Once Burned

by Gerry Boyle

  I pulled onto the shoulder fifty feet past him and stopped, shut the truck off. In the mirror I could see that he was still coming and I got out, slipping my notebook into the back pocket of my jeans. I leaned against the side of the truck and waited. He watched me until he was thirty feet away, then shifted his gaze to his boots. When he was ten feet away, I stepped away from the truck.

  “Woodrow?” I said.

  He looked up, startled, but kept walking. I stepped into his path and he stopped. Still no expression, except in the eyes, which were dark and intense. There was a gold ring in his left nostril. A bar through his right eyebrow. A circular disk sort of thing in the lobe of his right ear.

  “I’m Jack McMorrow. I’m a reporter. Can I talk to you?”

  He stared.

  “How do you know my name?”

  “I’ve been talking to people in town. Somebody mentioned you.”

  “Who?”

  “Just some guys.”

  “What guys?”

  “At the firehouse.”

  Woodrow scowled, the eyebrow bar moving.

  “Fire jocks,” Woodrow said. “Fuck ’em.”

  He stepped around me and I fell in. We walked ten paces in silence, both of us looking straight ahead. Finally I said, “Why don’t you like those guys?”

  “They’re assholes.”

  “Oh, yeah? Why’s that?”

  “I don’t know,” Woodrow said. “Ask them.”

  “What’d they do? I mean, did they do something to you? You don’t hang out with the fire jocks?”

  “I don’t hang out with anybody in this hick town. This shithole.”

  We walked. He was holding it together. Tough on the outside, crying at the center.

  “So you don’t like it here.”

  “I’m outta here, soon as I’m sixteen.”

  “When’s that?”

  “Three weeks.”

  “Where you going?”

  “Portland. Where we lived before.”

  “You have friends there?”

  A moment of hesitation, and then the lie.

  “Lots of ’em.”

  “Why’d you move here?”

  “I didn’t. My parents did.”

  “From Portland.”

  “And then my dad left. Traded for a younger model. What’s your name again?”

  “Jack.”

  “Jack what?”

  “McMorrow.”

  From his pocket he slipped out an iPhone. He stopped walking and twiddled at the phone with his thumbs. He peered at the screen, shielding it from the sun.

  “Okay, you’re legit.”

  “You found my stories.”

  “Yeah. New York Times. What the hell you doing up here?”

  “It’s a perennial question.”

  “What?”

  “Everybody asks me that.”

  “What do you tell ’em?”

  “I got sick of the city. Moved to the woods.”

  He looked at me sideways, started walking again.

  “That’s messed up, dude.”

  “So I’ve been told,” I said.

  We walked, his black boots matching my running shoes, step for step.

  “How long you lived here, Woodrow?”

  “A fucking eternity.”

  “How long’s that in years?”

  “One. Seems like a friggin’ lifetime.”

  “Really don’t like it, huh?”

  “Buncha redneck assholes.”

  We were walking away from the town center, the river down the hill and through the woods to our right. It was a pale shimmer through the trees. Woodrow didn’t seem to notice. His boots made a scrunching sound in the sand and his mouth was set in a scowl.

  “Didn’t mean to upset you, man,” I said.

  He shrugged, shoulders moving the coat up and down. “I’m fine.”

  Another lie. The scowl stayed in place. We kept walking.

  “You go to the high school?”

  “If you want to call it that. Freakin’ dump.”

  “Must be some good kids there,” I said.

  “Buncha shitkickers.”

  “What about the girls?”

  “Bitches,” Woodrow said. And then, “So what do you want?”

  “What do I want?”

  “Yeah. What’s your story about?”

  I hesitated for three steps.

  “The fires,” I said.

  Woodrow stopped short and turned to me. I could see his hands clench into fists in his pockets. We were eye to eye, him in my face. “What’d they say?”

  “One of them said the fires were your fault.”

  He snorted, started to pant. The hands came out, fists clenched. I was ready to block him if he started swinging.

