Chapter 1

The Fire — Saturday, August 3, 2013

On a scorching Arizona August night, I sleep over at Winkle’s trailer because Mom is puke-sick from chemo. I’m terribly scared for her because the cancer stuff has come on really fast.

Winkle is my best buddy, although I’ve only known him for the two months since Mom and I moved to live in Uncle Timmy’s mobile home. Making friends has been a life-long challenge for me. Before him, my only one was Pee, a fairy godmother. She doesn’t count because she wasn’t Real. She ditched me earlier in the summer. Like my dad when I was four, she split without a goodbye.

I’m in the top bunk—more like cubbyhole built-in one wall of the 8-foot-wide trailer. Winkle sleeps beneath me. He can stretch out, being much shorter than the bed’s length, while I’m curled in a ball with head, heels, knees, and a shoulder touching walls. I’m fifteen, six-foot and still growing, which puts us on opposite sides of puberty.

At thirteen, Winkle prays for a deep voice and a dick bigger than a Vienna sausage. Charly, Winkle’s mother, calls us Mutt and Jeff because of our height difference. I Googled them to learn they were in an old comic strip, back when the strips appeared in newspapers instead of being major motion pictures. He’ll be in eighth grade when school starts and I’ll be in ninth. Even with the age and size dissimilarity, we became friends.

I’ll be the oldest kid in class. Mom didn’t think I was ready for kindergarten back when, despite my early birthday (April 1st) and already being able to read, thanks to Pee and Emily Dickinson’s poetry. I won’t graduate until I’m fucking nineteen.

Winkle has a younger brother, Squeak. I’m in Squeak’s bed while he sprawls the floor, a narrow hallway along the bunks between the kitchen and toilet with pocket doors that close to induce claustrophobia. Squeak isn’t Winkle’s ‘little brother’ because he’s a foot taller and already enjoying the early stages of puberty at age eleven.

“Joey?” Winkle asks.

I study him in the mirror on the opposite wall. His light brown hair hangs over his forehead in bangs that merge with his unibrow. “Huh?”

His steel-blue eyes stare back at my shaggy blond hair and cornflower blues. “I saw Betsy Arnold’s training bra. A dust devil blew up her blouse and there was nothing to train.”

Squeak grins. “I’m sorry I missed it.”

“She’s way too young to catch my interest,” I chuckle.

“You already have a girlfriend, Becca.” Winkle says.

Is he jealous, needling, or just bitching? I have a very difficult time discerning other people’s motives and emotions. I had to learn about them using flash cards.

Squeak lowers his underwear waistband to scratch his new crop of pubes. “I’d do Betsy.”

“I claim dibs,” Winkle spits with jealousy. “The only way you’ll get a girl is if she comes with a collection of Hot Wheels. Betsy will be in seventh grade, and I’ll be in eighth. Girls marry an older dude.”

“Already talking about marr—” I start to tease until a scream comes from the trailer’s front room.

The pocket door slides open to reveal Charly. Even though that’s a dude’s name, everyone calls the boys’ mother by it, even them. My guess is her real name is Charlotte. She’s built like a linebacker with black hair cut to resemble a football helmet.

Squeak’s hand flies away from his crotch before she gets the wrong impression.

She’s too anxious to notice. “Fire at Bud’s house. I’ve called RFD. Go do what you can.”

Winkle jumps from bed and slips into shorts and sandals. “Come on, Joey, every second counts.”

Squeak cusses me out when I land on him. I retrieve my shorts and slide into sandals. Really, I’m not interested in playing firefighter.

The opportunity excites Winkle. He leads me though the back door. A blood-orange glow silhouettes the Watkins’s mobile home. Winkle grabs the garden hose and tightens it to the spigot. “Joey, screw the two together.”

I find the metal ends, but fumbling fingers struggle to match the threads. When they finally fall in place, the blaze is beaucoup scary—piss-your-pants frightening. I don’t want to fight fires. Especially this one. Already, the fire’s hotness makes my bare torso sweat. Water flows and wets the sand.

