Prologue: 1996
I do my best work when the world is asleep. I first realized this at the age of fourteen, as I was approaching Mr. Duluth’s house at one in the morning. I made my way through the yard slowly, a gas can in one hand and my Zippo lighter in the other. It had been two years since the apocalyptic marsh fire, and I had been educating myself thoroughly on all things fire-related ever since. The time had come to test my knowledge.
Getting the gasoline had been easy. I had taken the old five-gallon tank from the basement and brought it to the Exxon station down the block. When the owner frowned at me, I just smiled.
Hi, Mr. Kowalski. Dad asked me to gas up the lawn mower.
He nodded and went back inside. I didn’t have to worry about him ever checking with my father—the worthless bastard hardly ever got up from the couch. I filled the tank and paid for it with the money I’d earned mowing lawns for the last week. It would be worth every cent.
I had snuck through the city, staying in the shadows, taking my time. I knelt by the foundation. I began pouring the gasoline on the dry October grass—inhaling the rich, soothing smell of the fuel as it trickled out.
I’d heard stories about Vice Principal Duluth and the ‘punishments’ he handed out—but I was never sure if they were true. Now, I knew. He lived alone in a one-story house on the other side of town (he had lost his big Victorian home to his ex-wife). He bowled in a league every Monday from six to nine and got drunk in front of his TV most other nights. I had watched and I had waited. His house was old with cedar shingles for siding. It would go up like dry kindling.
I thought about the girls who had come forward about Duluth, how they were from poor neighborhoods like mine. They were labeled as liars and troublemakers. All of them struggled in school from then on, with most of them eventually flunking out.
One girl even killed herself.
None of this touched Duluth. He’d been in the school system forever and his brother was a cop. Everything he did was swept under the rug. It hadn’t saved his marriage, but he seemed happy enough dating young waitresses.
I wouldn’t have gotten involved if he hadn’t singled out my sister Megan. She came to me when I was reading volume N of the encyclopedias my father had bought from a door-to-door salesman years ago. The books had collected dust, forgotten until I realized that all sorts of fascinating things lay inside. Napalm, naphtha, nitroglycerin: all mine to enjoy.
Megan didn’t surprise me with a hug, like she usually did. Instead, she just stood there, her hands clasped as if in prayer and her dark hair in her face. We’d been born only eleven months apart, so people often mistook us for twins. I never corrected them.
Hey, Jack, she had said. I’m in a little trouble at school.
I sighed and went back to the page I was reading. What happened this time?
I talked back to my math teacher again. I was supposed to have detention today, but I had basketball practice. So, one of the vice principals said I can serve it tomorrow. But I didn’t like the way he—
You know the drill, I said. If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.
She gently tugged on my arm. This is different. I’m scared.
I didn’t want to listen. Unlike me, she had always been a model of good behavior—until just recently. I was terrified that I was becoming a bad influence for her. But instead of listening to her, I made the same mistake our parents always did. I just snapped at her before going back to my book.
By the next afternoon, I had forgotten all about that conversation. I hung out with my friends after school, shooting hoops and talking sports. I headed back to the apartment around dinnertime, one of the only halfway decent times to be at home.
I got back to find Megan curled up on her bed, shivering and crying. I tried to put my arms around her, to calm her down, but she just pushed me away. It was a long time before she could speak, and longer still before she could tell me what happened without breaking down again.
Huddled in a blanket, she sipped the cocoa I had made as she described what Duluth had done to her. We had to be quiet—Mom had been on a bender lately, worse than usual, and she’d take her belt to both of us if we so much as made a peep.
Now I was the one who couldn’t stop shaking. If we told our parents, they’d just find a way to blame Megan. I’d seen it enough times before, whenever either of us got in a jam. We couldn’t go to the school or the police, either. Duluth was the head of discipline in a district with one of the highest dropout rates in the entire state. If it came down to his word against that of a known troublemaker like Megan, she would lose.
That was the moment I realized just how broken the system was. Animals like Duluth could do whatever the hell they wanted without fear of punishment from the ‘authorities’. If something was going to be done, it would be up to me.
I laid the primer around the house, using what fuel I had sparingly. As I worked, I could hear a television blaring from somewhere inside. I smiled as I pictured him passed out in his chair—still wearing that stupid bowling jersey with his nickname Dutch stitched over the breast pocket.
I made my way around to the back yard. There was a rusty swing set and an old horseshoe pit, probably remnants from the previous owner. The gas tank was nearly empty by the time I rounded the corner, but that was all right. I was almost finished. I moved slowly, carefully—the streetlights bathed the avenue in a yellow glow, making me more visible than I would have liked.
Nobody else was up at this time of night, but I still needed to be cautious. I took out my Zippo, flicked the wheel, and lowered it to the ground. But just as I brought the flame within a few inches of the gasoline trail, I stopped.
Wait, was I really going to do this? Was I going to actually murder someone?
The hand holding the lighter trembled, causing the flame to dance and stutter. My breath came out in gasps, sending clouds of steam into the night. I had thought I would do anything for my sister, even slay a monster. But she wouldn’t have wanted me to become a monster in the process.
I closed my eyes and took a long, deep breath. When I opened my eyes again, my hand was no longer shaking. I shut the Zippo and was about to put it back in my pocket when someone grabbed me from behind.
“I knew I saw someone creeping around out here.” I looked over my shoulder to see Duluth glaring at me. “What the hell are you doing?”
He hadn’t been as drunk as I’d thought. In fact, he wasn’t drunk at all. Fuck. “N-nothing,” I stammered. “I was just—”
“Just what?” he shot back as he snatched the Zippo away from me. “Just about to burn my fucking house down?”
“No, I—”
“Save it, you little prick.” He shoved me against the house, his fingers curled around my neck like a vise. “The cops are on the way.”
Within minutes, a cruiser pulled up to the curb. The officer got out and took a walk around the house. He inspected the fuel can, the trail of gasoline around the house, and the worn lighter in Duluth’s hand, all while listening to the vice principal’s account of how he’d caught me.
Without further ado, the cop slapped his cuffs on my wrists and began reading me my rights.
“But I didn’t do anything,” I said.
“Getting caught in the act doesn’t get you off the hook, kid,” the cop replied. “Attempted arson is just as bad as the real thing.”
I closed my eyes again, hoping that this nightmare would be over by the time I opened them. But that wouldn’t happen for seven long years.
