his knees. He could not breathe. Here in the mud she would kneel with him.
She smiled and lay her hand on his shoulder as she walked past.
Cameron, she yelled behind. Hey baby.
He looked over his shoulder. The girl skipped once and ran through the scattered crowd toward the flatbed. Cam smiled big white teeth Cam jumped down from the truck. Cam kissed and hugged and rocked her side to side. She pressed herself into Cam’s arms. Cam threw back his head in laughter, Cam’s teeth white within the red dart of his goatee. The girl pointed behind her and Cam looked and saw him. Cam smiled and Cam waved.
He looked away. He rose and walked off into the dead corn.
17
FOR OVER AN HOUR HE HID AND WATCHED FROM THE TREES. When he was sure, he came out in the moonlight. He went twice round the church, like he was on just a midnight stroll. Between two rose bushes, in the shadows, in the bark dust he sat. He stopped his breath to listen. There was nobody, just him. Him who alone doeth great wonders.
Between the two roses he leaned back on his arms. He clamped his teeth and kicked the basement window with the flats of his sneakers. He raised up his knees and kicked harder. The catch broke easy. The window rattled open and fell to again. A dog barked at him in the dark. A pick up raced its engine. The moon looked like a big old onion and he wiped his mouth of sweat.
He sat still a minute but there was nothing else. He rolled over on his stomach. Bark dust poked him through his tee shirt. He pushed himself backward so his legs fell into the basement. He slid his chest and shoulders and head through the window and his sneakers clapped on the floor. His gut burned some from the sill. He opened the window again and bark dust spilled like dead dried bugs as he reached for the can of gasoline.
He said, Everyone shall be salted with fire.
The moon shined down through the basement window. The can he set at his feet. He pulled the penlight from his back pocket. He gave the lens a twist. The light blinked a couple times before it showed the empty fruit crates and cartons of clothes. There were stacks of prayer books and hymnals, stacked chairs and parlor furnishings, even four or five pews.
He wiped his wrist across his forehead. His tee-shirt stuck to his back. His throat was all dry and hoarse like he’d been yelling a long time. He shined the light down on the gas can. Burs were fastened to his tee shirt and his jeans and there were splinters of bark dust, too. Everything would burn to the ground.
How when him and Linn were just kids and Linn had all kinds of tricks with fire. How Linn would be all smiles as he closed his mouth round a lit match. All the kids going oh and aw when he opened his mouth, the match smoky and Linn laughing with his breath full of sulfur. How one time he stole a box of matches and hid down in the junked cars and tried Linny’s trick and hollered and ran with his hands clapped to his mouth.
How Linn could smoke from the lit end of a cigarette, Linn smiling and smoking and the butt stuck out and twitching some between his teeth. All Linn’s pals thinking he was so special. Sure, Linny had lots of tricks. But they were just tricks, kid stuff, not even real magic. Unto him lay the power to scorch men with fire.
He bent to fetch the can of gas. The penlight he stuck in his mouth. The can he shook in both hands and the gasoline sloshed around. It was like the gas was laughing inside the can, tickled by getting shook up, waiting its turn. He unscrewed the cap and dropped it on the floor. He moved toward a stack of cartons. With one hand on the handle and the other on the bottom he tipped the can forward. The can gulped like it was drinking, only the can wasn’t drinking. It splashed gas out on the cartons and furniture and books. Gas splashed the garden tools hung on the walls and splashed across the floor. He took care not to get any on him.
He went from one corner of the basement to the next. Sweat made his scalp itch. The penlight was making his jaw ache the way he bit it between his teeth. The smell of gas got him all dizzy and he couldn’t stop himself thinking of Cam’s eyes. The way Cam’s eyes were so pale they looked white. It was like Cam had eyes that gave him secret powers. Cam could see in the dark and could see through walls and girls’ skirts and panties and into tomorrow. He tried to blank his mind out sometimes, when Cam looked at him. When Cam ran a hand through that blond lick of hair and looked at him with those milky blue spooky eyes. When Cam looked at him like he was trying to see inside his head.
The thoughts of the wicked are an abomination to the Lord, he said.
He stood under the broke open window. The empty can he set on the floor. He dug in his pocket for the matchbox all crushed and damp with his sweat. He hoped it wasn’t too wet. He pushed the end of the box and out the little drawer slid. He pinched a matchstick and squeezed the box closed between his thumb and finger and the moon just sat up there with its eye on him.
Things didn’t have to be like this. He’d tried other ways. Down the slope he’d crawl to the junked cars. Off with his shirt and jeans and shorts and he’d lie on the front seat and roll back and forth on the blue bits of busted windshield. It helped, but not enough. Neither did it help to cut his stomach with a razor blade. He’d ask forgiveness and please don’t cast me to hell it ain’t my fault innumerable evils have compassed me about and he’d make the cuts on his skin. But when Grandma started asking why the bloodstains on his laundry and then at the beaver pond he took off his tee shirt and Cam pointed and swore, and even Roxy crouched above him in her red print dress, he knew he had to find another way. A secret way, a way that would make everybody pay. Because everybody was a hypocrite and an evil doer and every mouth spoketh folly. But mostly God.
He scratched the matchstick on the striker. There was a snap and the flame. The gas was all wet and glittery in the beam of the penlight. For wickedness burneth as the fire. It shall devour the briars and the thorns, and shall kindle in the thickets of the forests. It is a fretting leprosy. Thou shall burn it with fire.
When it had burnt itself halfway, he dropped the match to the floor.
SO, WHY’D YOU DO IT? HE SAID. WHY’D YOU GO AND DISAPPEAR like that?
He sat on the sandy ledge of the beaver pond, in a spot where the sedges and the cattails had got torn out. His feet hanged over the water. The sun was hot and caught his eyes with fire.
Cam said, I didn’t disappear.
Cam stood with his back to him. Cam stood at the diving end of the diving plank. I told you I was off camping with my old man. Spur of the moment type shit didn’t have time to alert the mayor whoop dee do. Cam rode up and down on his toes so the plank bounced Cam a little. Ain’t like I was hoping to get my face on a milk carton or nothing, Cam said.
Yeah, but you didn’t tell nobody where you got off to, he said. We was all worried about you. And your mom. Gosh Cam. Your mom was in a real bad way.
Cam began to jump up and down on the plank. Cam pumped his elbows to the sides and the plank yawned under him and Cam sprang in the air with his arms up like he was going to fly away. Cam tucked his knees and somersaulted and kicked out the tuck and cut the water with his smooth brown arms. There was a slap and a spit flew, then only ripples. Cam did not come up.
He took a deep breath and held it. Water dripped some, back of his neck. Across the pond the leaves of the ash trees shook and flickers called from the branches. Cam did not come up.
The bluff curved like an egg out from behind him. The rocks made broken steps to the sky. On the left the face carried on past the ashes. On the right it petered off well shy. From the end of the diving plank you could see the