Winkle tosses me a nozzle. “I’m fetching the wrench.”

As water drenches me, I twist on the sprayer. I don’t mind because it relieves the heat.

He runs through Mr. Watkins’s yard, brandishing the tool like a tomahawk. I follow, carrying the loops of hose. As we pass Watkins’s house, sparks and burning debris fly through the air like fireflies. I spray their roof for protection.

“Joey, the propane tank,” Winkle bosses.

Bud’s silver Airstream travel trailer blazes from the rear, but Winkle points to the tongue where the gas sits.

“If it explodes, the entire block blows to smithereens,” he warns.

I stop a few yards from the cylinder and spray. Considering the possibility of instant death if it erupts, I groat.

I made up that word by combining groan and shout. The noise happens when I’m stressed and sounds like a train horn. Groating is something totally out of my control, like saying ‘Ouch’ when you stub your toe. I’ve learned to use biofeedback to tamp down my fears. So, I pretend I’m watering a flower garden of sunflowers, orange marigolds, and red roses. The colors match the inferno.

Winkle runs through my spray. Closing the valve, he disconnects things and drags away the gas bottle. When he returns to my side, he does a wet puppy shake. “Bet Bud’s inside. Let’s go!”

Sweat rivulets cascade over my body. I don’t want to get closer. Or enter the trailer. Or save Bud. I want to run away—fast. I have a special word for escaping things by running, too—elopement. Not eloping to Las Vegas to get married, more like Julia Roberts in the old movie Runaway Bride.

Winkle pushes me to the door. “Spray the knob.” When I do, he tries it. “Locked.” Bashing the window with the wrench, he breaks the glass.

Yellow-orange flames flick out the ragged hole like fingers reaching for us. Black smoke plumes into my face, making me cough and sputter worse than when I tried my first cigarette—only a few steps away from where I now drip perspiration. I aim the nozzle through the window, but I’m bobbing and shaking so much I miss a lot.

Winkle reaches inside and unlocks the door. When he gets it open, he shoulders me in.

I stand in the small galley kitchen, spraying flames like I’m playing the whack-a-mole arcade game. Pizza-oven heat singes my arm hair. The wood paneling and cabinets burn, curling like paper. How can Bud still be alive? How long can I last?

Winkle takes a fire extinguisher from a mount beside the door and sprays the flaming couch. He points me in the opposite direction. “Get Bud from the bedroom.”

Peering through the flames, I spot a figure—Bud. He dances and waves his arms like the scarecrow on the Wizard of Oz when the wicked witch ignites him. He’s very much alive, but not for long. I aim at him. The inferno cackles like the witch’s laugh and makes my water evaporate before it can reach. My tiny garden hose has no chance. I can’t save him. Futility dawns.

“Empty,” Winkle calls as the extinguisher dies.

We need the fire engine. “How long before?"

Pop! Pop! Pop!

My inner thigh stings. I falter and drop the nozzle which slithers away like an escaping snake. When I try to catch it, I discover a ragged hole in my leg. A wound like the ones I see every week on NCIS. A stinging numbness radiates from it. Knees buckle. I tumble toward a fiery death.

Someone catches me. I hate being touched, but I hurt too much to struggle. I turn to see who’s holding me—Stud. Like Winkle, he’s in my platoon of friends, the Desert Rats. Lifting me is no challenge for his mountain of muscles. He wrestles and plays football on the school team and looks like the cover of every issue of Men’s Fitness. On top, he has a brown crew cut and, on the bottom, steel-toed Army brogans. Effortlessly, he carries me toward the Watkins’s trailer, and I catch quick breaths of cooler air.

Mrs. Watkins has him put me on the dining table. My shorts are turning deep purple. In seconds, blood stains the tablecloth. Being away from the inferno gives me relief, but blood spurting from my body like I’m a super soaker is beaucoup terrifying. A groat spews.

