Everything That Burns

The boxes of papers were all that was left. He had already wiped his laptop, then destroyed it to be sure. He could have gone home, used the fireplace, but it wasn’t the way he wanted to explain things to his wife. There was the paper shredder at the office too, but it wasn’t a good idea to go back there now. So, exhausted as he was, he pulled off at the dark, tree-canopied drive to the pool club. The pool club was on his way home from the storage units where he had kept the papers, and he knew the lot was off the street enough to not attract attention.

The gate was open—not that it would have kept anyone out. In his headlights, he could see ruts in the grass where it had been bypassed before. Even though it was after midnight, he was not surprised to see older model Hyundais and Toyotas parked on the other side of the lot, out of view from the street. Behind the tennis courts, there were trails through the woods that led down to a small lake. He knew that local kids came there at night.

He parked the BMW next to a dumpster which stood by some trees over in the corner of the lot. It was a little more in view of the street than he wanted, and there was a newer SUV parked on the other side of the dumpster from him, but he thought the trees would give him some cover from the wind. He sat in the car, loosened his tie, then got out.

It was just October, but the fall was coming fast. It was chilly outside the car, and he thought about getting his suit jacket from the backseat, but figured this way he’d be encouraged to hurry. On the wind, he caught the smell of a fire burning down at the lake. There was a three-quarter moon in the sky—orange like embers and just visible through some wispy gray clouds like smoke. Through a gap in the pine trees, he could see the moon reflected in the middle of the lake, no bigger than the end of a lit cigarette.

He popped the trunk, pulled out a small metal trash bin, put it on the ground. There were three Xerox boxes in the trunk. He opened one, pulled from it a manila folder stuffed with papers, dumped it in the trashcan. Then, he pulled out a five gallon can of gasoline, turned back to the trash bin, and spattered the papers lightly. Even with the tree cover from the lake, the wind made starting the fire difficult.

Once burning, he put another stack on, carefully splashed gasoline over it. He didn’t like using gas to start a fire, but the station he’d stopped at had been out of lighter fluid. He could’ve stopped at another, probably should’ve, but when he saw the empty gas cans for sale, it seemed like a welcome compromise.

As the first group of papers burned, he heard laughter and young voices down by the lake. He worried a little that a concerned neighbor might call the police. But once the bottom of the second box was coming into view, and the fire was burning steadily, he relaxed. The laughter and voices echoing up from the lake was now comforting. Life was still going on, carefree and loose in the limb.

He knew places just like this one near where he grew up. Without needing to see them, he knew these kids—too young to get into bars or move out on their own, old enough that a gas station attendant hardly feels complicit for barely glancing at an expired, out-of-state ID. He knew fall nights just like this one—packed with cheerful urgency, filled with promise.

Once the second box was empty, he allowed himself to drift back to some of those nights. Just flashes of memory—a moonlit lake, a group of friends, a bottle of cheap wine swiped from his dad, and his first wife, Beth—not yet his wife—lustrous in a white dress and spreading a blanket in the dark. He remembered trying to build a campfire with just a pack of matches, some newspaper, and fallen brush. It had been warmer that night. He remembered the group going off to swim, leaving him alone with Beth.

The burning papers in front of him smelled vaguely of a campfire seasoned with pine wood, though more chemical. As the papers burned, the wind caught some of the embers and blew them up out of the bin, floated them down towards the water. It occurred to him that if he had children they would probably be close in age to the kids down by the lake. Beth had wanted a baby, but they were always short of money—broke, really. Then, he made some money, and they were no longer broke, but not happy anymore. Kris, his second wife, had never wanted kids—they had raised cocker spaniels instead.

A new wave of exhaustion came over him. He felt stiff in the joints, weak in the muscles. He fed the fire again, more carelessly. It almost went out. He poured some more gasoline, and it caught, but when he pulled the can back, some spillage caught fire on the side.

“Fuck!” He dropped the can, stepped back.

After a few seconds, the gas burned off.

He breathed slowly, deeply, told himself to wake up. He got the next stack off the top of the third Xerox box, threw it on. Stiff, he straightened up again to stretch his back. That’s when he saw the two kids, a boy and a girl, standing over by the group of cars. He could tell they were trying not to look at him. He put another stack of papers in the flames, nudged the bin with his shoe to settle the stack.

When he turned back, four or five other kids were coming around the other side of the pool house to join the boy and girl. They were standing over by their cars, under the amber parking lot lights. He could hear their voices, not distinctly enough to make out what was said, but he noticed they were slightly pitched.

They were looking in his direction.

