Irwin Shaw - Short Stories - Five Decades

“You oughtn’t to say that,” Alex said, wiping his face. “I did my best.”

“What’re we going to do now?” McCracken wailed. “Somebody tell me what we’re going to do now.”

Flanagan leaned way over and grabbed Alex fiercely by the collar. “Lissen, Alexander,” he said right into Alex’s face, “you’re goin’ back in that house and you’re settin’ fire to that house, and you’re settin’ fire to it good! Hear me?”

“Yeah,” Alex said, his voice trembling. “Sure I hear you, Flanagan. You don’t have to tear my collar off. Say, lissen, Flanagan, this shirt cost me eight bucks …”

“You are setting fire to this house personally now,” Flanagan’s grip tightened on the collar. “You are giving this fire the benefit of your personal attention, see? No fuse, no evaporated, nothing, understand?”

“Yeah,” Alex said. “Sure, Flanagan.”

“You will be served up as pie, anything goes wrong,” Flanagan said slowly, his pale mean eyes glaring straight into Alex’s.

“Why don’t you leave go my collar?” Alex said, choking a little. “Lissen, Flanagan, this shirt cost me …”

Flanagan spat into his face again. “I would like to kick you in the belly,” he said. He let go Alex’s collar and pushed Alex’s face with the heel of his hand.

“Say, Flanagan …” Alex protested as he stumbled back.

The car door slammed. “Move, Sam,” Flanagan said, sitting back.

The car spurted down the street. Alex wiped his face with a shaking hand. “Oh, Jesus,” he said to himself as he walked back across the completely dark lawn to the house. He heard a sparrow cheep in the three o’clock morning hush and he nearly cried under the peaceful trees.

Once in the house, though, he became very businesslike. He went upstairs to where he had set out buckets of naphtha and brought them down in pairs. He tore down all the drapes from the ground-floor windows and piled them at the farther end of the long hall that ran along one side of the house. Then he took all the linen covers off the furniture and piled them on top of the drapes. He went down to the cellar and brought up three egg boxes full of excelsior and put the excelsior on top of the piled cloth. It made a heap about seven feet high at the end of the hall. He worked grimly, swiftly, ripping cloth when it wouldn’t give way easily, running up and down steps, sweating in his overcoat, feeling the sweat roll down his neck onto his tight collar. He soaked every piece of furniture with naphtha, then came out and poured ten gallons of naphtha over the pile at the end of the hall. He stepped back, the acrid smell sharp in his nostrils, and surveyed his work with satisfaction. If that didn’t work you couldn’t burn this house down in a blast-oven. When he got through with it, the home of the Littleworths would be hot. No mistake this time. He got a broom and broke off the handle and wrapped it heavily with rags. He soaked the rags with naphtha until the liquid ran out of the saturated cloth to the floor. He whistled comfortably under his breath “There’ll be a hot time in the old town tonight” as he opened the window wide behind him at the end of the hall that was opposite the huge pile of cloth and excelsior. It was a narrow hall, but long. A distance of thirty-five feet separated him from the pyre at the other end.

“There’ll be a hot time in the old town tonight,” he sang under his breath as he took out a match from the dozen he had lying loose in his pocket. He stood next to the open window, prepared to jump swiftly out as he struck the match, put it to his heavy torch. The torch flared up wildly in his hand and he hurled it with all his strength straight down the hall to the pile of naphtha-soaked cloth and excelsior at the other end. It landed squarely on the pile. For a moment nothing happened. Alex stood, ready at the window, his eyes shining in the fierce light of the flaring torch. Alex smiled and kissed his fingers at the other end of the hall.

Then the whole hall exploded. The pile of cloth became a single huge ball of flame and hurtled down the hall like a flaming shell to the open window behind Alex. With a scream sick in his throat, lost in the immense roar of the exploding house, Alex dove to the floor just as the ball of flame shot over him and through the window to the pull of the open air beyond, carrying his hat and his hair, like smoke going up a chimney to the pull of the sky.

When he came to there was a dusty burned smell in his nostrils. Without surprise he saw that the carpet under his face was quietly afire, burning gently, like coal in a grate. He hit the side of his head three times to put out the fire in what remained of his hair, and sat up dully. Coughing and crying, he dove down to the floor again, escaping the smoke. He crawled along the burning carpet foot by foot, his hands getting black and crisp under him as he slowly made his way to the nearest door. He opened the door and crawled out onto a side porch. Just behind him the hall beams collapsed and a column of flame shot up through the roof, as solid as cement. He sighed and crawled to the edge of the porch and fell off five feet to the loam of a flower bed. The loam was hot and smelled from manure, but he lay there gratefully for a moment, until he realized that something was wrong with his hip. Stiffly he sat up and looked at his hip. Flames were coming out through his overcoat from inside and he could smell his skin broiling. Neatly he unbuttoned his coat and hit at the flames, curling up from the pocket where he had the dozen matches. When he put out the fire on his hip he crawled out to the lawn, shaking his head again and again to clear it, and sat behind a tree. He slid over and went out again, his head on a root.

Far off, far off a bell clanged again and again. Alex opened his eyes, singed of their lashes, and listened. He heard the fire trucks turn into the street. He sighed again and crawled, clinging to the cold ground, around the back of the house and through a bare hedge that cut his swelling hands, and away from the house. He stood up and walked off behind a high hedge just as the first fireman came running down toward the back of the house.

Directly, but slowly, like a man walking in a dream, he went to McCracken’s house. It took forty minutes to walk there, walking deliberately down alleys and back streets in the dark, feeling the burned skin crack on his knees with every step.

He rang the bell and waited. The door opened slowly and McCracken cautiously put his face out.

“My God!” McCracken said and started to slam the door, but Alex had his foot in the way.

“Lemme in,” Alex said in a hoarse broken voice.

“You’re burned,” McCracken said, trying to kick Alex’s foot out of the doorway. “I can’t have nothing to do with you. Get outa here.”

Alex took out his gun and shoved it into McCracken’s ribs. “Lemme in,” he said.

McCracken slowly opened the door. Alex could feel his ribs shaking against the muzzle of the gun. “Take it easy,” McCracken said, his voice high and girlish with fright. “Lissen, Alex, take it easy.”

They stepped inside the hall and McCracken closed the door. McCracken kept holding on to the doorknob to keep from sliding to the floor from terror. “What do you want from me, Alex?” His necktie jumped up and down with the strain of talking. “What can I do for you?”

“I want a hat,” Alex said, “and I want a coat.”

“Sure, sure, Alex. Anything I can do to help …”

“Also I want for you to drive me to New York.”

McCracken swallowed hard. “Now, look, Alex,” he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand to dry the lips, “let’s be reasonable. It’s impossible for me to drive you to New York. I got a four-thousand-dollar job. I’m Chief of Police. I can’t take chances like …”