The Sky Fisherman (26 page)

The women wore aprons that said, "Gateway Volunteer Firemen's Auxiliary." Where Mom had gotten hers, I didn't know, but she was the prettiest woman on the food line—and the only one wearing an Italian costume, so she must have come directly from the Festival of Floats.

Astonished to see me, she tried handing over an apple, but paused, unable to let it go. "Culver ... What on earth? You and Jake were having supper with Juniper."

I gently removed the apple from her hand. "We left a little early."

I think she was going to comment on Jake, but then she saw my eyes. "You've been crying."

"Soot and ash, Mom." I took a beef sandwich from the next woman in line.

Mom left her place and followed. She seemed very flustered. "This fire's so dangerous, I want you home at once."

"Don't worry. I've just been helping hold hoses, watching for spot fires. Nothing too dangerous."

Reaching across the serving table, she gripped my wrist with surprising strength. "Go home, I say. You might get run over in all this confusion. I understand some unfortunate men fell through the co-op roof. The ambulance just raced by."

The man in line behind me cleared his throat and started to say something about the delay, but she glared at him. "First chance you get, Culver. I don't want any of you boys getting hurt."

"You should be proud, dear," the sandwich woman said. "My Jason's fighting fire and he's only fifteen."

My mother gave the woman one of her brightest smiles. "Of course I'm proud, fiercely proud of Culver. And as citizens of Gateway, we're very pleased to be helping out." She resumed her place in line and smoothed her apron. "I just don't want any of the young men getting hurt before their prime. I'm certain you'd have to agree that young men's judgment can be a little shaky." Not waiting for the woman to answer, she turned to the next man in line. "Here's a nice apple for you."

Scooting along, I grabbed a couple bags of potato chips. I craved salt. When Mom's head was turned, I snatched a beer from the ice chest.

I walked past rows of men sitting on tailgates and lounging on folding chairs someone had brought from the Lutheran church. Sweaty, muddy, they resembled war casualties, and the reddish borate stains seemed like blood. All were sooty; it was difficult to tell where their clothes stopped, wrists and necks began. I realized that I must have shocked my mother by looking as bad as they did—probably worse—because I had witnessed something they hadn't.

Choosing the tailgate of an empty pickup, I sat and began eating the sandwich. The roast beef tasted like smoke. Maybe it was my hands. The apple and chips tasted like smoke, too. At least the beer was cold.

After eating, I studied the area. Sections of the cold deck still burned, the stacked logs glowing like giant embers. But the top layers of logs, those smothered in borate, weren't burning, and where the hoses fired water into the deck, the logs charred and smoked. Taking a naked-eye measurement, I felt they could salvage half of it.

Equipment lay strewn about—helmets, fire coats, boots. Two men paraded around in their shorts; I believe they had spent more time drinking free beer than fighting fire. One stripped down to his briefs and tried diving into the millpond, using the tailgate of his pickup for a low board.

"Shit," Mullins said. "He's going to drown or break his neck. We don't need any more casualties." Disgusted, Mullins dragged the guy out of the water and tied his feet to the pickup spotlight. "By the time he sobers up enough to get free, he can drive again," Mullins said.

Axes, crowbars, shovels, seemed like toys left behind by careless kids. Waves and waves of heat coming from the glowing deck made the telephone poles seem eerily crooked.

A dozen men remained on the co-op roof, taking care to avoid the treacherous skylight. With the cold deck burning less furiously, the raining sparks slowed a little.

A man drinking a Mountain Dew sat next to me on the tailgate. Taking a wadded sandwich from his pants pocket, he started eating. "You look like dog shit, Bucko."

"Damn it, Riley! What are you doing here?" The
D
on his baseball cap had been entirely blackened by the soot.

He chuckled, but it sounded odd. One of his nostrils was packed with cotton, like he had a nosebleed. "Can't pass up a good fire."

I glanced around. "You better be careful. Someone will see you."

With the arm holding the can, he made a sweep of the cold deck and plant. "I been everywhere. Tied off a hose ten feet from Jake and he never knew me from Moses." He touched the can to his nose. "I held one of those tin shields awhile. Hot as a twenty-dollar pistol. Then my nose decided to get a period. But that's okay. The bosses want to see the workers' blood. Look at these dumb bastards risking life and limb to save the plant. What for? Tomorrow those same fucked-up heroes will be scratching for work. The owners will sell them downriver for an insurance check and a golf game." He paused. "We ought to torch the owners along with the cold deck."

