The Burning House by Paul Lisicky

Author:Paul Lisicky
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Etruscan Press
Published: 2011-04-28T00:00:00+00:00

I saw the signs long before I saw the people holding them.

They clumped outside the municipal building, lining either side of the main walk. It was impossible to get to the front door without passing through their ranks. I knew their ways. I’d seen their signs outside the marina, outside the supermarket: words, brainless words that screwed themselves into your imagination, and looked to nothing beyond the gratification of the present: SEWERS FOR ALL! PIPING PLOVERS TASTE LIKE CHICKEN! The town would only get more crazed as we got closer to the night of the planning board meeting.

I parked beneath the spreading limbs of an ancient maple. The tree had thinned considerably since my last visit; feeble wet shreds weeping piece by piece onto my hood. I sat there for longer than I care to name, imagining the damage they’d do to my paint. My keys dangled from the ignition. What if I backed up right now, said fuck, no to my plans, and drove down the street to Janet’s? Her bedroom with its closed-up, sour drawer smell; my mouth moving in her hair; the little girl in her pajamas, in deep sleep, clutching her stuffed ducklet on the opposite side of the wall. Just the possibility of fifteen minutes of rip-roaring vitality slapped me awake, bonked me with light, and now the maple tree, the grass, the browning pink rose by the bench—all of it trembled and glowed, mere seconds from igniting. But Janet had gone to Florida for the week, and I’d been putting off that talk with Craig Luckland for too long. The bastard owed me cash. Wouldn’t you know that his engine left a minor constellation of stains on our driveway, which wouldn’t wash off, God damn.

I walked forward, concentrating into the cedar shake shingles on the roof: the mold, the pale green threads of lichen furring up the wood. I tried to look stuporous, a little out of it, if only because I didn’t want to give them what they wanted. There, the supermarket manager with the unbalanced glasses; there, a man with a clean ace bandage wrapped ten times around his arm. There, Chick Keatley; there, Betty Bridges; there, Kevin Honeysett in an expensive satin tie, pink as a rhododendron. They didn’t yell or even talk among themselves. Something shuffled, something scraped. They’d become their own thing now, a single force with a single unalterable face, fatigued and defiant. We’ve waited too long for what we want; we’ve been duped, and time’s running out faster than you think.

The adrenaline slowed me, drugging me, dragging me down. I walked forward, eyes fixed to the pavement. Venom burning with such force on the back of my neck, I thought I had a rash.

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