Jesse Ball - How to Set a Fire and Why

His brother’s in the army, yeah?

I don’t know. I don’t care about that guy. He can do what the fuck he wants.

When we got to the building, Jan took a bottle of something out of his backpack. Gasoline?

It’s like gasoline, he said. Something like that. Wait here.

There was a stoop next to where the street had been, so, I went up to the fourth step and sat down. I couldn’t hear anything from inside. The building had just swallowed him up. Any number of people could disappear into it.

I smoked. I waited. I smoked another cigarette, another cigarette. I would have smoked another, but it was my last. It must have been half an hour later when I heard someone running and Jan shot out of the building.

Book it, he said, and grabbed my arm. We set out sprinting across the field. I tripped two or three times, but got right up and kept going. Somehow Jan stayed on his feet the whole way. When we got to the other side, there was a huge pile of tires.

This should do, he said, and got behind it.

I don’t know what the fuck is in there, so I don’t want to be near it if a gas line blows.

Nothing

and

nothing

and

nothing.

I was looking into the black and breathing hard. I couldn’t even really see the building, just an outline of all the buildings where the darkness got lighter in the distance. Then, I thought I heard something, and WHOOSH!

That whole half of the world turned red. It was like a huge flame tongue erupted out of all the windows at the same time. It flashed away and I couldn’t see anything at all, and then a half second later, there was more, this time it was smaller flames that came, but they stayed, all along one line—about halfway up the building I’d guess.

Jan put his arm around me, but not in a bad way—it was a celebration, like you’d do with anyone. I didn’t mind.

Do you think there was anybody in there? Some vagrant sleeping?

I checked, said Jan. That’s what took so long. I wouldn’t do it for most places, but I don’t want to kill some homeless guy or leave him covered in burns. Come on, let’s get out of here.

We climbed down to the street, and after we’d gone a block or two Jan tossed his jacket in a sewer drain.

He looked at me and didn’t say anything, and then he did.

Now you’re in the club. You held it together. Most people can’t do that. I figured you’d be gone when I came out.

The school Arson Club?

Ha, no. There isn’t one. That’s just nonsense.

He waited for my bus to come (once per hour) and told me some more stuff, which I was eager to hear. He was suddenly really jovial. He kept touching my arm and relating little bits of nonsense. I think he was proud of himself for setting the fire. Truth is—I felt really good, too. The feeling of setting a fire is enormous, so even helping out like I did—I was in the clouds.

About the club, he said the way it works is—if you want to talk about the club, the actual club for the area gets members from the schools. Only two other people in my school were in so far. The rest were just wannabes like Stephan.

But now you, you can come to the real meetings, he said. And one more thing maybe you’ve guessed already—you can’t tell anyone you’re in. It’s the opposite. Now you tell them you’re done with setting fires, you’re over it. Got it? Give them the high hat. Since I’m a recruiter, I stay in the open. But now you’re behind doors. Don’t breathe a fucking word.

I got home, took my clothes off, got in bed and lay there in the dark. It’s pretty lonely being alone in a house—in one where you usually have company. I suppose that’s a moronic sentence. It’s lonely being alone, but I felt that way. I’m often alone and I don’t feel lonely, but going to sleep in that converted garage without my aunt there, it was terrible. I tried to pretend she was slumped in the chair. I propped up the blue blanket so it looked like it was covering something and it actually made me feel better. Then, I lay down again and thought about the fire.

I thought about that immaculate blankness. It had been too much for my eyes—my eyes had just given up.

I know it was just an abandoned building, but I felt like something had happened, a real thing for once. My aunt’s stroke had felt pretty real too. I guess real things happen all at once, and then you go back to the false parade of garbage that characterizes modern life.

Well, I don’t want to go back there.

Thinking something like that, I fell asleep.

While I was waiting in the hospital for the elevator, I noticed a flyer for a psych experiment. It said it would pay one hundred dollars and it lasts fifteen minutes. Women eighteen to thirty-five with perfect eyesight.

I thought—why not?

So, after I saw my aunt, I headed down there.

My aunt, in case you are wondering, was still alive. I wasn’t going to have to go visit her in the hospital anymore, because they were to return her to the house soon. That meant I had a lot to do—cleaning up the place, getting some groceries (shoplifting some groceries), et cetera, but there was time.

She seemed in good spirits. She should have been, since I gave her the book I made—it’s not like it’s nothing!

She wanted to read it while I was there, but I refused. What an awful idea. There is no way to save face if someone reads your shit while you stand there. Much better to get out immediately. If they like it, actually, that fact can come up later or not. I would have stayed longer but I felt like I did my due diligence with the gift. Also, the hospital room smelled awful.

The study was being conducted in the psych department of the university hospital. That was in a different building, but the buildings are all connected, so I wandered around for forty minutes going this way on one bridge and that way on another until I found it. I pictured it like some old French movie where the shot is from far away and sped up, and you can see me through the glass bridges and windows going back and forth. Maybe I would be riding a bicycle some of the time for no reason, and being chased by a gorilla.

A girl in her mid-thirties wearing a lab coat answered the door when I knocked.

She was heavyset and had a voice like a man, which was sort of endearing. I don’t mean just deep—I mean, she sounded exactly like a man. It was neat.

Come in, she said. You are eighteen, right?

I showed her the license I stole from the girl at my school. She is a senior, and turned eighteen in January, which put me in the clear.

Here’s a fact: no one really looks at IDs. I don’t know why they bother putting pictures on them. What they do is—they look at you and decide if they like you or not.

The researcher, Mary, told me to sit down. The room had a table and two chairs. There were some computers and a couch. There was a big whiteboard with some crap written on it—scientist handwriting, practically unreadable.

I leaned on the edge of the couch and waited.

You can sit down, she said.

No thanks, I said.

Your eyesight is perfect, yes?

Yes.

She gave me some forms to fill out. I did so, but had to look at the ID to remember the girl’s fucking last name. How stupid is that. I have a decent memory, but this was a Polish name with twelve consonants in a row. I bet you couldn’t remember it either.

Luckily the researcher wasn’t watching. When I gave her the forms she showed me into the next room.

Stand there, she said.

There was a circle drawn on the floor. I went and stood in it.

Images will show up on the far side of the room. Images of people in profile. You are being recorded. I want you to state, whenever an image appears, what you think the age and sex of the person being shown is. Tap your leg if you find them threatening.