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Fire (love story)

By john

Ben protects an unrequited love.

Ten was old enough to know at once he'd got it wrong. The moment that he'd yelled, before the solitary echo died inside the darkness, he felt sorry. "Fire!" His lack of foresight shocked him, more even than it hurt his mother or dismayed the burly O.P.P. who sat with them for hours and wrote down notes inside a metal folder.

Half a century ago. The town was Renison. The movie house? What? James Dean. Yes. The Empress Theater. Thank god the dozen cheapskates at the matinee had shuffled to their feet like it was school and in a lazy line meandered up the smoke free aisles to safety. Thank god they'd known that nothing bad would ever happen, not in Renison. Too bored to picture tragedies, it had to be some drill.

The constable kept asking, "But why exactly, Ben?" His mother looked as if an accident had sheared a limb from her, like things could never be repaired. All that Ben could think was, "I don't know. I really don't," and "It just came." He didn't cry. Benjamin, age sixty, had no regrets at all.

Lori had no way to picture Renison in 1953. She'd lived her eighteen years inside a slab of concrete forty stories high. She couldn't know how loudly families lived in single-story wood frame homes adjoined to ill-trimmed, fenceless lawns. She couldn't comprehend temerity on scales that blocked off arteries or suffocated kids. She'd heard of Renison. Ben Arthur. English, Academic. Drifting snow and blackfly clouds. As esoteric as the moon.

Lori sprawled upon her bed in just a cotton robe and terry turban. One hand connected her by phone to Cin; the other grappled with her homework due tomorrow.

"Don't blow it, girl!" Cin.

"Sure." Intransitives. She'd studied that before. Which were they?

"Lori! Put down the book."

"I'm not. Really."

"Don't lie, girl."

"It's due tomorrow, Cin."

"So? You have like ninety-fives. No wonder you can't get it on with Tom."

"Okay. I closed the book."

"Lori! Don't weird me out. You could have your pick of any guy in school."

"Dream on. And you could have straight A's if that was what you wanted."

"Just check your mail in class tomorrow."

"Don't tease me, Cin. What's it about?"

"I'm just the messenger. He said for you to check."

"It's like medieval. Why not just talk to me?"

"He's shy? How do I know? Just check, okay? He's cute."

"He isn't shy. He's captain of the team. He's student council, too. He's not afraid to talk."

"More than cute, Lor. Jeez, just give the guy a break. He's hot for you."

"As if. He prob'ly wants to borrow notes."

"You idiot. Wake up! He's like the coolest. I'd do him in a second if he wanted."

"I have to get this homework done." Cin answered her with silence. "Yes, he's cute. Satisfied?"

"And you're back to reading history, aren't you?"

"Grammar," Lori sighed.

"You're weird, ya know."

"What did he say? Really."

"'Check your mail.' That's what he said."

"Maybe. It's against the rules. Arthur keeps us busy in the lab."

"Don't blow this, Lor. Shake a little booty. Screw Arthur for a change."

"You're getting me upset."

"Good. You act like Lisa Simpson. If you never get upset, you'll never get it on."

"I'm sorry, Cin. I've really gotta go. I'll check it out. I promise."

The conversation ended; Lori double-checked her verbs. Could one just "love" without an object? Was "Tom" required? Somehow, yes, she could. Arthur taught her that: to "love," more than just his English class, more than learning, more than marks, or Tom. What a winner essay that would make? "Love Intransitive." But loving Tom ... She smiled and snuggled down inside her comforter. Loving Tom might get your points all hard, make you wet between your thighs. Tom loving her might solve how penises got hard or how they felt inside.

You don't yell, "Fire!" by accident. The cop knew that. His mother would have too if she had ever gained her poise enough to think. Ben never told his reason. Not in fifty years.

Karen Currie moved to Renison on Labour Day in 1953. At ten, you didn't notice girls, you didn't see the skinny kid in cut off jeans bike down to Fran's to buy a ten cent coke. The men were playing fastball by the creek. Who cared the way her mouse-brown hair hung down in tangles or lifted off her weak, girl-shoulders in the whisper of a breeze? Not Ben, not him, for sure. Girls were stupid mostly, so it hurt to have the image of her face, the almost crooked nose, the near excess of freckles on her cheek, to have it seared into his mind behind closed eyes before he slept.

He hadn't told her. She'd never been his girl. He wouldn't stare at her all day. You'd catch him dead before you'd catch him dreaming her in class that fall. Dreaming what? Was Renison another planet? He must have been a freak to know so little? What "fucking" really was? The other guys all knew, knew precisely what "it" was. One day, they'd carved up pieces of an inner tube and passed him one and told him how to fold it on his "cock" and use it as a "rubber". They knew. Outrageous secrets. Had done amazing feats. Ben couldn't dream of things like that with Karen. Just one wet kiss that, somehow, like a movie, led to marriage and a child.

