A. Homes - Music for Torching

"The lock on the downstairs door has been broken since the night of the fire," Elaine says, sitting up.

"Get dressed," Pat tells the cop.

He pulls on his clothes. Despite the disturbance, his cock is still stiff, the condom is still on. He's young, he's a cop, he thrives on scenes like this. He has trouble zipping his pants.

Elaine starts to cry. She sits on the edge of the bed, sobbing.

"When you didn't come over last night, I was worried," Pat says. "I stopped by to check on you."

"Give me the gun," the cop says when he's all zipped up, when he's got his holster strapped on again.

Pat hands him the gun; he puts it away and is quickly down the steps and out the door.

"I feel so alone," Elaine says.

"I don't know what to say," Pat says. She looks around the room. "I can see your Martha Stewart," she says, pointing to the magazine on the night table.

"I can't take it anymore," Elaine says.

Pat leaves.

Elaine cries. She wails, primal pour, the pain of a lifetime, every disappointment, every failure, every missed opportunity is mourned. She cries, and then abruptly she stops-it's enough, it's all she will allow. She looks at the clock; it's almost three. Elaine peels the sheets off the bed, dresses, goes downstairs, throws the sheets into the washing machine, pours the detergent in, and sets the machine on normal.

Outside: an atomic blast of light and heat. The sun is high, the air is hot. She squints. The car is gone-Paul has taken it to the soccer game.

"Fuck." Elaine throws her keys down in the driveway. She brushes it off. She takes off running one way, then turns and runs the other. She runs in a circle. Her heart races. There is no air, nothing to breathe. Bile rises in her throat. Blind panic. She retches. She is afraid she is being etherized, atom- smashed-blasted out of existence.

She runs toward Pat and George's. The Nielsons' driveway is empty, both cars are gone. She scours the streets, searching, thinking she will find Pat. She finds nothing. She rushes to the train station-down the steps to the platform. Empty. Elaine waits-wondering what she will do when the train comes, will she get on it, or throw herself in front of it? She walks back up the steps and down the street. She is headed in a certain direc- tion-the vocational school. The air is heavy, the trees and grass bright green, flush with fresh growth. There's a yellow-and-black symbol on the side of the building-FALLOUT SHELTER. Another sign in a wire-threaded window-SAFE HAVEN.

Elaine pulls at the doors. "Open," she screams. "Open." It means nothing to her that the parking lot is empty, that it's Saturday and school is not in session, the doors are locked. "Shit, shit, shit." Guidance. She needs Bud Johnson. And where is he now? Parked outside some garden apartment with the hood up, working on his car? Elaine kicks the doors, she smacks the brick with her bare hands. "Damn it," she yells. "Fucking goddamn it."

Two halves of a prefabricated house are parked on the grass beside the school, cracked open, split like an English muffin. She steps into one, loses her footing, and accidentally slams her hand against the wall-it goes straight through. The Sheetrock is like cardboard. She punches the wall again intentionally-bam, bam, bam, like a hole punch. There is a hammer on the

floor and a box of nails. She goes to it, slamming common nails into the wall, hammering until she is spent, until she has nothing left to say, until she has spelled out FUCK THIS two feet tall. She throws down the hammer and walks away, a vocational vandal, a thief, a woman run amok.

"What do you want?" she asks herself aloud. "What do you want? You tell me," she says. "You tell me." Without thinking, she has taken herself home. She walks past her own house; the car is back in the driveway, Paul is home. She walks up and down the sidewalk, not sure what happens next.

Sammy is in the front yard at the peak of the hill, witnessing her obsessive parade, back and forth, up and down. "Mom," he calls, and at first she doesn't answer. "Mooommm," he tries again, louder.

She looks up, confused. "Mom," he says again, as if reminding her of who she is.

"Oh, hi," Elaine says.

"What're you doing?"

"I went for a walk."

"You were talking to yourself," he says.

She nods. "I was having a little conversation."

"What do you want?" he asks, repeating her incantation.

"I don't know," she says. "What do you want?"

Sammy shrugs.

"Where's Daddy?"

"Inside."

"What are you doing out here?"

"This is the house that hurt me," he says.

Elaine climbs up the driveway and puts her hand on Sammy's shoulder. "Have you seen your room? Come on, I'll show you," she says, guiding him toward the front door. "I had it all cleaned up, scrubbed top to bottom, no dust, no dirt."

Sammy shakes his head. "No."

Out of the corner of her eye, stuck on the branch of a bush, Elaine sees the red condom-like a red flag, hung out to dry.

"My balloon," Sammy says, making a dive for it, pulling it off the bush. The condom stretches and snaps, splitting at the rim, flying off the branch.

"No," Elaine says, grabbing it from him.

"It's my balloon. It's mine, I found it."

"Where did you find it?" Elaine asks, trying to find out who stuck it on the bush.

"Down there," he says, pointing to the street.

"It's a dirty balloon," Elaine says, stuffing it deep into her pocket. "Come inside and we'll find you something else to play with."

Sammy pouts. Elaine opens the front door and leads him in-she is thinking about the cop and the broken lock, wondering if it's something she can fix herself.

Elaine shows Sammy what the workmen have done. She shows him the plastic wall. "See how it's sealed off? That's to keep the dust out. And if you walk around out back, you can see-we're going to have pretty French doors and a deck. Won't that be nice?" She speaks in a chirpy voice that's entirely unfamiliar.

Sammy nods solemnly.

In the kitchen, Elaine pours glasses of lemonade; she drinks hers quickly and refills it, adding a splash of vodka when Sammy's head is turned.

"Everything all right?" she asks. "Are you breathing?"

Sammy doesn't answer, he just stands there.

Elaine digs out the fix-it book and her tools. She sits on the floor in front of the open front door, fiddling with the lock. Sammy stands next to her. She studies the diagram. "How was soccer?" she asks, trying to make conversation.

Sammy shrugs.

"Did you score?"

Again he shrugs.

"Did your team win?"

"Not because of me," he says.

Elaine examines the lock-the strike plate and the bolt are not hitting in the right place, and the cylinder seems misaligned. She unscrews the mounting plate and returns the cylinder to its original position. It works. The door opens and closes and locks. She's pleased with herself. "Now no one can come in unless we invite them," Elaine tells Sammy as she closes the door.