The Arsonist's Handbook

by L. A. Detwiler

  I picture myself using fire as my medium and the great big, open world as my form of expression. It makes me feel alive with wonder, with possibility, something that is usually dead in my veins.

  My father’s journal has convinced me: I’m meant to be paradoxically dreaded and revered, even if it’s anonymously and from afar.

  I think about what it must be like to watch the panic of a town and know you singlehandedly caused it. I think of what Mom would say if she found out. I think of what Dad would say, too. And I think about what it would be like if, by some miracle, he was drawn into my world. Like a moth to the flame, drawn back into the world he left, into my sphere, into my life.

  Is it worth the risk? Because if I mess up, I will lose everything. And so could Mom. I could lose the chance at a normal, admirable opportunity, at an acceptable life before it even starts. Still, what kind of life will that be? A life where, at best, I get into art school with my drawings? And at worst, I work as a dishwasher at the diner trying to make rent? Maybe meet a girl who is as unnoticeable as me, so we can live a life of quiet boredom that oppresses us into drones? It seems, from a rational standpoint, that it’s worth risking that for something that could be grandiose like I’ve never imagined.

  This journal came at such an important time. As I stand on the precipice of the path I will choose, I think about the decisions my father has stirred for me. Choices obscure and abnormal, but choices all the same. I saunter back to bed and tuck myself under the covers to consider the possibilities that suddenly, unapologetically are mine.

  ***

  Mom is in her work uniform again the next day when I come home from school. She looks exhausted, having come in super late the night before and getting up early for her shift at the bank.

  “You work again?” I ask while setting my backpack down. She usually works three or four nights at the diner in a week to make extra money. Lately, it seems like she’s gone more and more.

  She puffs on her cigarette, and I have a case of déjà vu. Of course, things are always a bit like Groundhog’s Day around our place.

  “Someone has to bring money in,” she retorts, and I feel my cheeks redden. I haven’t been working hard on the job situation. I’ve had other proclivities distracting me.

  “I know, I know. Any food from last night?” I ask. Usually, when she stays late for closing up, Joe lets her take leftovers. I resist the urge to snivel at the thought of the bastard, my growling stomach overriding any principles that may be guiding me. She shakes her head.

  I grab a pack of out-of-date crackers from the bare cupboard and sit down across from her. We sulk in the silence that is the hallmark of our relationship. I know she loves me in her own way. But she never feels present in our exchanges. There’s always a jittery distance in her eyes, a faded sense of reality. She’s here but not. I’ve grown up with a stranger. Oftentimes, I wonder if it’s because she loathes me a bit for what she’s had to go through. Without me, freedom would have been hers for the taking after Dad left. I look at her worn face, her sunken in cheeks, and her deadened eyes and wonder what she was like when she still had spirit and hope. I think my father obliterated it all. Sprinkle in a son you have to raise alone, and maybe it’s all too much. Maybe she’s dead inside. I can’t blame her.

  She doesn’t ask how school was, and I don’t ask about work. I chew on my stale crackers, thinking about how morose, how muted our existences are. I think about the drudgery of working to survive, of surviving to keep breathing. I consider, too, the journal from my father. The sharply contrasting passion, the excitement that flutters through the pages. The exhilaration of the mere possibility of it all intoxicates me in a way that our humdrum life never could. I want to shake Mom and tell her there’s more than this, that Dad had no choice but to browse a life that offered excitement we never could. You can’t fault a man for that. Maybe now, after all these years of the drudgery that has become hers, she would agree. Perhaps she would take him back, too. My lofty vision expands, one where my father returns, and we are a family again. A Bonnie and Clyde sort of family, but a family who lives and experiences, nonetheless.

  Mom leaves, and I’m alone like I am so often. I’ve gotten used to being in solitude. With her hectic hours at both jobs, I grew up alone. Her job with Joe at the diner keeps her out late hours. Another reason I’ve always hated the man—but never as much as recently.

