Home is a Fire (2 page)

I grab my coat and leather duffel from the overhead bin, shifting my feet along in the chain gang towards the door. “Buh bye! Bye! Bye bye! Good-bye!” and then, “See you soon!” No you won’t. I made the choice to leave you. Now I’m stuck here. Is it too late to turn this plane around?

The terminal is warm, almost welcoming. It feels different from New York. It smells like bacon and maple syrup. My panic begins to subside as I walk through the familiar hall, filled with healthy food choices like Burger Shak, Wok/Don’t Wok and Ricky’s Super Subs. Do I have time for one of those cinnamon pretzels? Damn! How does my mind shift to craving sugar so quickly? I’ve barely landed. Note to self: remember that you like green salads, dressing on the side and hold the bacon and fried chicken nuggets.

I exit the security area and head towards baggage claim. My mom, Audrey, is there waiting for me. She’s slumped on the pleather bench, legs crossed, one shoe dangling and dancing from her foot, arms in her lap.

She looks up at me, smiles and cocks her head. “Hi, sweetie! You look thin.”

“And you look tired,” I say. “And I’ve always been thin. You know that. C’mere.”

I reach down to pull her up in my arms. I tower above her, my chin resting on top of her head. She’s warm and soft and smells like fried food and her familiar perfume and it all feels just right.

“Let’s get your bag, sweetie. Your Uncle Barry’s excited to see you. He has a Bears’ Club meeting right now, but he’ll be back later, when you’re settled.”

And that’s that. Easy, right?

■ ■ ■

The house is exactly as I remembered it, only a little worse for wear. It’s not actually the house I grew up in. After my parents split when I was a kid, my mom moved us to a smaller home. I hated it at first. It’s located back towards the woods, off the beaten path, and my adolescent mind associated that with poor, poor and poor. Now I know better. She did the best she could with the resources she had, and I’ve really grown to love the place.

Over the years the small A-frame house has grown a bit with rambling additions and add-ons. It’s not perfect, but it’s as close to home as I’ve got right now.

“Holy shit, Mother. What the hell happened?” I dropped my bags on the floor, near the wood-burning stove.

“Oh, honey, you know I get so excited when you come home! Now… GO!”

She’s staring at me excitedly, as if I am a contestant in a game show and I have just been given ninety seconds to complete
the task at hand to win an amazing six day/seven night trip to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.

But in reality, she is putting me to work.

Before me, on the dining room table, lie the entire contents of her home. And by
entire contents
, I mean every knick-knack, vase, candlestick, dusty flower arrangement, antique bottle and rusted cookie tin within a fifty mile radius. Mom is a collector. Of everything. And she expects me to re-stage her house. Right now.

I look at her with
I will kill you this very instant
eyes, but secretly I love it. With as much faux reluctance as I can muster, I dive towards the table and start the task of reconstructing the magic, staging her collection of dusty treasures around the room on tables and bookshelves, turning our little A-frame into a show home once more. She sits on the couch
ooh-ing
and
ah-ing
. “Oh, sweetie, that looks great! You’re so much better at this than I am,” she said.

“It would look better if you dusted once in a blue moon, Mom. You could start a few biology experiments in this place.” I held up my fingers, covered in a greyish brown fuzz.

“Oh, I am! I’m trying to see how high dust can get before it falls over,” she said, with a seriously wicked grin. That’s my mom. I missed her.

I stand back and take a look at my handiwork. It was fun, but there’s no way I’m doing this in every room tonight. It’s not a very big house, actually. Mom’s bedroom is downstairs off the kitchen. My old room is upstairs, across from the guest room, which is now my Uncle Barry’s room. Barry is Mom’s brother, and he only moved in recently, after the death of his wife, my Aunt Janey. They were married just over forty years, and when
Janey passed away from breast cancer, Mom invited Barry to move in with her. I guess they both figured it wouldn’t hurt having that extra bit of support. They keep each other company, as they each go about their own lives.

“Barry will just love this when he sees it. You’ve done such a nice job, sweetie.”

“How’s he doing?” I asked. I knew he had had a tough time after Janey’s passing.

“Well, you know,” she said, furrowing her brow. “We all do the best we can. It’s nice having him around. I have someone to cook for and he has someone to yell at. Just like old times!”