He looked back to the last box in the trunk. He’d be gone in five minutes. He pulled out another small stack of papers, put it on. He rubbed his hands together, then spread his fingers over the fire to warm them. When he glanced back at the group of kids, he saw one of them had peeled off from the group and was heading towards him. The kid was tall, awkwardly thin, with curly dark hair that needed cutting. He was wearing a sweatshirt, shorts, and flip-flops. He was trying to jog, but it was more of a trot. Even still, there was ease in his gait, a freedom of movement in the muscle.

The kid stopped about ten feet away, nodding his head, careful to not look directly at the fire. He was a good-looking kid, with a strong jaw line and dark inquisitive eyes. He held a cigarette in his left hand—was obviously conscious of it.

“Hey,” the kid said. “Cold out here, huh?”

He rubbed his hands together.

“In shorts and flip-flops, I bet it is.”

“Yeah…” The kid looked down at his clothes. “I’m not really dressed appropriately.” He said this without real conviction, like he was repeating a phrase he heard so often he now found it easier to just admit it.

“Good night for a fire, anyway,” the kid said. “We had one going by the lake.”

“Tough night to get one going.”

“Yeah. We had to use lighter fluid. It offended my sensibilities, being a Boy Scout and all.”

“You were a Boy Scout?”

The kid laughed.

“Not really,” he said. “My dad was. But he taught me the right way to make a fire. According to him, anyway.”

“What’s the right way? Two sticks?”

“If it’s all you got. But no, you know—use the teepee method for stacking. The main thing is find proper kindling. Embers have to be good and hot, or it’ll go out.”

“I see.”

“Without the right kindling and arrangement, lighter fluid will just burn off. ‘Specially if the wood’s wet.”

“All right.”

“Believe it or not, it’s a big deal in some families.”

“I believe it.” He smiled. The politics of fire-building had been a big deal to his father. He and his father had even got into a shouting match one Christmas Eve over how to stack the wood in the fireplace. He had been nineteen. It was right after he and Beth had gotten engaged.

“Tonight,” the kid went on. “There was no way around it, with the wind. We had to run up to the Chevron.”

“The one up the street?” he asked.

“Yeah. Why?”

He laughed. The kid dropped his cigarette on the ground. He fished the pack from his pocket, pulled out another, and lit it. He took a drag, coughed.

“Gasoline’s hardcore though…”

He shrugged. The kid pointed to his car.

“7 series, right?” the kid said. “Bet that’s a good time on the Autobahn.”

“It’s not bad.”

“Never driven one,” the kid said. “I’ve driven a Mercedes or two. A Ferrari once.”

“All right.”

“But only across the lot—I used to work detailing cars.” He remembered his cigarette, took a drag.

“Those are some nice cars, even to drive across a lot.”

“I test drove a Porsche once too,” the kid went on. “I wore my friend’s brother’s suit, slicked back my hair. Ordered some sample business cards off the web.”

He couldn’t help but smile at the thought of all that hair slicked back, the skinny frame dressed in a suit one or two sizes too big in the shoulders. He tried to think if that’s something he would’ve tried at that age. Once, he had borrowed a neighbor’s MG without permission—to take Beth on a date. The neighbor had been out of town, and he was taking care of the dog, so he had the keys on the ring the neighbor had given him.

He remembered the fire. He turned back to the trunk, got another stack of papers, put them in the bin.

“Can I get one of those?” he asked, turning back to the kid.

He motioned like he was smoking a cigarette. The kid pulled the pack out of his shorts’ pocket, took a few steps over, opened the pack, and held it out.

There was only one left—turned up.

“It’s your last one.”

“Go ahead,” the kid said. “Gas station’s up the street. Got a ten left in my wallet—five for gas, five for smokes. No worries.”

He almost asked the kid why he hadn’t gotten cigarettes and gas when they had gone for lighter fluid, and, for that matter, where five bucks worth of gas would get him, but he stopped himself.

He took the cigarette. When he put the cigarette to his mouth, his hand smelled of gasoline. The kid offered him a lighter, but he held up his hand. He used the stick lighter he had brought to burn the papers. He waited for the wind to let up, took a long drag to make sure it was burning.

It was his first cigarette in ten years, he suppressed a cough.

“It was turned up,” he said, exhaling. “The cigarette.”

“It’s the lucky cigarette—the last one in the pack.”

“I see,” he nodded. “Well, I appreciate it.”

“No worries. I always try to bum the lucky one out. Good karma.”