  I don’t feel like doing homework and hunting for a job doesn’t feel plausible. I’ve considered applying for a job at the library, somewhere quiet where I can pretty much be alone in my thoughts, but they’re not hiring. So, I decide to do what I do best—I hunker down in front of the television to flip through the channels. I’m looking for a decent crime show or some sort of mindless reality TV to dull me when I pause. The familiar newscaster, our hometown celebrity as sad as that is, has a grim look on her face. The little cartoon-like picture on the screen has flames.

  Another Arson? the headline reads. I pause, my heart beating wildly. And that’s when hope comes back into me, when life comes back in.

  There’s been another fire. Last night. Over in Elmwood again. And this time, the arsonist’s work was remarkable.

  Someone has died in the fire. Died. This isn’t amateur hour. This is a pro, an expert on the level of someone like my father.

  My jaw drops as the newscaster carries on with the details, a picture of the house that is now a pile of ash. It could be nothing. It could be random. It could be someone else’s work. But a whisper in my blood, in my bones, reveals that I know who it is. He’s still here. He’s still working. After all this time, he’s back.

  He is most assuredly, undeniably back.

  It’s all the inspiration I need. After I hang onto every word of the report, I flip off the television. I drag myself off the couch and return to my workstation. I need some more practice. I need to get up my nerve.

  And then, I finally need to make him proud.

  Chapter Eight

  Pete

  Pete didn’t know what to expect when he got to the scene, but how could he? Fires happened to other people, not to him. Fires were the things of the misfortunate, the foolish, and the downtrodden. They happened to the miserable people whose lives reflected a television drama. They didn’t happen to people with a cool, rational head on their shoulders and possibilities in their path. They didn’t happen to him.

  When his car screeched to a halt out front, though, tears stung his eyes. The fireman, the police, gawking neighbors all stood about as if in silent salute of the life that had once been his. They stared, but they couldn’t see what he saw. The scorched house gutted him, a sword piercing through his innards. He had endured a multitude of hurts in the more than three decades he’d walked the Earth. Who hadn’t? But he had never been so debilitated by it, so afflicted by the searing, emotional wreckage that now belonged to him.

  The knowledge stirring deep within, the words Anna screamed through the phone, sat somewhat dormant. He was a rational man. Still, the words didn’t resonate as truth yet. He couldn’t face the acidity of them. It was all too much. It was too fucking much yet somehow, as he stared through his crystal-clear windshield, it somehow wasn’t enough, either. His life had halted and twisted, turned, and flipped. Nonetheless, somehow the hunched over neighbor still stood on her porch, staring. The mailbox was still in the front of the driveway. Life kept going despite the massive vicissitude. How the fuck did life keep going after something like that?

  A silence permeated the scene as many of the observers turned away from the burning cesspit to study his car. They wore masks of pity, but Pete knew that behind the masks was something else—gratitude that it wasn’t happening to them. He would be feeling the same in their shoes. He knew he would.

  Paralyzed in his car, wave after wave of horror threatening to obliterate him, he was startled by a rapping on the window. He turned and peered through the glass. His gaze landed on a familiar face.

  Maria, wrapped in a blan
ket of some sort, tapped again. Her face was ravaged by mascara, unsettling puffiness, and tears. She didn’t stand with the confidence of the woman he knew a few hours before. She slumped over as if she were a haggard old woman who had been through a lifetime of suffering. She clawed at the door handle. He exhaled, wanting nothing more than to bury himself under the car, to huff on the tailpipe, to throw himself in front of a bus. Death was a luxury he did not deserve, a truth that murdered his resolve to stay alive even more.

  He inched his wavering hand to the door handle and cracked it open. Maria barely moved out of the way, numb to all reality and oblivious to his movement. She crumpled into his arms in a snotting, soggy pile of tears and coughed-up apologies. He found himself holding her up as she pressed the whole of her weight against him. Shouldn’t he be the one allowed to fall apart? Why was he having to steady her? He was never good with crying people. It always made him uncomfortable, and now, in the middle of this immense tragedy, it was too much to process. Maria gagged and sputtered as the words came out in broken pieces.

