“Where did you go, Jason?” I whisper loudly. “Give me a second, I'm almost done,” he hisses back. “Shut the fuck up!” And a moment later, he returns from the kitchen, though walking on egg shells, towards the first floor sliding glass door. “Did you get them?” I ask quietly. “Yeah, now let’s get the hell out of here.” We leave the back porch, and head to the big open field to the east of his house. The area is completely surrounded by trees, creating a security from prying eyes, though the field was only about six acres, it felt much bigger. We were eleven years old, and any distance seemed far traveling for our short legs. On the far side of the field, was a half dug construction pit, as though a big excavator had started to dig, changed its mind and drove away. The pit was only shoulder deep on me, probably less than four and a half feet. This was our destination. I sit down on the edge, and put my feet in, Jason, my best friend sits on the other side, reaches into his pant pocket and pulls out an entire pack of strong cigarettes. He had just taken the pack from his mother’s carton in the kitchen, which she apparently wouldn't notice, considering that she smokes so often, that paying attention to how many packs she had was beyond her. He tosses me the pack after taking one out, and asks, “Did you get the lighter?” I reach into my pocket and pull out a white Bick lighter, and wiggle it at him, which is rewarded with a smile. I light a smoke, and tossed it to him. He fumbled and dropped it into the dirt at the bottom of the pit. “Sorry dude, my bad,” I say to him as he jumps down, and retrieves it. He lights it and climbs out of the hole, makes a strangled sound, and squeezes his eyes shut, a tear running down. I start laughing at him. He had taken an eye toke, as we called it, when stray smoke hit the eye. It stung like a bastard. He whips the lighter at me laughing. At least I catch it: with my forehead. I take a drag and decide to actually inhale. Bad idea. I start coughing violently. “What a pussy,” he says still laughing. The spin's start to hit me, so I go back to pretending to drag again. Jason decides to show off by blowing smoke out his nose like a dragon. I am impressed, but I don't dare try it. After a few minuets, he throws me another, and tries to show me how to smoke properly. It ends in another fit of coughing. Ill get it eventually. I look around, the big open space, we had spent our summers hanging out, shooting air-soft guns, and in the winter sledding up the northern slope. At this time of the year there were knee high stalks of stick like grass, golden yellow, glowing in the end of the day warmth. The private property in the mountains was full of interesting places to explore and build forts. A noise catches my attention, somebody crashing through the bushes. I throw what's left of my smoke into the dirt, and Jason did the same. The sound approached quickly, and soon was just on the outskirts of the tree line. Suddenly a skinny kid, probably eleven or twelve, followed by a younger boy, maybe eight or nine, came bursting through the cover. “Conner, you faggot, what the fuck did you bring you're little brother for?” “Fuck you, Jason, I couldn't get the little bastard to leave.” “Well, he better not rat.” I chip in. The older boy sat down beside me, and took a cigarette and passed it to his brother, and took him one for himself. I grabbed another. Conner eyes me and says, “He can't rat if he's doing it too.” I grab the lighter and ignite my smoke and pass it to Conner, who lights his own and his brothers. The younger brother takes a big drag and exhales, like he's been smoking for years. I start to inhale, very gently, and try to hold back my cough. Conner smacks me on the back, and I sputter, loosing my reserves, I start coughing again. This time, I fall backwards holding my hand over my mouth. “Pussy,” Conner states with a smirk. “That's what I said,” Jason says, chuckling. My face turns red with embarrassment. We sit for a while and continue smoking, the light is getting that thin look it gets when the day is going to end soon. Long shadows run the field from every tree and stump. Conner's brother starts fidgeting and asks us what we want to do. I suggest we build something. Jason says it’s too late and we won’t get anything done. Conner grabs a big hand full of grass and lights it on fire with my Bick. We watch it burn for what seems like ages. When it gets close to his fingers he drops it in the pit, I take the lighter and light an even bigger bundle. It burns for a while, before me too, drop it in the pit. Smoke is wafting. We are beginning to stink like camp fire. “I know,” says Conner's brother, “I’ll be right back.” He rushes off before we can even question him. We can hear him crashing through the buses for a long while, towards their house. I light another cigarette and continue to inhale properly. It’s getting easier every time, though the spinning, lightheaded feeling wouldn't pass. We sit around and smoke for a while. My chest feels stiff. Jason and Conner are cracking stupid jokes back and forth, but I am silently watching the scenery. So beautiful. The younger brother is gone for a while, and Conner starts to get worried, but soon, we here the familiar crashing, of a