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Starting Fires

William Kee

The first time I started a fire, I was about eight years old. This would make my brother about ten. My brother was obsessed with fire. Looking back, it was strange. There was a lot of time spent buying fireworks and collecting tinder. The obsession with fire wasn’t violent. We weren’t shooting Roman candles at each other, or burning structures down, but we were shooting Roman candles. Did you know you’re supposed to bury those in the ground? How can you feel the kick if it’s buried in the ground? How can you aim it at the trees?
We lit our first fire in the back yard. We had a swing set that had once been cemented by the legs into the ground. When my father moved this swing set, he had us dig around the concrete bases. Now, these bases sat above the ground in the far corner of the yard. These gave us nice little platforms to build our fire. We used twigs and leaves. We started it with a box of kitchen matches. After a few minutes, we got it going. See, we had good training in the scouts. I got my fireman chit first try.
This fire quickly turned into a science experiment. My brother suggested we take some fruit from a nearby tree and see how it would burn. Eyes wide, with a wicked smile on my face, I agreed. Always eager to please, I often thought my brother had the best ideas. It doesn’t take a physicist to know what these overgrown berries did in the heat. They popped. Our glee had to wait. Our mother stuck her head out the back door and said, “Put that out and get in here!” Then she disappeared. If you’ve ever met an eight year old boy, then you can probably guess how we extinguished the fire. We zipped up our pants and walked inside.

#

When I was ten years old, December was a dry month. There were no fire warnings for New Years Eve. We bought a pack of Roman candles, about six of those tanks that shoot sparks from their cannons—we liked to let them attack each other—and a box of assorted colorful displays.
After shooting the Roman candles, we broke out the assortment. This included a pack of “bees.” You light these from the ground, and they fly up, releasing a display of colors. I lit mine first. We laughed as it made lift off and flew into the yard, expiring before it hit the ground. My brother said, “Sweet. My turn.” He ran to the driveway, threw the bee on the ground and pulled the kitchen lighter out of his pocket. As the bee lifted off the ground, my brother’s eyes became huge. He screamed and ran for his life. From the front stoop, my parents and I watched as the “bee” chased my brother across the yard, his terrified face turned over his shoulder. By the time he turned to see where he was running, it was too late. He collided head on with one of the pine trees in the middle of the yard. I’m still laughing.
The real action happened at the end of the night. Sometimes the hardest part of lighting a pyrotechnic is finding the fuse. This was the case with this particular display. When deployed properly, it would shoot nine cartridges that would explode in the air. We couldn’t find the fuse.
The only way that we could see to get to the fuse would be to rip open the plastic on the side and slide it out. This was not the way to do it.
The first shot blew it onto it’s side. The second hit our garage door. The third started a small fire under a shrub on the side of our house. The fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth shots could not reach a target. The ninth wreaked havoc. It made a direct hit on the bush surrounding our neighbor’s mailbox causing it to erupt in flames. We ran over as quickly as we could to try and stomp it out. The bush was too dry. My mother called the fire department. My brother and I pissed on it before the firemen arrived.

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The last fire I started was a bon fire. We threw a party. I drank too much fireball—I know, I know—and passed out. I pissed in the corner of my bedroom at my parents house.

“Starting Fires” received an Honorable Mention from Glimmer Train in their 2017 Very Short Fiction Contest.

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