She exposes my thigh. Winkle and Stud gawk. I take a peek, finding a ragged hole ringed by black. As the numbness fades, my leg throbs like hell. I glance away. Vertigo makes me swoon. I focus on Mrs. Watkins’s curio cabinet displaying her collection of snow globes. Using biofeedback, I imagine living inside them. I pet Rudolph and tweak his red nose. Alpine drifts swirls around me as I ski toward Neuschwanstein Castle. Frosty the Snowman shoots me a wink from beneath his old top hat. And penguins frolic on an ice flow.

A siren pulls my gaze to the window. A small yellow firetruck enters Bud’s driveway. I’d expected a long, red truck, but a yellow vehicle is a splendid omen.

Winkle brings me back to reality. “Couple of inches higher and you’d be a girl.”

Scary thought. I start to drift away as my mind goes to Tahiti for vacation.

Winkle recognizes the lack of focus in my eyes. He’s witnessed me turning turtle before, so he sings. “Slow down, Joey. Slow down, Joey. Slow down, Joey. You’re going to be fine.” He’ll be a star soprano in 8th grade chorus. He’s sung to me before when I was losing it because a rattlesnake bit me on Scarface Mountain.

Mrs. Watkins places a towel over my puncture.

Looking out the window, I spot Bud running from the Airstream. He’s still doing the scarecrow dance with blazing arms waving. Like a rolling ball of flame, death blankets him with orange-gold fringe. A firefighter from the truck sprays him, extinguishing the flames and leaving him smoldering in a heap. Paramedics surround him.

I move my gaze to Stud’s hands as he puts pressure on the towel. Filth covers them. Rings of dirt circle his fingernails along the quick and under the nail. I imagine the germs diving into the hole like Olympic champions.

The TV announcer says, “Staphylococcus goes for a reverse three-and-a-half with a twist.”

“Barely a splash for a great score,” the analyst adds. “Enough to contend for a medal.”

I hate microorganisms.

A medic comes for me with a syringe. I dislike those, too, but she jabs before I can protest. The volume of my groat soon diminishes as the sensation is the same as two mellowing Tequila Sunrises. I avoid turtling.

Explosions make me curious. “What’s that?”

“Paint cans blowin’ up in the sky over Bud’s shed.” Scotty, another Desert Rat, stands in the trailer door. Firelight makes his red hair glow and colors skin between freckles. He’s the lieutenant and leader of the platoon. He’s my age but will be a sophomore.

“Cool, like a firework show?” Stud stops pressure to view the entertainment.

Medics bandage my leg and slide me to a gurney. The lady walks beside me as they roll me down the Watkins’s handicap ramp. “You took a bullet,” she says. “Some ammunition must have detonated.”

“Don’t think Bud owned a gun,” Winkle says, leading my friends behind the stretcher.

“Never seen him with one,” Stud concurs.

“If he had one, he’d have shown it off,” Scotty says.

Outside, firetruck lights paint an eerie scene. The Airstream resembles an oil derrick after a huge blowout. Wet rubble covers the sand, and acrid air burns my eyes and nose. I roll past Bud’s gurney. His melted and splotched body is deep black, like coal, and gray-white, like ashes. I remember Emily Dickinson’s poem #113: ‘Respect the grayest pile for the departed creature’s sake.’

Rufus, another member of the squad, stares at the body. “The bastard got his just bezerts.” Rufus is the oldest Desert Rat, nearly eighteen. Tall and skinny, he’s from the Pima tribe of Native Americans and sports a raven-colored Mohawk and moccasins.

“Dudes, check out Bud’s wiener.” Winkle chuckles. “Bet it was a hot dog.”