stumbling child running through bushes. He burst forth out of breath, holding a tiny half full gasoline can. “What are we supposed to do with that?” I ask worried. “Relax,” he says, “let’s light some slugs on fire.” We all laugh and stand up. I almost fall down again from a dizzy spell: they all laugh at me, and a chorus of “pussy” rains down on me. The three boys start to search for slugs, which there were so few in this heat. Conner's brother locates one in a leafy green in the shade of an old dead tree. He popes the gas can open, and drizzles the big yellow slimy slug, which instantly starts to writhe and wriggle under the harsh chemical. I lean down and light the slimy creature with a flick of my thumb. It immediately starts to sizzle, and turn black as it burns alive. We all laugh. It smells awful, so we set off to find another. All fear in my stomach gone. It doesn't take long to find a small black slug with another one attached to it. It was a strange sight. A large white bubble was protruding from the hole on its side. The younger brother, takes the open gas can and dumps a little more fuel on the animal, snatches the lighter from my hand and lights the slug, which bursts into flames instantly. The younger brother starts to shake his hands violently. The tips of his fingers are on fire. Conner, being protective jumps forward to help, kicking over the gas can spilling the contents all over the ground, splashing fuel up his brothers legs. The fuel touches the still burning pile of crusty slug. Without warning, the younger brother bursts into flames. The screaming. Oh God, the screaming still haunts my nightmares. Two feet of flames shot over his head. He tries to run, but Jason tackles him to the ground, and in a flash I am there stomping on his burning legs, trying to get the flames under control. I hear a snap, but I keep hitting the bottom of my shoe into his melting flesh. It doesn't take long to get the fire out, once Jason starts to throw dirt on him, but not after breaking the poor boy's legs in a few places, melted bits of my shoe rubber sticking onto his cooked shin. His legs looking like filthy, pulsing slugs, just ignited by a cruel child. His face wrinkled and half melted, his hair nothing but smoldering curls and patches of baldness. All of him a sick red pink color, glistening as plasma starts to leak from the burns up his body, half clinging clothing. Jays screams at Conner to get help. He just looked dumbstruck, complete shock, not a step from where he was last, and entirely immobile. Jason grabs his shirt and shoves him to the ground. “GO GET HELP, YOU FUKTARD!” he screams, “AND DON'T YOU DARE TELL ANYBODY WE WERE HERE, OR ILL FUCKING KILL YOU!” Conner scrambles to his feet, snapped out of his shock, and hit the tree line faster than I had ever seen anybody run. Jason grabs my shoulder, and tries to pull me away, but I am a bit dumb struck myself. “Come on, we have to go,” he says to me. Guilt washes over me for leaving him, but fear pushes me, and we run, and run, and run. I cannot remember much more of that day, only three things, really; the smell, the most putrid smell of cooking flesh and burning hair. A lethal combination: I lost the contents of my stomach. The look of his ruined, twisted filthy legs, bone showing. I gag again. His eyes: nothing looked like that boy’s blind eyes, wrinkled and milky. The eyes of a dead child. A corpse’s eyes still moving and fluttering, trying to see. And worst of all, the screaming, his choking screams, as he inhales fire and gasoline fumes. The gurgling, terrified grunts and finally silence where he fell, unconscious. The memory of that sound still makes the hair on my body stand up, and a shiver passes through me. I ask for forgiveness for all the times I have been cruel to something helpless. The darkness in me, is deep. Deeper than any ocean, or crevice the unconscious mind could produce. And now deeper than ever, as though the flames had baptized me into some kind black and charred emotional place. Again, I shudder at the memory of burnt flesh and a screaming child, but it passes. I was so glad when I found out he was OK. Horribly disfigured, blind, raspy voiced and unable to walk for a number of years, but alive. Apparently, they grafted skin off his back onto his legs. It wasn't so great to run into him, but he seemed happy to be alive. He never told anybody what had happened, and neither had his brother, Conner. I think he was feeling guilty about it still, I know I would, at least I like to think so anyway. I was relived. He had even quit smoking; the idea of something burning anywhere near him brought on pangs of fear and intense shaking. I never did quit. A weakness of will, as I see it now, but then merely a resistance to do what was good for me, simply because people disproved. I was a rebel. These thoughts help me to remember that the full pack of smokes in my breast pocket, are burning a hole, metaphorically. I reach in and flip the flimsy paper lid, shake a filter loose, and grab it with my lips. The oatmeal needs to cook, and that gives me time to step out onto the early morning deck, for a quick smoke break.

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Chapter 4: Fire - Part Three Oil flames And Cigarette Smoke.