  “Tried…I d-didn’t know…downstairs…too late…so fast…”

  Her words were catapulted at him in a string of broken symphonies. He tried to piece the horrific sentences together. He tried to pretend it would be okay. He ordered himself to stay strong as his mother would. He wanted nothing more than to crumple to the ground, too. He tried to tune Maria out so the words wouldn’t desecrate his entire wellbeing, but his consciousness absorbed every it of the information against his will.

  “T-tanner?” he asked, shoving her out of his arms. He needed to look into her face. He knew already. In some alternate universe, though, his mind prayed that maybe he’d heard wrong or that it had all been a nightmare. She would confirm that it was all just a misunderstanding and that life could return to some semblance of normalcy. He would lose his house and his possessions, but his son was alive. Certainly, his son was alive, and Anna was mistaken. He could have back what he just had this morning.

  For a split second, he imagined she would smile and gesture in the direction of his son. All would be okay. He and Anna would grow closer again after realizing how much they almost lost. They would skip into the ash-laden but still bright future together, hand in hand, and all of the transgressions from the past year would fade into a hazy film of memories.

  But then reality took over. Maria didn’t respond. It was the silence he needed to hear to incinerate all hope that was left. The smoldering pile of rubble sat before him. He squeezed Maria into himself as his chest heaved, as he tried to suck in air, as he processed it all in increments of grief and bewilderment. He hadn’t been there. The house had been set ablaze. Maria had escaped.

  His son…his son…

  He had not.

  Anna’s screeching, wailing words coupled with reality. It wasn’t a nightmare or some cruel prank. It wasn’t even an overlook or a mistake. While Pete Andrews was fucking a random woman in a motel in another town, his son was burning to death in an inferno. His son—

  Pete crumpled to the ground, guilt and dread, terror and pain assaulting him. He had always prided himself on his stoicism, which had been upheld by the stranglehold his mother had on him his whole life. He could stand resolute in the face of adversity. He could pave his way through the impassable brush. But not now. This, this was too much. He was not strong enough. In the front lawn of the house that used to be his, he buried his face in his palms and cried into the once-green grass of 257 Emerald Way for the first time in his adult life.

  He wept and shrieked as neighbors and police and fireman tried to pull him to his feet, attempted to talk some soothing sense into him. He sobbed as he thought of all that had transpired, of how different life was from just that morning. He cried for his son, the boy he had not yet processed was gone. He cried for the life cut short, for the blood of his blood that was ripped from the earth, charred in a pile in the house that once was his home.

  He grieved, too, for the man he once was, who was now dead. Gone. Dust. He lamented the loss of life as he knew it. It was a swirling menagerie of pieces of anguish too wild to control, to sort, to cage in. For when his tears slowed and the neighbor led him to his house across the street, Pete knew. He knew that he would not rest ever again.

  And Pete knew that he would never forgive himself for the death of his only son.

  Chapter Nine

  Pete

  The police officer’s words catapulted into his brain over and over, yet Pete didn’t hear a single phrase. Wrapped in a threadbare quilt from Mrs. Caretta who, in her desperation to help, hovered above him, he sat at the table and listened to the officer’s droning. Maria had been taken to the hospital to be checked out as a precaution. He’d thought about going with her, but he was too weak. He needed to stay nearby, for what he didn’t know. Perhaps it was shock. Perhaps it was the need to feel close to Tanner. Maybe it was shame striking him.

  Words like “investigation” drifted in the air, but Pete couldn’t process them. He didn’t understand why or how the fire had started. More than that, though, he didn’t understand how he’d let it happen. How he’d been such a fuck-up. When his son needed him most, he hadn’t been there. Instead, he’d let his lusty needs and secret addictions usurp his fatherly duties. He was no better than the fuck-up of a father who left when he was too young to even know him. Pete had spent his life vowing he wouldn’t be that way—and he wasn’t.