I can’t laugh at the joke. Bud and his charred dick are a ghastly sight. Beaucoup more disturbing than horror movie nightmares. We witnessed his death. Shouldn’t we be sad? Often, I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel, but I hold no sadness in my heart. Bud was a friend to the Desert Rats, though never part of the platoon. We hung out with him despite him being way, way older.

Rufus’s foster father folds his arms. “We should pray.” As he mumbles quietly, Rufus rolls his eyes.

Why bother? God never responds to my prayers, and I’ve beseeched him earnestly for fifteen years. No answer. No call declined message. My Heavenly Father is as callous and absent as my earthly dad. No phone calls, birthday cards, or even a ‘fuck off, kid.’ Dads and God are a lot alike—present at the moment of creation and gone thereafter.

When they toss a sheet over Bud, I’m relieved.

Kipper, another platoon member, falls in step beside my gurney. He offers his brown hand for me to hold, and I accept. He’s Mexican with straight black hair and a mustache. Like me, he’ll be freshman,. “Estás bien?” he asks and reads the pain and panic on my face for his answer.

My squad except for one line up at the ambulance as my stretcher slides inside. Their lips press tight with concern. Only Bobby is missing. He’s the momma’s boy in our gang and Winkle’s age. A slight Black boy with Dumbo ears beneath a kinky Afro. His mother dresses him far more fashionable than the ratty rest of us, including cartoon underwear. She’ll probably make him wear them until he’s forty.

“Where’s Bobby?” Scotty asks.

“His momma didn’t want soot on his Sperry Top-Siders,” Winkle speculates.

I know why he stayed home, but I’m not sharing.

All the neighbors are out, now.

“Do you think the blaze was an accident?” Mr. Watkins asks a firefighter.

“My guess is no,” the man replies. “But an inspector will come in the morning.”

I spot police surrounding Bud’s lot with yellow, crime-scene tape just like NCIS. An investigation is something I hadn’t considered. “Bud smokes in bed,” I suggest.

The medic lady shoots me a curious expression. “Honey, how would you know?”

I clamp my lips tight.

“Anyway, you and your buddy are heroes for trying to save him,” she says as Bud’s gurney joins mine.

I shrug, picturing myself as a knight riding a destrier or a John Wayne-style cowboy. And Bud was no damsel in distress. I wonder what the inspector might find.

She closes the door, trapping me inside the ambulance with a dead body.

I’ve read every one of Stephen King’s books. Anticipating what will happen makes me shudder.

My sheet touches the one covering Bud. I face away and curl, but pain wracks me and I cry.

The male medic, riding in back with me, rubs a wand around my groin. “The bullet is near the femoral artery. Hanging O-neg.”

My wound hurts like a motherfucker. Skin on my face and torso burns like after a long day at the beach. Despite those things, I glean danger from his words. Another needle zeros in on my elbow, connected to a bag of red blood. I’m glad I don’t have to drink it like a vampire.

Staring at the touching sheets, I watch Bud’s body in case it moves. Last thing I need is a zombie apocalypse like the TV show Walking Dead. My imagination conjures maggots marching to my bed. They parade like a band putting on a half-time performance at a football game. Stopping on my thigh, they play Queen’s We Are the Champions before invading fresh meat.

The siren starts. I sense movement as the ambulance accelerates. The guy urgently shouts, “Hurry. BP and heart rate are dropping.”

Is fifteen years all the life God has given me? Is it time for His puckish prank on me to end? Or is a new one beginning? My life has been His April Fool’s joke. Remember my birthday?

Supposedly, in the minutes before you die, your life flashes before your eyes. Mine doesn’t. Everything fades to black, like a movie.

Surgery

I don’t pass away. Even Stephen King knows not to kill off the protagonist in the first chapter. I awake to discover things attached to my body like suction cups or octopus tentacles. A siren reminds me where I am—in an ambulance escaping from Bud’s fire.

“Whew. Thought we’d lost you.” The medic brushes hair from my forehead. “Can you look at me?”