The small book of blue matches look worn. There are not many left. Three to be exact. I strike the third match, bringing to life my destructive little redhead friend. He, like many others, dies far too quickly. I snap off his identical brother, and strike him to life in the same manner. I light up quickly, enjoying the sharp sting of sulfur in my nostrils. I inhale deeply. I've been smoking for a while now. I remember the first time I got caught. My mind wanders to the strikingly vibrant memory, and of course you can guess, it started with another fire: I had just received my first computer, happy that I had accesses to endless amounts of information, but angry that my brothers have had their own computers since they were about twelve, completely unrestricted, where as I had to wait until I turned fourteen, and my adoptive parents refused to allow me to have one without spy-wear being installed. They watched and questioned everything I did, every button I pushed, every mouse click I made. It was an irritation, to say the least. I was soon getting bored doing G rated activities on my computer, and set off to find something more interesting to do. As I've learned over the years, when I'm bored and in need of activity, I must do something safe, like read, because most of my ideas are dangerous and result in extreme consequences. This was no exception. I had a small aromatherapy oil diffuser, a metal stand that held a small glass bowl above it for putting oils mixed with water in. Under the bowl was a place to house a candle to heat the oil. It was an interesting contraption, I thought. Maybe I could boil water with it, I think to myself, grabbing a porcelain bowl. My curiosity getting the best of me. I fill the bowl with tap water and place it above the candle, ignite it and leave it on the side of my desk. Twenty minutes go by, and nothing is happening. I put my finger in the water gingerly, it is lukewarm. I decide it needs more heat. I go into the cupboard, a grab three more candles. I place the three candles in the center and then place one in the middle on top of the three. I light all four candles. Now at the time, as intelligent as I thought I was, I neglected to remember that candles when heated turned into oil. And oil is very hard to put out. It took me a minuet to notice that the three bottom candles had turned the top candle completely to liquid, and the entire surface had burst into flames. I quickly tried to blow it out, but the flames just got hotter. The metal frame made it impossible to get anything in there to smother it. The room was slowly filling with a noxious smoke. I open the window. I finally have no choice, not being stupid enough to try and pour water on it. I lay a towel on the floor, and knock the entire thing onto it, the burning fluid spills onto the towel, and I quickly fold it up and stomp it out. I was surprised that actually worked. The hot bowl, now completely black with soot, hit the tight knit plastic carpet, melting a giant black ring that turned solid and shiny. I quickly kick it under the bed. Smoke is now choking out my room. Thick oil and plastic smoke. I quickly open my window, and hope that it blows away, but as you can guess, I was not so lucky. I leave my room, opening my door a crack, and squeezing out, shutting it briskly behind me. My adoptive mother is sitting at her computer. I had crossed my fingers that she wouldn't be downstairs near my new bedroom, and as always, no luck. She turned to look at me. Then turned back to her screen. I casually walk over to the big TV in the downstairs living room, and switch on the cable. Nothing is on, but I flick through program after program, pretending to be busy. “I smell smoke,” she says from her desk around the corner. “Yeah,” I lie “my computer overheated, and the dust started to smell bad, so I unplugged it and left the room. I couldn't stand the smell.” She just made a grunting sound and turned back to whatever it was she was doing. Now this may seem like a stupid and unrealistic lie, but there were less intelligent things that came out of my mouth, so all I could do was sit back and wait. Not a moment later, my father is thundering down the stair well, with a fire extinguisher. I realize that the smoke must have drifted up my ceiling vent into the kitchen above. I tell him the same bullshit. He looks at me like I am completely insane. “Did you're computer burst into flames, there is so much smoke upstairs, I can't fucking see two inches in front of my face.” I say nothing. He walks over to my room, feels the wooden rood, and then opens it violently. A gray haze drifts out. I watch in terror as he enters my room: I had forgotten the burnt towel on the floor. He emerges holding it, now cool and crusted with black wax and burn holes. “WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT?!” he screams “ARE YOU TRYING TO BURN MY HOUSE DOWN YOU LITTLE FAGGOT?!” “NO!” I kind of sequel. Fear of what he was going to do overtaking any over my abilities to think or lie. He throws the towel and screams about what the fuck was I doing and what was I thinking. I lower my head and say I was messing around with a candle. And of course, as every parent’s first reaction, he assumes I was trying to do drugs. And of course, I was smoking a lot of weed at that time period, but this was completely unrelated. I tell him no, but that doesn't stop the usual “tearing apart the kids room”. He flips my mattress, then the bed frame. He knocks down all my books and digs through all my pockets, dirty laundry and all. I am not worried because I don't keep anything in there, but then I wonder. I go over everything in my head twice. I know there's no weed, I know there's no pipes, and I don't think there are any cigarettes. He barges out of my tornado of a room, holding a small packet in his hand, and a cracked blackened bowl. He whips the bowl at me, and it shatters beside my head, raining glass down my back. He comes up to me, grabs my shirt and pulls his nose to mine, looking into my eyes. “You going to kiss me?” I ask He punches me in the chest, and yells, “I wanted to see if you were stoned, you little pot head”, and then he snaps the small paper packet at me, and accuses me of stealing his rolling papers. I laugh and say I've never smoked pot in my life, and I got somebody to buy those for me. They are mine. “Why the fuck do you have papers if you’re not smoking pot, you druggy?” “Why do you have rolling papers then?” I ask “Why do you think, you idiot?” “I don't know, maybe the same reason you do,” I reply sarcastically. He gives me a look of anger. I respond with a blank stare. Then he starts to walk away. Maybe just this once, I can get away without any more bruises. "So, you’re smoking then?" he asks. "Yes, I have been rolling butts," I reply, nervously. Then he turns to leave without a sound. My thoughts instantly go to fear, wondering what he is going to do, but instead, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out half a pack of smokes and tosses it to me. I stumble through my surprise and grab the pack. "Thank you," I sputter in shock. “Quit stealing my butt tobacco, and if I catch you smoking in youre room ill kill you” he says and walks away without another word. I guess I finally got lucky.