He knew about the “lucky” cigarette—the one you turned up right when you bought the pack—he just didn’t know it was something kids still did. He hadn’t heard about it in years, not since before he had quit. Also, he had always thought it was an excuse to not give out your last one as opposed to a reason to.

“Good karma, huh?” he asked, taking a drag.

“Yeah, it’s small time, admittedly… But—maybe it adds up.”

“Maybe.”

“You don’t believe in karma?” the kid asked.

He thought about it. He looked at the lit cigarette, put his thumb to it, and turned it between his fingers like a rare coin. He had long regarded the idea of karma as just invisible money—spiritual currency that only mattered to people who didn’t have the real thing.

“I don’t know,” he said, finally. “I used to, I think. Guess I haven’t thought about it in a while.”

The kid shrugged.

“What’d you say your name was again?”

“Benji,” the kid said.

“Benji—I’m Danny.”

The kid stepped towards him, held out his hand.

“So Benji,” he said. “I’m gonna go out on a limb here—say you didn’t walk all the over to instruct me in the finer points of karma. What’s on your mind?”

“One of those girls over there,” the kid said. “That’s her car.”

The kid nodded to the SUV.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah… she’s freaking out a little. She was supposed to be home at midnight.”

“Well,” he told the kid. “She should get home right away. Is she okay to drive?”

“Oh yeah, she’s straight… it’s just—”

Benji looked at the fire directly for the first time, regarded it carefully, trying to process it, couldn’t, but there was no anxiety surrounding his lack of understanding. He had that strange surety of self some kids find early, the world is full of lucky cigarettes, everything that burns is a mystery.

“She’s a little weird-ed out,” he said. “Like you might be a cop or something.”

“A cop?”

“Yeah,” he laughed. “I told her—what cop drives a BMW? What cop wears a shirt and tie? Not one that would bust people for drinking beer at the lake. But still—”

“Still?”

“It looks like you could use your privacy.”

“I could,” he said. “But—I did pick a place right next to someone else’s car.”

The kid nodded.

“Cool,” he said. “I just wanted to make sure. And, so you know, you don’t have to worry about us—we’re not exactly legal.”

He pulled a rolled up baggie from his shorts, held it up.

“Fair enough.”

The kid turned to go back.

“Hey, Benji,” he called after him, grinning. Then, in a loud whisper: “You like this girl?”

The kid turned back, thought for a moment, then shrugged.

“She’s all right.”

“What’s her name?”

The kid paused, thought it over.

“I’m no cop, Benji.”

“Kara,” he said, nodding. “Her name’s Kara.”

The kid trotted back over to the group of kids. He pulled one of the girls aside. After a minute, they came walking back over, just as he had shoved the last stack of papers into the fire. As she came closer, the girl reminded him of Beth with her thick, black shoulder-length hair.

He put up his hand, waved.

“Hey,” the girl said, shortly, then hurried on to her car.

Benji stopped short of the SUV, only a few yards from the fire. He watched her go up to the driver’s side, fish in her bag for her keys.

“Nice to meet you, Benji. Thanks for the cigarette.”

The kid waved, turned to go back.

“Hey, Kara!” He dropped the butt of the lucky cigarette in the fire. She paused. It was a long pause before she looked back, and he knew he had caught her by surprise.

“Kara,” he said. “That’s a ballsy friend you’ve got there.”

She looked at him, then at Benji, smiled. She got in her car. When her engine turned over, he looked over at the kid. Benji gave him an awkward thumbs-up.

The girl drove off.

He was embarrassed now. It seemed he was trying to patronize them for being young. It wasn’t exactly what he intended, but it was what had happened. He’d had the impression of something there, but it hadn’t been the thing itself. Now, it seemed to him that he had somehow always been undone by his impressions—that he was always trying to fit the world to his constructions of it.

A few minutes later, the other cars started up. One-by-one, their headlights turned on. He watched as they pulled out, caravanned off into the night. All except the car Benji had gotten into. He wondered for a second if Benji would come back over—ask the questions that had to be burning in his mind. He thought quickly about what he could tell him. He didn’t know exactly why, but he wanted to tell him something. Warn him, somehow—though he didn’t know of what.

But then he heard the engine trying to turn over, and he understood.

The last of the papers had turned to ash in the bin. The fire was out. He looked back at the moon, copper-colored, like a new penny. He picked up the gas can, started walking across the lot towards Benji’s car. As he did, something came back to him—a looseness in his gait, a freedom of movement in the muscle—and for the brief walk across the space between them, he was aware that the autumn nights would never hold anything but promise.

Photo by Ander Burdain - Unsplash