I make eye contact, something very hard for me. Usually, I avoid it because people can steal your soul through your eyes. He recognizes my fear and smiles. “You’ll be fine.”

Rapid braking jerks me. The rear door of the vehicle opens, and hands roll me into the night. The flashing lights strobe a hospital building, revealing rushing people. Charly and Winkle are among them, running toward me from the Vomit Comet.

Charly drives her almost-classic Corvair like NASA’s zero-gravity plane. It’s the only thing she got from her messy divorce besides kids. She thinks the car will be worth a mint when it qualifies as an antique, but Winkle and I found a book about the model called Unsafe at Any Speed. We play along, knowing it won’t make her rich.

The hospital people shout something at her about permission to treat.

“I have his mother on the phone,” Charly says. “That work?”

I want to talk to Mom, but she passes her cell to one of the white coats.

“Just follow up with an email.” The doctor arrives at my speeding gurney. “Your uncle will arrive before surgery.”

I’ve never had an operation before. Tonsils and appendix still answer roll call. I rock a foreskin. An operation is beaucoup terrifying. If they put me to sleep, will I divulge secrets like with sodium pentothal on that episode of Magnum, P.I.? Most kids keep several, and I have a couple of especially burdensome ones. If they spill, I’m toast.

A nurse puts a fresh bag of blood on the tube attached to my arm.

The lady medic is still with me. “The bullet has lodged near the femoral artery.”

“X-ray, stat,” the doctor orders.

I slalom through a hall, catching glimpses of myself in the mirrors at corridor intersections. I’m pale with lips barely pink and wild eyes because I recall the dude saying he thought he’d lost me. Bumping through double doors, I spot a clock—11:39.

My gurney pauses while they cut off my blood-soaked shorts. A warm cloth washes away blood. They slide the sheet to the x-ray table, taking me along. Scared, I bounce like a kangaroo. Unable to hold still for the pictures, they strap me down.

In minutes, my hospital wheels go Formula One toward an operating room. I catch a flash of Winkle, Charly, and Uncle Timmy on the straight away. A funny hat covers my hair, and they swab my leg with antiseptic. Masked faces surround me. A voice asks, “Can you count backwards from 100?”

“Easy,” I say. “One hundred, ninety-nine, ninety-eight, ninety sev…”

I awake later, only to throw up in a pan. My next consciousness is in a room with Mom, Uncle Timmy, Winkle, and Charly gathered around.

“Doing OK, Joey?” Mom asks, and I winked.

“The bullet broke off some of your butt bone,” my uncle says. “They took out both.”

“So, he doesn’t have a butt?” Winkle asks.

Charly laughs. “They removed only the piece.” She says goodbye because she has to work. She’s a line foreman at the same missile plant where Mom works in fabrication and my uncle is a manager. Winkle stays with me.

Breakfast arrives with French toast. I share with him while Mom and Uncle Timmy hit the cafeteria.

Before we finish, two uniforms enter—a policewoman and a fireman, different outfits but with the same shiny black shoes. I always notice footwear. It discloses a lot about a person.

My mom and uncle hurry in behind them.

The lady waves towards Mom. “We need to talk to your son about the blaze at Mr. Reid’s trailer.” She touches the badge on her blouse. “I’m Detective Richardson from homicide and this Mr. Myles, the arson investigator.”

Winkle and I share a gaze. We’ve always called him Bud, and he never offered another name.

My uncle jumps. “Surely you don’t suspect—”

“A strong possibility,” Myles says. “The boys witnessed the event. Joseph, may we take your statement?”

“I’m Joey,” I say.

Mom adds. “Asking him simple questions will work best. He has autism.”

I groan, wishing Mom hadn’t outed me. Winkle already knew from when I failed my first initiation to join the Desert Rats. I don’t reveal my condition, but something always exposes it. I watch the uniforms exchange a glance. Everyone makes that face when my disability is disclosed. I can only lament that moms tend to overshare.