  “Those—”

  Then all of sudden he was swallowing, breathing hard, grunting. His face turned red, as if trying to get the words out was choking him. Like a toddler having a tantrum. The Asperger’s? Some autism thing?

  He made a sound like a frightened animal and the hard shell broke apart.

  He started to cry. “I hate them, those fucking—”

  “It’s okay, Woodrow. Don’t get upset.”

  “I’m gonna kill them. I’m gonna kill everybody in this fucking town.”

  He swiped at his face, smeared the tears.

  “They’re gonna be the ones crying when I . . . when I get done. They’re gonna be the ones, gonna be so afraid they’re gonna be shaking.”

  He held his clenched hands in front of him. They were trembling. I reached out and took his wrists.

  “Easy. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get you all—”

  He yanked his fists back, shouting, “Get your hands off me.” He started walking fast and I hurried to keep up, the two of us like a squabbling couple.

  “Woodrow,” I said, “I’m sorry. It’s okay.”

  “I hate those assholes. I hate this town. You put that in the newspaper. I’m gonna fucking kill those motherfuckers so bad.”

  Spittle flew from his lips and he was walking with his arms swinging.

  “You don’t mean that, Woodrow. You’re not gonna kill anybody, are you?”

  “Gonna kill ’em all. You put that in there. Tell ’em I’m coming. I’m gonna burn them up. Burn this place to the fucking ground.”

  He broke into a trot. I kept up and then he started to run, boots thudding. I let him go, watched as he turned off the road and skidded down the embankment into the woods. I stood and listened and heard him crashing through the brush and then heard him yell, no words, just a long and anguished bellow.

  Nice going, McMorrow, I thought. Which of the downtrodden will you torment next?

  7

  “So you called?” Roxanne said.

  “Yeah. They said they’d pass the message to the fire investigator handling the case.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Investigator Reynolds.”

  “He didn’t call you back?”

  “She,” I said.

  We were sitting on the steps of the deck, Roxanne holding a glass of Chardonnay and me a can of Ballantine Ale. From somewhere behind the trees, we could hear Sophie’s laughter, Clair egging her on. Smoke drifted from the Varneys’ backyard.

  The rain had held off, the clouds scudding over, hurrying east.

  “But you don’t think he’s the one,” Roxanne said.

  “No. I don’t think he’d go off threatening to burn the town down if he was already doing it.”

  “But would he do it now?”

  I drank some ale, shrugged.

  “You know more about messed-up kids than I do, but I don’t think so. He was just venting. Like a little kid having a tantrum, someone who might be—how do they put it?—on the spectrum? This woman Lasha said it was something like that.”

  She considered it. Sipped. A vireo sang from the top of the big oak, the same six notes, over and over. No worries. Must be nice.

  “Those sorts of
rages in autism are usually short-lived,” Roxanne said. “Frustration with a rule or a social situation.”

  “How ’bout a newspaper reporter comes along and accuses you of arson.”

  “You didn’t know, Jack,” she said. “You were just doing your job.”

  I raised the can and drank, put it back on the step. “I was pushing things because I didn’t have a story yet. Thought I’d shake the tree, see what fell out. I pushed the fire chief, too. The guy just rubbed me the wrong way—one of these who runs the place like his little fiefdom. I just—”

  I hesitated.

  “What?”

  “The whole thing with Ratchet. I don’t know. The poor little guy, odds stacked against him right from the start. It’s just wrong. Like this cosmic evil or something just picked him out.”

  Roxanne watched me. Waited.

  “So I just went down there, mad at the world, looking to take it out on somebody. Not very professional.”

  “You had no idea that the boy might be autistic.”

  “Could have gone easier all around,” I said.

  “Yeah, well,” Roxanne said, “you know what they say about hindsight.”

  She sipped, rested her hand on her crossed legs. Above us, the vireo sang on. In the distance Sophie laughed. A bubble of contentment.

  “Dave called from the office,” Roxanne said.

