share? Right? And think of it this way: we’ll be the stars of the meeting.”
Alvaro just laughed. He had no idea that his physical therapists had talked to Shawn, telling him that Alvaro seemed to be slipping in his recovery. He was getting too comfortable staying — hiding, they thought — in his house. Sometimes, Alvaro skipped therapy, his mother calling to say he wasn’t feeling too well or he was just too tired. As many times as Bond had told Alvaro that it was his responsibility to phone when he wasn’t coming, the messages still came from Daisy, and always very early in the morning when no one would be in the therapy room to pick up the phone. Sometimes Daisy called the night before, after everyone was gone for the day. “How do you know you’re not going to feel good the night before?” Bond had asked Alvaro. “I don’t know,” he had replied, embarrassed by the question.
If they could just get Alvaro to come to the support group, Bond told Shawn one day during physical therapy, then they had a fighting chance of undoing the damage that was being done.
Shawn knew that the only way was to appeal to Alvaro’s sense of selflessness and compassion for other people. Sure enough, after a few conversations with Shawn cajoling and badgering him, Alvaro finally gave in.
“Okay,” Alvaro agreed. “But just one.”
A dozen people were gathered in the burn unit’s community room when Shawn and Alvaro arrived on that Tuesday at the end of August. Some were patients in the unit. Others were physically healed but struggling to survive in the real world: a firefighter who was burned while fighting a house fire years ago and seemed to be coping until his girlfriend lit a candle at dinner one night and he fell apart; a utility worker whose wife left him after he was burned by a rocket of flames that shot up out of a manhole; a woman who had dumped a pot of steaming soup on her chest as she lifted it into the freezer, and had terrible nightmares about being set on fire.
“This is Shawn Simons and Alvaro Llanos,” said the social worker who led the meeting. Most of the others knew them from newspaper stories or television accounts of the dormitory fire, and just as Shawn had promised, they were treated like celebrities.
“I thought I read that you died,” the mother of a burned child said to Alvaro.
“Almost,” Alvaro said, fidgeting in his chair.
“Who has a question?” the social worker asked.
One mother, whose six-year-old boy was burned when he was playing with matches near a can of paint and it blew up in his face, worried about people staring at and ridiculing her child.
Shawn took the question.
“People do stare,” he said. “Wherever I go. At the mall. In restaurants. In gas stations. Even in my own neighborhood, where everyone knows me. It’s something I’ve had to learn how to deal with. Sometimes, when I see someone staring, I’ll ask if they want to know what happened to me. They usually get all embarrassed, but I tell them anyway, and everything’s cool. We both walk away feeling okay.”
A man who was electrocuted while working on a train spoke: “I was in my car at a traffic light, and a man pulled up beside me and kept staring at me,” he said. “I rolled down the window, looked over at him, and said, ‘Boo!’ ”
Everyone laughed.
Another time, the man said, he was swimming at a public pool when he noticed someone staring. “So I turned to my buddy and I said, ‘Jeez, I hope this leprosy is drying up.’ ”
Alvaro piped up.
People didn’t just stare at him, he said. They gaped. “I can’t hide my burns with a baseball cap and gloves the way Shawn does,” he said. “I know people look at me and think I’m ugly. But then I have to think to myself that no matter what I look like now, I know I’m still me. I’m still the same person inside that I was before I got burned. And I’m going to get better in time.”
The fire had taught him important lessons, Alvaro said, looking around the room. “I think I’ve learned more because of it. I’ve se
en so much that other people haven’t seen. I learned life is so precious, and no matter how bad things seem — say you don’t have money, or you don’t look the way you did once — well, you still have your life. That’s what’s important.”
Pride washed over Shawn as he listened to Alvaro speak. This was Alvaro’s moment, and as much as Shawn loved to be the center of attention, he was going to let him have it.
Shawn sat quietly when the next question came.
A little boy who was seated next to his mother waited for Alvaro to acknowledge him.
It was Jabrill, the eight-year-old who had been playing with matches when his bed caught fire, burning him over most of his body.