Autism used to be my deepest secret until very recently.

Detective Richardson has a dozen devices dangling from her belt. “You’re a hero.”

I shrug, holding my gaze on her gadgets.

“Who was first to the Airstream?” Myles asks.

“Guess we got there together,” Winkle says. “Me with the wrench and Joey with the hose.”

“Anyone there when you arrived?” Richardson asks.

I shake my head.

“Can you talk?” She presses.

“Only B…Mr. Reid, who was in his bedroom. People didn’t come out until later.”

“How did you discover the flames?” Myles asks.

“Charly screamed,” Winkle replies. “That’s my mother, and she sent us to help.”

I bob my head, supporting his story.

“Were you expecting it?” Myles asks.

The question catches me off guard. What the scream or a fire? Sniffing a trap, I hesitate so Winkle can answer.

“Hell, no. Why would we?”

Uncle Timmy jumps in. “What are you insinuating?”

Myles’s stare is a drill boring into me. He’s stealing my thoughts. I recall an Emily Dickinson poem and recite it.

“Sometimes,” Myles begins, “people start fires, so they can be heroes.”

“You cannot put a Fire out,” I quote.

“Not me. I didn’t set it,” Winkle claims.

“They get a rush from watching the blaze build,” Miles says.

“A Thing that can ignite. Can go, itself, without a Fan,” I say.

“Joey’s right,” Winkle agrees.

“Then,” Miles continues, “they jump in to save the day. It gets them attention.”

“I fought trailer fires before,” Winkle says. “You can check the record. Trailers are made so cheap. Faulty insulation and aluminum wires.”

“Upon the slowest Night.” I agree with Winkle.

“Did one of you start it?” Richardson asks.

I shake my head.

“We were in bed,” Winkle says. “Charly and my brother know the truth of it.” I spot a curl on the corner of his smile.

“Could one of your friends have set it?” Richardson asks. “According to the report, several of them showed up quickly.”

“No reason to,” I say. “Stud caught me when I got shot inside. Scotty came to the Watkins’s house. Kipper, and Rufus came at the end. Never spotted Bobby.”

“Either of you see Mr. Reid?” she asks.

“When he ran from the trailer,” Winkle offers.

I don’t mention seeing Bud dancing like the scarecrow covered with flames.

“Did Mr. Reid smoke?”

“Two-pack-a-day habit,” my uncle says.

“When he painted our cabana, he left butts everywhere,” Mom says.

“So, Mr. Reid was a painter,” Myles says. “Explains the exploding paint cans.”

“A bad one and a drunkard,” Uncle Timmy complains.

I yawn, half on purpose. “Did you find the gun that shot me?”

“A nearly melted pistol,” Myles says. “The heat caused rounds to detonate.”

“I think Joey has had enough,” Mom hints.

Uncle Timmy points toward the door. “If you need more, you can find us easy enough. Joey should be released this afternoon.” He ushers them out.

“Winkle, I’ll take you home.” Mom reaches to hug me, but I signal I don’t want one. My no-touch reaction comes even for her hugs.

“See you, Joey,” Winkle says.

“Not if I see you first.” I quote from Stand By Me.

I like old movies and TV shows on satellite. Also, I read—a lot, according to Mom. My escape is books, cinema, and music. Three-hundred pages or two hours of being someone else is glorious. Being me sucks green donkey dicks because of autism.

I was diagnosed at age four. That day, my father left—like nearly everyone else has all my life. Mom is an exception. Uncle Timmy is too, so far—but things can always change. I worry about Winkle, the rest of the Desert Rats, and Becca. My relationships fail fast.

Lonely and abandoned is my natural state like the dude in Steppenwolf—not the rock band but the book by Hesse. But I like Born to Be Wild and play it on my iPhone when I do cross-country practice. Running is cool, releasing endorphins which make me feel normal. I would do anything to be.