  “What’d he say?”

  “He said Beth called him. She was drunk.”

  “Going around,” I said, thinking of Lasha. “What did she say?”

  “She said she wants to meet with me. She said she thinks it might bring closure.”

  “Beth said that?”

  “She’s had counseling. And she’s smart. Underneath. Another one who could have made it. Maybe.”

  “What’d Dave think?”

  “He seemed to think it might be worth it. To talk to her, I mean. Could save a lot of legal costs.”

  “Beth’s lawyer know she’s conducting her own negotiations?”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Well, he’ll put the kibosh on that. Thirty percent of nothing is nothing.”

  She was mulling it over, her expression serious and sad.

  “I don’t know. It might be good. I can tell her nobody meant for her son to die. I was trying to help him. We all were.”

  “And she says what?”

  “Maybe she’d understand.”

  A long pause. I sipped. Put the can down on the step.

  “Nothing against healing and reconciliation and all that,” I said, “but I’d search her on the way in. It’s not just her. People are crazy when it comes to their kids. Just think how you’d feel if something happened to—”

  I caught myself, but not in time. Roxanne bit her lip and closed her eyes and the tears started to flow. I leaned over and held her, said I was sorry. We leaned against each other for a moment and then Roxanne pulled away, dabbed at her eyes. Woodrow, and now my wife. I was getting good at this.

  “We’ve got to go,” she said. “They’re making dinner.”

  The fire was ringed by rocks, a cast-iron saucepan hanging on a metal tripod. Clair prodded the coals, said it was about time us cowpokes had some grub.

  “There’s beans,” Sophie said, hopping up and down and pointing at the pot. “And potatoes. Those are the silver things right in the fire part. We wrapped them up. And there’s hot dogs on sticks. Daddy, you can have two.”

  Mary came out of the house with a salad in a wooden bowl and a pitcher of lemonade. Clair walked to the table and picked up paper plates. He ladled beans onto each one and I added a potato and hot dog and carried them back to the picnic table, one by one.

  We sat, Roxanne and I on one side, and Sophie between Clair and Mary on the other. Mary poured lemonade for herself and Sophie and we raised our cups, glasses, and bottles for a toast.

  “To a home on the range,” Clair said.

  “Git along, little doggies,” Sophie said.

  I smiled. The line was “dogies,” or motherless calves. Doggies was good enough. “Cowboys had it pretty good,” I said.

  “Because they had cowgirls,” Roxanne said.

  “Right,” Mary said. “It was the cowgirls did all the work, don’t forget.”

  I smiled, sipped my beer. Felt my phone buzz in my pocket. I got up from the table, walked toward the drive. By Clair’s pickup I answered it.

  Road noise and police-radio chatter.

  “Mr. McMorrow.”

  A woman’s voice. All business.

  “This is Davida Reynolds. State Fire Marshal’s Office.”

  “Hi.”

  “We need to talk. Where are you now?”

  “Home, in Prosperity. Dump Road.”

  “Landmarks?”

  “Blue Toyota truck. Green Subaru. From the Knox end, a little over a mile in.”

  “Half-hour,” she said.

  She didn’t ask if it was a convenient time.

  Roxanne read my expression as I approached, took my hand after I sat. Clair caught it, too, the pair of them knowing me better than I know myself.

  Sophie came over with a second hot dog for Clair, smothered in ketchup. She asked if I wanted the next one, and I said yes.

  “We worked up an appetite, didn’t we, Clair?” Sophie said.

  He winked at me.

  “Sure did, pumpkin,” Clair said.

  “Now it’s Daddy’s turn.”

  She turned and scuffed back to the fire in her boots.

  “Fire investigator is coming,” I said. “From Sanctuary.”

  I gave Clair the thirty-second version, too, pausing as Sophie approached. She stumbled and dropped the hot dog on the lawn and frowned. She stooped, picked grass off of it with small fingers, and put it back in the roll. She handed it to me. I thanked her and took a bite.

