David Means - Assorted Fire Events - Stories

— Donald Antrim

“Evoking the stories of Nathanael West and Flannery O’Connor, Means beautifully combines American classic and gothic traditions in these literally hair-raising, literally spine-tingling, stomach-lurching tales.”

— Carolyn See

“Each story speaks for itself, has its own voice, and sears while it entrances, going much deeper in situation and character-probing than most stories being published today. Means is an accomplished, skillful, intelligent, strong storyteller and stylist.”

— Stephen Dixon

“I love these stories; upon first reading, one is aware of the brilliant density of the writing; then something happens. The stories fly past the language they are composed of, up into another realm of meaning, illuminating as lamps in dark windows. ‘The Reaction’ justifies owning the collection, but then every story is like a separate jewel.”

— Paula Fox

“These stories are so richly textured you can practically feel them with your fingertips as you read them. With elegant skill, Means creates worlds of longing and tragedy and then illuminates them gently, one corner at a time.”

— Aimee Bender

“These are grave, important stories inflamed with compassionate expressions of what bewilders a man, what torments, grieves and amazes him.”

— Christine Schutt

“ Assorted Fire Events is one of the best American collections of the last ten years. Means’s stories are harrowing and funny and full-blooded, consistently satisfying in their narrative twists, and lyrical in a way that makes most contemporary literary ‘lyricism’ sound like greeting cards. This is food for the hungry.”

— Jonathan Franzen

1

One is tempted to leave it at that, to end it here with the men sitting hopefully atop the steam grate, the murmur of the hotel ventilation system under them. The snow is still falling over the streets and through the slush the cars push while the general misery of the world seems, for a moment, suspended. But to leave it here would be to leave the men in their state of blatant hope, like kids waiting for a treat, so full of hope their stomping feet patter and you hear in Zeek’s “come on where is he” a mantra to hope lost in the past. So I’ll add here the fact that the sliding doors opened and two men escorted Roy out, holding him by the lapels, not kicking him out the door but dragging him along like an old wounded Civil War soldier. He was grunting. There was a dabble of blood on his lip. His side — beneath his coat — was bruised. The interruption had lasted only a few moments. Standard had kicked him several times before Melville and two other men stepped in to pull him back. A few seconds later, maybe half a minute, people went back to their tables, and slowly, gradually, the din began again and the DJ turned the dial up to 9, playing a slow tune because that was what most people wanted to dance to anyway. People feared fast movement. They wanted to make slow, lazy circles out of their lives, tiny depleted steps. All around the room couples gathered each other up and went to the floor to make feeble half circles around the song, marking the territory of their limited expectations. It was a song by the Carpenters. Karen Carpenter had died an early death of anorexia, and most of the people at the wedding, hearing her words, thought of her skinny, ravished body, all the beauty sucked away. It was “Close to You,” and it had lyrics with birds and the day of someone’s birth and everything else you could want emitted by her full-throated voice. There were days of loneliness and isolation in that voice — fright and fear and a mingling of hope that, corny as the lyrics were, made everyone — Melville, his wife, the whole party — forget the interruption, wash it away until it slowly eased back into the story and became, eventually, so far as I know, part of the general outline of gossip.

2

When I was about thirteen, some guy burned several of the cottages in Bay View, a resort in northern Michigan. In the spring, when the snow melted, they were found. The one next to my grandparents’ was torched, reduced to black char. I loved the sight, and found a place for it in my line-up of memorable images. In particular, I liked the way the huge pine trees all around the cottage were reduced to brittle towers.

3

Last spring a house near me was reduced to rubble when it caught fire, and indeed, I was writing and heard a strange sound outside — high cellophane ruffling — and the kids were jumping for joy.

4

This is horrible, tragic fact. It made the Times .

5

This is fiction.