Admitted to the burn unit while Alvaro was there, Jabrill had turned to the teenager for comfort and encouragement. The relationship had continued, and he had recently telephoned Alvaro at home with a problem. The kids in the neighborhood were making fun of him because of the way he looked, Jabrill had explained. “Sometimes, when I go out with my mom, people stare.”
“I think they’re probably staring because you’re so cute,” Alvaro had said, and the little boy giggled. Alvaro had talked to him for an hour about ignoring children who were teasing him, finally soothing the young boy.
But the problem hadn’t gotten better, Jabril said now. People still stared. He didn’t know what to do.
People stared at him all the time, too, Alvaro explained. “Just the other day, I was standing in line at the movies, and this girl about my sister Shirley’s age just stood there staring at me,” Alvaro said. “I decided she was staring at me because I’m so cute.”
Jabrill giggled again.
On the ride home from the hospital with Shawn, Alvaro was pensive.
“I need to get out more,” he said.
“Yeah,” Shawn said.
Alvaro watched the trees speed by, a rush of green with splashes of yellow and orange. Another season was about to end, and a new one would soon begin. For so long, all he had been able to think about was himself and getting better. It had to be that way. The task had been all-consuming, so there hadn’t been time for anything else, or anyone else. Today, at the hospital, things had been different. He hadn’t thought of himself or his troubles once, and it had felt good.
“I think I really helped people in there,” Alvaro said, looking at Shawn. “I almost felt normal.”
Shawn turned up the music on the radio.
“Told ya,” he said.
Chapter 25
On the first day of the school year, shoving his burned hands into the pockets of his baggy Polo jeans and pulling a Yankees baseball cap over his forehead to hide the scars, Shawn returned to Seton Hall.
When Shawn left home that morning, Christine had felt like her son was going off to kindergarten for the first time. How would he feel once he was back on campus? Would he be able to adjust? Would he feel afraid? Shawn had assured her he’d be fine. The fire was in the past, and he didn’t want to dwell on it anymore. What had happened, happened. It had made him a man. It had brought him closer to his father. And it had given him a new best friend. Shawn had stuck with Alvaro through the most difficult times of his life. He had celebrated with him when things went right, cried with him when everything seemed wrong. He was there the day Alvaro woke up from his coma. He had held his hand when he looked in the mirror for the first time. When Alvaro moved from Saint Barnabas to the rehab facility, Shawn had been his first visitor. And his was the first face Alvaro saw when he finally came home.
Now, Alvaro wanted to return all those favors. He wanted to share this milestone with Shawn, to be there with him when he resumed college life.
Frail, scarred, and bandaged, Alvaro walked on campus, his parents tagging along behind him, searching for his roommate. The sun was brilliant, and students twittered with anticipation as they milled around, searching for their new classes. I wish —, Alvaro thought, dodging stares by turning his head or looking down at the ground, I wish I was well enough, strong enough, to be back at school. I wish I had never been burned and it was me and Angie, holding hands, excited about beginning a new semester.
“I wish I could find Shawn,” he said to his parents, now scanning the faces of the students who passed him.
“I’ve counted four so far,” Alvaro said as he walked. “Friends, people I knew pretty well — they didn’t know who I was.”
Alvaro called out to a girl. “Hey, it’s me. How ya doing?”
“Al? Is that you? I wasn’t sure,” she said, running to him and hugging him gingerly.
“There he is!” Alvaro said, spying Shawn walking into a building a few feet away. “Shawn!”
“What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to be here for you, to wish you good luck on your first day back.”
“Wow,” Shawn said, his eyes filled with gratitude and pride that Alvaro had mustered the courage to come. “It’s so great you came here, Al.”
“I know,” Alvaro said, and they both laughed.
Shawn headed for class, his first of five that day, and Alvaro headed for the parking lot, tired from the trip and ready to go home.
He couldn’t help thinking that only a year ago, he had come to campus as an eager eighteen-year-old who had never spent a night away from his parents. His goals had been pretty straightforward: getting good grades, earning a spot on the school baseball team, and making a pretty girl named Angie Gutierrez happy.