I carried my bags upstairs and set them down in the hallway. Out of curiosity, I pushed open the door to Uncle Barry’s room. Formerly known as the Guest Room, but really the Junk Room, this part of the house used to be uninhabitable. Mom had it stocked to the ceiling with old clothes, quilt pieces, Christmas ornaments, sewing paraphernalia and a few hundred outdated appliances.

“Wow. He’s done a nice job,” I said. “It’s totally different.”

“Yep. All cleaned up,” she said with a smile. “Barry’s friends at the Bears’ Club put up a nice shed for me out in the back. All my things are there when I need them. You know, I’m going to start that quilt soon.”

Mom has been “going to start that quilt” since I was ten. “Uh huh,” I muttered, as I slid open the closet doors.

“Um… Mom? Why are there women’s clothes in here?”

“Well, you know Barry. He loves his personal treasures just as much as I do. He says he just couldn’t part with Janey’s things.”

I’ve had enough reminiscing, and the emotions are catching up with me. “Love ya, Mom, but I’m exhausted. I’m heading off to bed. Long trip.”

I give her a kiss on the cheek and cross the hall to open the door to my room. Immediately I’m a teenager again. My comic books are still on the shelves, my
Interview
magazines stacked on the floor by the bed. There’s a giant blue Swatch watch wall clock, second hand silently ticking away, as if the 80s never ended.

I sit quietly on my bed, staring at my Madonna
Truth or Dare
poster. This is all happening so fast. Leaving David, New York, my life. I’m in Tennessee?

Fuck, I need a drink.

3

When I first started driving in Parkville at sixteen years old there were two red lights running the entire stretch of our main drag, Commodore Avenue. Now my frustration is mounting as the car is crawling along, catching every single light, past every chain restaurant known to man. When did my small town become the epicenter of gluttony?

Thank God that the Firelight still exists. The Firelight has stood on this hallowed site for generations, and lives today to continue to serve the hordes of college football-loving students and returning graduates (and plenty of non-graduates) with an endless stream of beer on tap, pool tables for hire, and the best damn jukebox in the state. Where else on Earth can you queue up Patsy Cline’s “Walking After Midnight,” followed by “Head Like a Hole,” by Nine Inch Nails? And don’t even get me started on the graffiti in the bathrooms: epic masterpieces in industrial
black magic markers, with more of an emphasis on snark, rather than smut.

I look back eagerly towards our favorite booth, and there are my friends Bammy, Kit and Tommy, waiting for me, surrounded by pitchers of beer. I can barely hold back the enormous grin as it spreads across my face and I have to consciously stop myself from letting out a girl scream.

Rebecca “Bammy” Talbot was proudly raised by her Daughters of the Confederacy mother in Alabama, but moved to Tennessee when she was fourteen. We have been inseparable ever since. As freshman at our local state college, we were well under the legal drinking age, but Bammy figured out a way around that. She was a genius at subterfuge. With a surgeon’s precision, she would take a ripe watermelon, cut it into chunks, cover it all in vodka, and then place the bite sized vodka-soaked morsels in plastic sandwich bags. As eighteen year olds, the doorman would let us into the Firelight, but we weren’t allowed to drink. This was noted by a big black X drawn on the backs of our hands with a magic marker. “Yes, sir!” she’d say with a smile, as we headed towards a wagon wheel table, plastic bags magically appearing from her oversized purse. If anyone ever needed an excuse, a reason or an escape route, we asked Bammy. I have always said that if Harper Lee had ever met our girl, I’d venture to say she would have many more stories to tell.

Bammy’s mother had insisted that her daughter pursue a “proper” education, so that when the approved suitor called on her, she would be well versed in the Liberal Arts. The French language was a must, and surprisingly, Bammy excelled. She said it had to something to do with her love
of wine. She dated her fair share of Chips and Teddys and Parkers, but her mother’s efforts towards creating the perfect debutante fell flat. Bammy was just too smart for all of them. After a semester abroad in Paris, Bammy decided to become a self-supporting French teacher, rather than the woman behind the man. She taught at our local high school for a few years, but had recently been offered the job as vice principal, insuring that no man we graduated with would ever want her.