Riley's anger made me realize that somewhere he had crossed the main line onto a dangerous spur and I doubted he'd ever get back. I voiced my thoughts without realizing. "You didn't start this fire, did you, Riley?"

He snorted, the blood bubbling up in the nostril. "What if I did. You turning me in?"

I shrugged. "Maybe." He knew I wouldn't, even though dozens of policemen were around. "Two guys fell through the co-op roof. Both are dead."

He removed his baseball cap, revealing a white line of high forehead that hadn't been smoked. Turning the cap in his hands, he seemed to be looking for some flaw. "The workers are getting screwed in this deal. Those two just checked out early, and I'm sorry as hell." He put the cap back on.

"I just want to know," I said when I realized he hadn't answered the question.

"Remember this, kid. When you're working in this society, you're a zero. Listen. Your mother and I were married for eight years, and I walked right past her. She gives me a sandwich, an apple, and a little dipsy smile. But she never had a clue. Working stiffs must look alike." He paused. "What's that stupid outfit she's wearing anyway?"

His remarks about my mother got me started. "She's exhausted, Riley. What do you expect? Anyway, you're not exactly working."

He drained his Mountain Dew. "Don't go getting snot-nosed on me."

But I was overheated. "If you didn't set this fire, why are you here? Not for the citizenship award."

"Let's just say it gives me a hard-on. Okay?" His voice softened after that. "Since when did you go drinking beer? You never did at my place."

"Since I felt like it."

"Well don't get too cheeky." He slapped my back. "Look at this damn soda." Riley held out the empty can for inspection. "How about you sneak back and grab us a couple beers. We'll have a drink—man to man, Bucko. If I go, your mom might get all excited and give me away."

I went. After dipping a couple beers out of the ice chest, I stood observing her, the cans cooling my hands. She greeted every weary firefighter, smiled at him, offered encouragement.

And it occurred to me then that if circumstances were different, if she had caught a decent break, my mother might have been the perfect hostess. The quick beauty of her smile, the slight forward tilt of her head—both suggested each word you had to say was important to her. I'd seen her act that way when she'd been a greeter in church, and I remembered how she always found something pleasant to say, even in the most difficult circumstance. I was tongue-tied as other church members poured out their woes: cancer, betrayal, accident. But in the most terrible circumstances, Mom found comforting words to make people feel better, to get them through the day—and perhaps the night.

Watching her greet the firemen, I realized how much she needed a divorce from Riley. She had to escape this two-bit box, even if a better opportunity only meant marrying someone like Franklin. He'd have screens on the doors, at least, and I guessed that would be okay, if she chose him. Not that I could ever call him Dad or anything. Still, even though I couldn't picture it, I'd be leaving soon—off to college or the service.

She glanced in my direction, although she didn't recognize me among the group of dirty firefighters, and I was struck again at how beautiful she appeared—a flower among all those exhausted workers, a bright crocus rising through dirty snow and winter ashes. At that moment I resolved to do whatever I could to help her.

Returning to the pickup, I handed Riley his beer.

He checked behind me to make certain no one had followed. "Thanks, Bucko. Took you long enough." As he drank, the beer foamed, running down his chin. "Shit. You shake this up?"

"Did you get our message, Riley? When we came to the camp?"

"I heard something." He studied me. "I've been your dad eight years now."

"I know, but things are different now. I can't see you coming to many ball games, Riley. When you torched Griggs, everything changed."

He wiped foam from his chin, leaving a black smear. "Everything changed before then. I finally had my say—loud and clear."

"You can see how things got pretty cramped for her."

He threw up his hands and some beer sloshed onto his wrist. "She can have a damn divorce. If that's what she wants. Sometimes people get back together."

I didn't say anything.

"If I went over there and talked to her, what do you think?"

"They might put you in jail."

He squinted at me. "Maybe she just wants to make it legal with pretty boy. Is he wearing the wallet these days?"

