Jesse Ball: How to Set a Fire and Why

Oh, and there was still the matter of my aunt’s funeral.

My aunt hadn’t gotten a real funeral. They just cremated her one day. I wasn’t even invited. There I was crying my eyes out, expecting I would somehow know. I mean—you imagine you will know when your own aunt’s funeral will be. But it isn’t true. It’s not like a cherub flies through the sky and blows a horn for you.

When I went to the funeral home, they didn’t have any information. When I went to the church, they said it was all over. I mean, all over, but it had never really happened. They showed me a place where they put you if you have no money for your own grave. It is essentially a garbage dump for ashes.

So, what you’re saying, I told the chaplain, is that she’s somewhere in there.

Yes.

Along with a bunch of other people.

Yes.

And dogs, cats, pets?

Oh, oh no—those go somewhere else entirely. I don’t want you to think that …

Oh, don’t worry, I told him. Whatever it is you don’t want me to think, I’m not thinking it.

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There was a certain correctness to the absolutely unceremonious annihilation of my aunt’s body. It is a kind of perfect finish for an atheist. Even I can’t complain—it’s not like I think my aunt was sticking around inside her own body.

Nonetheless, I wanted to have some kind of funeral for her. So, what I decided was this: the fire I was going to set, that would be my aunt’s funeral. It would be a kind of homage to her and to the life I hoped to lead.

The question was—how would I do it?

Jan and Lana never agree. Whatever it is that we are talking about doing, or planning, or arguing about, they are always on one side and the other. I mean, one is on one side, the other is on the other. This is funny because most of the time I agree with both of them. I’m almost positive they just disagree out of spite. In any case, there is one thing that they both agreed about, and it was this:

When we got to talking about the fire I was planning on setting for my aunt’s funeral, I mentioned, I mean it just fell out of my mouth, that I wanted to burn the wedding dress. Somehow, I felt it needed to be burned. If for my aunt it represented her life, then it shouldn’t stick around. It just shouldn’t.

That’s when Lana said if I felt that way I should go burn it, or I’d feel like a coward forever.

That’s when Jan said: he took that dress and that suit—it was like a little shrine to your aunt’s life. If you want to give her a funeral, burn it to the ground.

I said let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Jan said, he chose to take it into his house. He took it there. For the funeral, all that you want to do is burn those things, but if they are in his house … well, who chose to have them there? It is pretty simple.

That’s what I’m saying, said Lana.

When they said that, I felt somehow that it was right, just right.

The plan, then, was basic. I wasn’t even mad at the landlord, not really. I was just sad and tired. It was like a signature. I was going to give this funeral like writing my signature in ash, and then I would get out of town. For such a long time I have wondered: what does a beginning look like? I said it out loud.

Maybe this, said Lana.

We have to make sure, I said, that he isn’t in there.

That’s easy, said Jan.

He’ll just end up in the position that I’m in—having nothing.

I’ve got some of it right here.

Lana held my bag open.

Licorice and nothing!

You and your fucking licorice, said Jan.

The Hausmann letter was in there, though. I remembered it, and it suddenly bothered me. I pulled it out. I don’t know why I had kept it until then, so I tore it in half.

More nothing. More and more and more. More nothing. I threw the pieces on the ground and Lana and I danced around on them. Why did we do that? What does it mean to dance on something? I don’t know. Obviously you can dance for a reason, but sometimes I think we dance for no reason at all.

The next morning something unfortunate happened. I was sleeping and I heard a knock on the door. I don’t know what day exactly it was—I guess Saturday. Jan was off somewhere. I went down to see who it was. When I got to the door and opened it, standing there in Jan’s yard before the busted bungalow was Stephan.

Stephan?

Lucia?

I hadn’t seen him in a while—obviously.

What are you doing here?

Why are you wearing Jan’s shirt?

What are you talking about? Do you want something?

He was really uncomfortable.

He just repeated himself.

What are you doing here?

Stephan, hello. Can I help you with something?

Tell Jan I came by. He asked me to.

Okay.

As he made his way across the yard, he kept looking back. I almost felt like—I mean, I’m sure it wasn’t true, but I almost felt like he was crying, which is weird. Don’t you think?

When I told Jan about it later, he thought it was funny. I forgot all about him, he said. I guess I did say he should stop by, but the problem is, with a guy like him, you tell him something like that, and then there is just no way you can remember. You might even want to keep your word, but you just cannot remember what you said to him. It is all so non-notable.

I was just leaving Green Gully—I had made it about forty feet down the sidewalk when I hear a voice calling my name. It was a close thing—I almost ran, and I’m sure you can guess why:

I had three boxes of licorice under my hoodie!

But, when I turned around, I saw that it was just some old lady from my aunt’s church. I didn’t know her name, so I decided to call her Gerty; that’s what I did when I spoke to her.

You might ask why I would do that, well, here’s the thought process: if she knows from the outset that I don’t know her name, then she might want to wrap up the conversation sooner; if she decides to pretend that is her name and prolong the whole business, it makes the conversation funnier; if she decides to tell me what her real name is, then we have two options, a) real understanding, and b) I pretend to forget and call her Gerty again.

Now, mind you, I am always really nice to people, so none of this is like, Lucia is being mean to an old lady. It is just—well, I have had to have too many conversations like this in my life, and life is short. Anyway, when I talk to people like that, I am really nice. I look them right in the eye and smile for all I’m worth.

So, she comes up and says that my aunt died. I mean, I know that. What she says is—something about my aunt dying and how it relates to her. So be it. I am not that interested in that kind of thing. She asks me what I am going to do now. What are my plans now that I am alone?

I say that I am enrolled in a beauty academy and I am going to learn to do makeup really good. Then, I can be an “active part of it all.” This is what I said.

Maybe she thought I was going to say something else. What I did say kind of took her off guard, and she was relieved. Evidently, she thought I had a lot of common sense, like, head screwed on right and all that.

I think she wanted to give me a hug, but I didn’t want her to notice the licorice boxes under my sweatshirt, so I just made off.

I wrote out the plan on a big sheet of paper. Lana sat next to me on the bed and watched. She was eating a donut.

She said, if I eat any more of these donuts I am going to be a fat shit and it will solve my donut problem because my boyfriend will dump me for being a fat shit and then I won’t get any free donuts anymore. That’s what they call a logical syllogism.