Kit Lange and I met in college, and she was my everything. My twin, my mirrored other self, she understood me like no one else ever could or would. In college, Kit wrote stories about me set in New York, Paris and London and slipped them into my textbooks and coat pockets. She always dreamed bigger for me than I could ever imagine for myself. She had been unlucky in love, but she was now steadily dating a great guy named Shawn, a local guitar hero who played bass in a funky cover band called Shock the Monkey. A girl we went to school with recently asked her, “Did your parents freak out that you’re dating a black guy?” She responded by saying “Did your parents freak out that you’re a moron?” And that was the end of that conversation.

I’d known Tommy Pruitt the longest. Memories of middle school field days and burlap sack races blended seamlessly into stories of drunken all-nighters and “remember whens.” Tommy was the best straight friend a gay guy could ever have. Period.

“HEY! Derek!” Screams and squeals and hugs and kisses. I love New York. I really, really do. But there is truly something special about coming home to the people who have honestly known you since before you knew yourself.

“Tell us everything!” Bammy is taking charge, as usual. “Did you really leave David?! Are you here for good? And why on
Earth
would you come back here?! Are you here to rescue us? Oh, my god! We need more drinks!”

Kit is holding a Cruella de Vil cigarette holder, even though smoking is not allowed in the bar. She doesn’t care. The cigarette is unlit; it’s all for looks, and she’s pulling it off, as usual. Her bowling bag purse is parked by her side.

“Baby,” said Kit, reaching out and touching my arm, “it’s so great to see you!
We. Love. You
. We can’t wait to hear everything. Tell us the story!”

Tommy is just leaning back with a cold beer in his hand. He has a sweet, happy grin on his face, watching the craziness unfold.

“What can I say?” I smiled. “I was craving a good biscuit.”

■ ■ ■

“I know I gave up beer for my diet, but this whiskey is killing me, y’all!”

Bammy is reaching for her third Jack and Diet Coke, and the rest of us are in Rolling Rock heaven. I forgot how cheap it is to drink in Tennessee. I keep going to the bar and ordering rounds for everyone, as if I’m Mr. Moneybags, and not Mr. Unemployed. But honestly, the rate of the Tennessee dollar to the New York dollar must have changed drastically in the last few years. Suddenly, I’m wealthy.

“Remember your twenty-first birthday, Derek? Right before you deserted us for the Big City?” Kit dramatically exhales
from her unlit cigarette and clutches my arm. “We came here for Animal Hour. They don’t even have that anymore. Apparently it’s now illegal to serve 3 for 1 drinks. Too many ‘trustafarians
’
crashing their SUVs. Boring!”

Trustafarians was Kit’s word for the trust fund hippies who extolled the virtues of Bob Marley while spending Daddy’s hard earned money. Kit and I knew, and slept with, our fair share of them.

“What a crazy night!” I said. “Steve the bartender made us rainbow shooters. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet. I remember the purple one was Grape Nehi and vodka. Epic. Didn’t we break into that apartment complex on the hill and go skinny dipping?”

“Oh, you had such a crush on that straight boy,” said Kit. “You made him come along. That frat boy. Whatshisname? Patrick Something the third. Everyone called him Trip, right?”

“God, Kit. Please bring up every failed conquest.” I hid my face in my hands. “I’m not at my most wounded now, or anything. But honestly, I didn’t
make
him do anything. That boy came willingly. Trust me.” I grinned.

“Oh, hush!” she said. “If you didn’t chase all the straight ones, we wouldn’t have this problem, now would we?”

“Well, I learned my lesson with Trip,” I reminded them. “He and I spent weeks together. I was in love. I was just too stupid to realize that Trip just liked getting blow jobs.”

“Too much information.” Tommy reached for his beer and laughed.

“You know I called him once?” I said. “Years later. He pretended that he didn’t remember me.”

“Why on
Earth
would you do that?” Bammy was not the emotional, hold-on-to-them type. She loved fast and hard, and if they ran, she turned her back and marched on to the next one.

“Ah, you know me,” I said. “I’m emotional. I hold onto things, people, memories, experiences. I never let anyone go.”

“Except for David,” said Bammy, to the point, as always. “You let that one go. And he was far from straight. What happened?” She stared right at me, intensely.

“It wasn’t right,” I stammered. “It just… it wasn’t right.”

“But what about New York?” said Kit. “Aren’t you afraid you’ll be missing something? Missing out?”