"Mr. Arthur! Would you like to join the rest of us for Spelling?"

Everyone had laughed. Ben heard but one. She'd laughed like baby robins, little squeaks that would have sounded stupid, were it someone else.

The constable persisted. "It's serious what you did, son. Someone else might try it now."

"I'm sorry."

"I know that, Benjamin. But why?"

It happened at the chicken part. Someone had tied a chicken or thrown one on the porch. Which? He remembered how it squawked. Remembered how the screen door banged in black and white, while silhouettes five rows in front of him leaned into one another. Karen. God, not him. Not the boy who'd given him the "rubber." Not with her. His arm around her. His lips to hers. She kissed him back. He felt like throwing up. The word had hurled itself between his lips. Yelled, "Fire!"

"I just said it, that's all."

He had a way with kids. Lori often wondered what it was. Someday she'd have a class. Like his. Like yesterday. Right at the end. He'd pulled an "Arthur". Said "Class dismissed" with maybe five before the bell. Surprised them. Then just as kids recovered, started getting up and turning off computers, "Wait. Some of your verbs. Today. Pretty sloppy, really. Let's try this. Tonight, flip through 'Of Mice and Men.' Find ... oh, twenty super verbs. Label them 'transitive' or 'intransitive'. Objects. Sentences. Page numbers. Okay? Questions?" those and then the bell. Challenging. Spontaneous. That was Mr. Arthur.

"You checked?"

"Cin! I started an amazing book. Steinbeck."

"Did you check your mail, Lor? English sucks."

"I checked."

"And?"

"Nothing."

"It had to be. He told me."

"Well, there's zip."

"He was so hot for you to check, Lor. No kidding."

"Doesn't look too keen right now. Does he?"

"Where?"

Tom, as tall and lean as an erection, lounged against a locker down the hall. His laughter stabbed the noisy corridor. A slim cheerleader pressed her cheek onto his chest possessively, shards of honey hair along his sweater.

"Oh, fuck!"

"He actually doesn't look that shy."

"He's such a slut. How could he? He called last night. No shit, Lor. He did. Something's totally strange."

"Don't sweat it. I'm not."

"What a low-life, Lor."

"I'm cool. Anyway, I've got a date tonight."

"Oh, yeah. Who?"

"You don't know him. A guy named Lenny."

Yesterday, he'd watched the server in the lab, flipped through every station, watched their try at free verse poetry. Ben watched their minds, each grasp for word perfection, each way to better turn a phrase, to show instead of say. They thought in cuts and pastes these days. Delete. Insert. Don't play with fonts in class, my dear. It's words we're forging.

He'd spied on Lori mostly. Teacher's pet. Well, what the hell. She'd earned the epithet. She loved to write. She loved to learn. Still looked at life with curiosity. In love with simply living. Innocent of how attractively her amber hair had curled, her eyes could smile, her body curve into her clothing. Teenage romance had not misled her. Yet. Some horny guy had not re-formed her passion, re-calibrated brains. Not yet.

Move on, Ben. Another student. Then another. Tom? Our football hero. What metaphors burst forth from quarterbacks today? Oh, god. He's written something. God. An image, even. Must have copied it. The aging teacher watched young Tom construct his ode. Falter. Then recover. Form words, backtrack, push on again. Not plagiarized. Exceptional. Monkeys? Endless rows of primates pounding on their keyboards. A lucky shot. Infinity: the pedagogue that always has success. Eventually. Keep going, Tom. Don't spoil it. "Ember," son, not "coals". Oh, my. You saw that, too. What fortune!

Move on. No. What's he doing now? The intra-school message warning flashed. Forbidden in his class. Don't do it, Tom. You know the rule. What now? The message: "Just for you!!!!" The attachment titled "Fire," a copy of the poem. To whom? Not Lori! No! Too busy now to notice she has mail. She'd love it, though. Surprised like me that Tom could write beyond his name.

Impulsively, Ben stammered, "Class dismissed!" The clock; four minutes early. Shit. This isn't happening. "Wait." Think. "Some of your verbs. Today. Pretty sloppy, really. Let's try this." He stalled while students exited the program. No, she hadn't seen.

Finally the bell. Books dropped and stomachs growled. They'd shuffled toward the door. Ben didn't notice. Was busy checking student passwords. Had changed the addy on a surreptitious note. Rerouted "Fire" to someone blonde, more into football, way more fun, he thought.