A. Homes - Things You Should Know

“Don’t,” I shouted, going toward him.

He put both arms up in front of him, like someone sleepwalking, and the fluid that had splashed back on his hands ignited and his hands turned into ten fingers of flame, like a special effect, like something that would happen to a cartoon character. I stepped back and watched the flames jump three feet high, the hair on his arms and legs melt away, the edges of his shorts turn black, the flames at first just kissing him then starting to eat him alive. Mr. was silent until halfway down when he began to howl, to cry, and wail.

Mrs. came flying out the kitchen door, her purse over her arm, bag of groceries still in hand, screaming, “Don’t just stand there, do something.” She dropped the groceries and charged toward Mr. I ran into the Henrys’ house and called the fire department. From the kitchen window, I could see Mrs. chasing Mr. around the yard, tackling him at the edge of the woods. The fire had reached out of the trough, chewed through the empty briquette bags, and was gnawing on the porch. I saw Henry and baby June standing off to the side, watching their mother in her Bermuda shorts lying on top of their father.

I went to the front door and waited for help.

Two days later, while Mr., all red and black, charred, swollen, bandaged, blotchy, with his arms and legs tied down, was still in intensive care, two men came and took away the remains of the new deck.

“He wants to be punished,” Mrs. told the men. “Even though this was an accident, he’s convinced it was his fault.”

When they were gone Mrs. took the garden hose, a ladder, her trusty Playtex gloves and scrub brush, and with an industrial-sized bottle of lemon-lime Palmolive she washed the side of the house, the patio, and even the grass. “Go on down to the basement and bring up the beach things,” she told Henry and me when she finished. “We’re taking a few days off.”

Henry and I plunged into the clammy cool of the basement, into the history packed away on deep wooden shelves Mr. had put up a few summers before. We took out all of Henry’s old toys, played with them again, and lived our lives over. We did the memory quiz — do you remember when? — testing to see if we agreed on history, making sure we’d gotten everything right. We pulled out the beach chairs, inflatable rafts, and the Styrofoam cooler, and loaded them all into the back of Mrs.’s station wagon.

While Mrs. and baby June stayed at the foamy edge of the ocean, Henry and I danced in the waves, hurling ourselves toward them, daring the ocean to knock us out, to carry us away.

Despite our being coated with layers and layers of thick white sunblock, by the time the lifeguard pulled his station far back on the sand and walked off with the life preserver, we were red-hot like steamed lobsters.

We walked back to the motel dragging the beach chairs, the Styrofoam cooler, and all the extra sand our bathing suits would hold. To save time and hot water, Henry and I showered together and then turned the bathroom over to Mrs. and baby June. On our way out of the bathroom, Mrs. grabbed Henry by the head and recombed his hair the normal Henry way. He didn’t stop her. He didn’t rearrange it Stanton style.

Scrubbed and desalted, we sat at the four stations of the dinette set, eating two large and wonderful pizzas, drinking orange soda from cans, and simultaneously watching television. After dinner we all walked down the boardwalk watching seagulls plucking free food out of the sand and the sky and disappearing into darkness. Mrs. bought each of us a warm puffy ball of fried dough dipped in powdered sugar, and as we walked, baby June fell asleep in her mother’s arms.

It was eight-thirty when we got back to the room. Mrs. lay down on the bed with baby June. Henry and I writhed around, pillow fighting, changing TV channels, and generally spinning on the edge until finally Mrs. had enough, took a twenty-dollar bill out of the nightstand, and told us to put on sweatshirts and long pants, to go out, and blow off some steam. “Be careful and have fun.”

We raced out of the motel and back onto the boardwalk. Immediately, Henry bought a bucket of french fries and a Coke. We ate our way down the wooden planks, stopping to play darts and balloons, frog flip, and Skee-Ball, stuffing our pockets with cheap plush prizes. We bought vanilla-and-chocolate soft-swirl ice-cream cones, and fresh-made caramel corn. We sat on a bench eating while a summer’s night parade of all human possibility swept by: deformed people, big families, small families, orphans, kids on first dates, guys in sawed-off leather jackets, old people. My skin was so hot from the sunburn that it felt cold. Shivery goose bumps covered my arms, legs, and the back of my neck. I was sugar-intoxicated. Music came out of every store, arcade, and refreshment stand, a thousand radios all tuned to a different station.

As we got closer to the amusement park at the end of the boardwalk, the music got louder, each little radio competing with the next, and all of them competing with the mechanical oom pah pah of the giant carousel that cut through the night. At the gates where the boardwalk met the park, everything melted into a multicolored, multiflavored, sensomatic, dizzying, swirly whirl. We had to run one way or the other, but couldn’t stay there in the black hole of sensation. We charged toward the amusement park, toward the ticket booth. Henry slammed down what was left of the twenty and got two fistfuls of tickets. We ran from ride to ride watching each one for a few seconds, deciding which were the best investments: Roller Coaster, Haunted House, Swiss Avalanche.

“That one definitely,” Henry said, pointing across the park to spaceships taking off into the sky, trailing red-and-white afterglow. “Come on.” We ran to the far edge of the park, to this last ride, sandwiched in the corner that touched the ocean. Rockets Round the Moon. There was a plot of grass, a metal chain-link fence and then barnacle-covered rocks, railroad tie shoring, and the water evenly slapping against the edge of the world.

Henry gave the man our tickets and we slid past him and ran toward the space octopus, climbing into our own personal rocket ship, pulling the chrome safety bar down in front of us. We took off smoothly, the giant mechanical arms swinging us high into the air, shifting, then throwing us out toward the sea, where we hung over the water for a second before being snapped back. We were pitching and swaying, more like a bucking bronco or something with transmission trouble than your typical flying machine. Henry threw himself to the left and then to the right, slamming against me, getting the ship rocking in a rhythm all its own. The huge groaning arms flew us up, down, round and round. When we landed, Henry was absolutely sparkling. He pounded the side of our rocket, the hollow metal echoed. “Again, again,” he shouted. The ride emptied and refilled. The ticket taker came by and Henry dropped too many tickets into his hand. The man counted them but didn’t give any back. “More,” Henry screamed. “More.”

The ride started again and we were up, up, and away. Whirling, twirling. I closed my eyes and held on. I was being pulled in a thousand different directions. I was struggling to stay in one place. I could feel the force of being whipped through the air again and again starting to bend my face. I saw the picture from Life magazine of a man in a wind tunnel, his mouth stretched out, blown back, teeth and gums exposed. I was that man.

We landed smooth and safe, two feet above the ground. All there was to do was push the safety bar forward and step down and out.

“Once more, just once more,” Henry said, digging into his pockets, dropping the last of the tickets into the man’s hands.