Angie, who was living on campus again, seemed to be avoiding Alvaro lately. It had been days, probably longer, since she’d returned one of his phone calls. He had thought about her the night before, when he was planning his trip to Seton Hall to see Shawn. He mused about how much he loved her, and he wondered why he hadn’t seen her and why she wasn’t calling.
“I can’t go home yet,” Alvaro said to his parents as he took his cell phone from his pocket. “I’m going to call Angie to see if she’s around.”
Angie was agitated when she saw Alvaro in the lobby of her dormitory. She had not known he was on campus until he called to say he was there. “I’ll be right down,” she had said. She arrived in the lobby fifteen minutes later.
“Hi, sweetie,” she said stiffly, ushering Alvaro and his parents to the courtyard outside. “I tried to call you yesterday,” she said, kissing him on the cheek. “Really, I did.”
The former lovebirds were ill at ease. They seemed to be dancing: Alvaro took one step forward, and Angie took one step back.
Mrs. Llanos looked away. Her heart was breaking.
A few minutes of chitchat later, Angie said she had to go. Alvaro and his parents headed for the car.
Taking refuge in the campus café, Angie slumped into an overstuffed couch. She wished it would swallow her up. Everything was so different now, Angie explained to a friend. “Sometimes it’s not even him. It doesn’t even look like him anymore. It’s just hard to see him like that. I’m not embarrassed to be with him, but every time I see him I feel so bad. I’m afraid to talk to him about the relationship. Sometimes I feel like my life just stopped. I can’t meet people. I guess I just want to move on. But I feel so guilty.”
Other students had been scrutinizing Angie. “Even when I go out with friends, people say, ‘How’s Al?’ They throw it in my face.
“In the beginning I was trying to be there for him. When he woke up from his coma, he wasn’t communicating with me. Then he realized I was trying my best, but that wasn’t good enough.
“I’m only nineteen,” Angie continued, wringing her hands and staring into her lap. “I should be able to date other people. I don’t want people putting this on me, that I can’t live because of Al. There’s no right or wrong in this. I know a lot of people will disagree with that. They’ll say I’m bad. I’m the type of person who, like, I hate it when people don’t like me. But you can’t judge someone unless you are in their position.”
Angie had made a decision, she said. She would leave Seton Hall as soon as she could get accepted at a co
llege in another state.
“I feel trapped here,” she said. “The fire is going to haunt me forever. I have to deal with all of his friends watching me. If I was to go out with someone here, no one would accept it. I want to be there for him, but I just can’t be there for him as a girlfriend. I want to be able to have the option to move on, and I don’t feel like I have that option, and sometimes I resent that. I used to bug him all the time, ‘When are we going to get engaged? C’mon, when, Al?’ I really thought I would marry him. If this accident didn’t happen, we would have gotten married and had kids and that would have been my life. But right now, he’s not the one.”
Angie started to cry.
“I sang to him when he was asleep for all those months, but he will never know about it. No one will know exactly what I went through. I guess my love left a while back when people were trying to keep me there. I’ve been trying to live on memories. I tried to stay so focused, to love him, to be there, but it’s just not the same anymore. This is a love story that doesn’t have a happy ending.”
Two days later, Angie drove to Alvaro’s house. He had asked her to come. He wanted to let her off the hook.
“I don’t love you anymore,” he said.
“Oh?”
“No. I’m sorry. I’d like to be your friend, but that’s all I can be. I love you as a friend now. I hope that’s okay.”
Angie looked at Alvaro and saw her old boyfriend. She had never loved him more than at that moment.
“I understand,” she said, hugging him tightly.
Alvaro turned and walked into the house. Angie got in her car and drove away.
Shawn was waiting in the Llanoses’ house for Alvaro when he returned from talking to Angie. He had wanted to be there to catch him, if he needed someone.
“We talked the way we used to talk, and I know she still loves me,” Alvaro said. “We decided to be real close friends for now. I have to become a man, and she has to become a woman. Then we’ll see what happens.
After the Fire: A True Story of Friendship and Survival Page 15