"We're carrying our own weight. Whatever she does, that's her business."

"Sure." Finished with the beer, he crushed the can against the side of the pickup but still gripped the metal tight. "Tell her to get the papers drawn. I'll let you know where to send them. Uncontested. I'll sign before a notary and ship them back. The declaration of her independence."

"Thanks, Riley." Reaching out, I tried to shake his hand, but he just brushed my palm.

"So long, Bucko." After tossing the empty can into the pickup bed, he started walking past all the firefighters and equipment, keeping to the raised track bed beside the twisted rails.

I wanted to laugh. Here he was, walking by dozens of firefighters and police officers, with no one, including me, making a move to stop him. To be truthful, I felt a great sense of relief, knowing he was walking out of our lives forever. And I thought with him gone we would be safe, because I didn't realize then that the seeds of meanness and betrayal lay buried in us all.

I wanted to believe that he didn't set this fire, but I thought he might commit an act equally reckless that could harm my mother and me or others, like Seaweed and Tyler, who never met Riley and just showed up by chance.

As he disappeared into the darkness beyond the fire's long glow, I felt unburdened of a terrible weight. In that buoyant moment, my thoughts returned to my mother and her chances. Free of Riley, she could do better than Franklin, I was convinced. She could marry a doctor or lawyer for another go-round. In one of my mother's magazines, I had read about a Supreme Court justice with several wives, the newest a beauty from the West. He appeared old and gray but they were hiking together over mountains, lovebirds basking in a spring start. Perhaps I would return from college to a justice's place.

While my imagination was running wild, I got an even crazier idea.
Maybe Mom and Jake would marry. They seemed an unlikely pair, but they shared me in common, and the way they quarreled made them seem almost married already.

Then my imagination dead-ended. Fear cut through my fantasies. Perhaps it was dehydration and fatigue or the shock of seeing two men dying. I took rapid gulps of air, fighting back the urge to puke.

Staring down the railroad tracks into the gloom beyond the glowing cold deck, my weary eyes conjured shadowy figures of Riley, Jake, and even my mother twisting in the eerie undulations from the fire's heat wave.

Tearing my gaze away from the haunting specters, I tried to find comfort in familiar objects. Fire hoses lay strewn along the railroad bed and fire equipment littered the blackened and muddy ground. The telephone poles and lines wavered in the heat. Even the railroad tracks had buckled into grotesque shapes. Try though I might, I couldn't follow a straight line anywhere.

A
T THREE IN THE MORNING,
everybody left the fire to the relief and mop-up crews, then headed for the Elks Club. White or Indian, member or not, that night everybody was an Elk, and you didn't even have to sign the book. Firefighters, volunteers, wives, sweethearts, filled the small green building and gravel parking lot. Knots of celebrants gathered around pickup radios and the portable in the bar, listening to news of the fire on KRCW.

Soon some of the firefighters and the women got pretty happy and went around kissing everybody in sight. Jake, Buzzy, Mullins, and the other heroes collected lots of kisses. Billyum picked up a few, too, and seemed surprised. Usually the giddy women kissed him on the forehead or cheek, not the lips. A couple kissed me, and one tried to stick her tongue in my mouth.

The Cokes and 7-Ups I kept drinking didn't slake my thirst. Maybe it was dehydration or the beers I drank at the fire. Whichever. Jake put his arm around my shoulder, hugging me tight, and asked Gab, "Did you hear about the mother who knew her son didn't drink because he always woke up so thirsty in the morning?" They both laughed, and Jake told me to drink some plain ice water.

Inside the lodge, Ned Cabo, the combination cook-bouncer, dug into the walk-in refrigerator units and dragged out huge cans of crab they had planned on using for the annual crab feed. Doreen drove over from the Oasis with dozens and dozens of eggs. They asked me to hustle around and empty some candy jars, then make signs indicating donations would
go to the dead firefighter's family. As the revelers came in for omelettes or beers, they put fistfuls of darkened bills and coins into the jars. "Don't matter if it's dirty," Ned said. "Spends the same."

The crab was shipped from a seafood place in Maryland, and the cans featured pictures of Chesapeake blue crabs. "Did you ever get steamed crabs like this and crack them up?" I asked Ned.