  “Delicious,” I said. “You’re a good cook.”

  She nodded and turned and ran back to Mary.

  “Must’ve been looking at this kid already,” Clair said.

  “If it took me just twenty minutes to have his name come up,” I said.

  “So the whole town is talking about him,” Clair said. “If he has nothing to do with it—”

  “Probably all over Facebook and who knows what else,” Roxanne said.

  “Well, people are cruel,” Clair said.

  “And the ones who think they aren’t,” I said, “are kidding themselves.”

  After hot dogs and beans came vanilla ice cream and coffee. Sophie asked how the cowboys kept their ice cream cold. Clair said they had freezers in their chuck wagons, with blocks of ice covered in sawdust. Sophie looked skeptical and then sleepy, and Roxanne said it was bedtime for cowgirls.

  She and Sophie started down the path through the trees to our house. As they disappeared I saw a maroon Suburban drive by slowly.

  “The truth and nothing but the truth,” Clair said.

  “So help me God,” I said, and got up and walked out.

  The Suburban was parked across the end of the drive. A dark-haired woman was in the driver’s seat, head down, writing. I walked to my truck, got a notebook and pen off the seat. When I turned back, Investigator Reynolds was walking toward me.

  She was small, not much over five feet, short, dark hair, stocky, but it might have been the jumpsuit. Mid-thirties, maybe, round face with ruddy cheeks and an upturned nose. She had a confident stride that said she wasn’t going to be intimidated and you’d better know it up front.

  “Mr. McMorrow,” Reynolds said.

  She held out her hand and we shook and her grip was strong, her gaze direct. “Thanks for seeing me.”

  I hadn’t thought that saying no was an option.

  She went to my truck, put a legal pad down on the hood. I followed and stood beside her. We leaned.

  “So tell me what happened,” she said.

  I did. She scribbled a few notes.

  “So he flipped right out. Like he’d heard this before,” Reynolds said.


  “I’d say so.”

  “When he made these threats, do you think he could have meant them?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t know the kid. If I’d known he wasn’t quite right—”

  “It’s not that he isn’t right,” she said. “It’s that he has an illness. Diagnosed. We inquired.”

  I looked at her, waited.

  “My nephew is nine and he has autism,” Reynolds said.

  “I see.”

  “When you say ‘not right,’ it implies that they’ve done something wrong.”

  “I didn’t mean that. I liked him. I feel sorry for him, stuck in this place, everybody picking on him.”

  “Did he really say he was going to kill these other kids?”

  “Yes. And everyone else in town. ‘Kill those motherfuckers so bad,’ was the way he put it.”

  She wrote that down.

  “He was suddenly, explosively angry. I don’t know if that translates to hurting somebody tomorrow or next week, or just spouting off. I’d lean toward spouting.”

  “Did you feel threatened?”

  “No. But I’m not from Sanctuary.”

  “But you still took it seriously enough to report it to us.”

  “If I didn’t and something happened . . .”

  “Right. And it was the guys at the fire station who first mentioned Woodrow to you.”

  “More to each other. And it was just one of them. Paulie and Casey and Ray were in the truck. I think it was Ray who said it. They told him to shut up. I don’t think the chief wants them talking to the press.”

  There was a flicker of reaction. She scribbled, then reached for the recorder and turned it off. She straightened and turned toward me.

  “Mr. McMorrow,” Reynolds said. “A question—off the record?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “What sort of story are you planning to write?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I won’t know until I’ve done the reporting.”

  “Who do you have left to talk to?”

  I considered it. “The victims of the fires. You. That veteran I heard about, the one who lives out in the woods.”

  “Louis.”

  “Right.”

  I slipped my notebook from my pocket. Took out my pen.

  “You know his last name?”

  “Longfellow,” Reynolds said. “Like the poet.”

  I looked up from the notebook.

  “I went to Bowdoin College, Mr. McMorrow; Longfellow’s alma mater.”