  He was worse. So much fucking worse.

  A tearful, screaming cacophony bursting through the Caretta’s door caused the officer to pause his monologue. Pete looked up. He didn’t recognize the battered woman flying through the house toward him. Her blonde hair, her bone structure, her voice—it was all the same. Still, the crazed look in her eyes, the overall appearance, the shakiness in the way she carried herself betrayed her. She was changed. Forever changed.

  Where once strength had been painted onto her cherry lips, despondency, melancholy, and hysteria marred her. She’d been gone less than twenty-four hours, yet it seemed like she had traversed centuries to get to this point. His introspection didn’t last long, though. Because before he could utter a word of condolences or sorrow, she was on him, scratching and beating him like a deranged panther. All hopes that their reunion would offer some solace melted as his arms burned in pain.

  “You fucking bastard. How could you? How could you leave him with that incapable bitch? This is your fault. It’s your fault,” she wailed, pummeling his chest as he scrambled to his feet. His breathing was labored, and he couldn’t find the words to say. In truth, there were no words to assuage his culpability in it all. He didn’t interrupt her pawing and clawing at him, and he didn’t look at her. He averted his eyes, but he could still see the waves of pain expressed on her face.

  Mr. Caretta and the officer pulled Anna back from him. He wished they hadn’t. He wished she was strong enough to slaughter him right there, to end his pain. He didn’t deserve that, though, he knew. Mrs. Caretta interpolated herself into the scene, another quilt in hand. How many goddamn quilts did the lady have around? His mind settled on the dizzying arabesque pattern that wrapped around Anna. She was heaving for breath from the show.

  A pregnant silence permeated the room, all the adults staring and wondering who would take care of it. Wordlessly, they seemed to consider how one should act in such a situation, but no one came across an answer. It was uncharted territory for all of them. He glanced at the officer then at the Carettas. Pete saw the pity and grief he knew would be hallmarks of their lives now. Tears resurged from his eyes without warning, and the blubbering words escaping his lips were muddled.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he uttered, over and over again, anemic words that couldn’t bear any weight. They were as flimsy as tissue paper floating on a nonexistent summer wind.

  “Where were you, Pete? Where the fuck were you?”

  It was the question he had asked himself over and over. Where had he been? Where had he been all these years
, when he let the distance grow between them? When he let their family fall apart? When he found comfort in the bed of strangers instead of the beautiful life he had?

  Now it was gone, stripped from him as a punishment. Like a beacon of disaster, the ashen house and the lifeless remains of his son buried within them reminded him of the stark reality—he was a fuck-up. A disaster. He was no man anyone would be proud of. He was nothing. And that, in itself, was devastation like nothing else. He had not fallen far from the family tree after all. Pain stabbed into his chest again at the realization.

  “I’m sorry,” he reiterated, the words insubstantial even to his ears.

  Anna broke free from the strong arms of the Carettas. She skulked forward, her hands wrapped underneath the quilt. She was defiant now, steadfast in her stance and her seething rage.

  “You disgust me. I leave for one weekend, and you fucking let this happen to our son? You bastard. I’ll kill you. I’ll fucking kill you,” she whispered, the quiet words more terrifying than if she’d bellowed them. She ignored the nearby officer and the potential for witnesses. Hell hath no fury as a mother destroyed.

  Pete didn’t defend himself or act surprised. He nodded. It was fair.

  He hadn’t told her where he was. He didn’t ask how she got home so fast or how she had found out or what she knew. He stared back at the woman who had to know. She had to know on some level the role he played, the absence he had partaken in for so long. They both knew what they were, and what they weren’t anymore. They both knew she would never forgive him. The final crack in the surface of who they pretended to be had been initiated. If things were hopeless for them before, they were downright depleted now.