my Jew-fro down to my head). As I biked over the hill on the main road above our house, I could see a glowing orange. I stopped and focused. It was a fire. A very large fire raging in the distance. It was obviously on our property. Oh, shit. Oh, no.
It had to be Jerri. Jerri burning. That’s all I could think. I pictured Jerri in her yoga clothes, soaking herself with gas like I’d seen an Indian monk do on TV. (Om shanti shanti shanti, she says.) I pictured her lighting herself up. (Good-bye, boys.) Oh, God.
I took off on my Schwinn, jackrabbit, toward the house. By the time I got to the end of our drive, I could see the huge fire was at least contained in our fire pit, which meant the house itself wasn’t burning, which was a relief. Still, the fire was too big, roaring and lighting the side of the house and the yard around it. It actually made a roaring sound like a windstorm.
Also lit by the fire was Andrew. He stood there in his glasses and his tighty-whitey underpants, reflecting orange in the flame. He had no clothes on otherwise. He looked so skinny and bony. He poked a long stick, more like a tree branch, into the flames. I dropped my Schwinn and ran up to him.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Getting rid of my baby clothes and other artifacts of my past.”
In the fire, I could see the collars of the dorky polo shirts Andrew always wore. I could see pairs of his little jeans burning. I could see all his striped socks and his Mozart sweater and also a picture he’d drawn in art class last year that Jerri really liked. There were other papers burning too.
“Jesus Christ, Andrew. You’re crazy! Is that all your clothes?”
“Definitely,” he said, stirring the fire from ten feet away.
“I’m telling Jerri.”
“Mother knows.”
“Jesus!”
I ran into the garage and into our dark house, not a light on, up the stairs into the hall and to Jerri’s room. She half-reclined, covered up in the bed, no light except from the TV (my TV) in front of her. She was half asleep.
“Jerri! Andrew has gone crazy.”
“No,” she mumbled. Then she tried to look around me to the TV, which was playing some kind of crime drama.
“Uh, yes. He’s out there naked burning his clothes, Jerri.”
“I know.”
“You going to let him be naked? Is he going to school naked in the fall?”
“He bought new clothes today. Could you move a little to your right, Felton?”
“He’s not wearing them!”
“I’m trying to watch TV,” Jerri yawned.
“You’re crazy!”
“Get out of here, Felton,” she said, not mean, not angry. She was totally mumbling.
I turned and stomped out of the room and back down to the basement. Andrew was coming in from the garage. He had no hair on his head (to match his clothes-less body). Of course, I already knew about his hair. A couple of days earlier, he’d shaved it all off.
“I’m getting a hot dog to cook,” Andrew said, which would’ve been a funny thing to say if I thought he was funny. “Do you want one?” he asked without laughing.
“Where’d you get hot dogs?” That’s all I could come up with.
“I bought them.”
“When?”
“After I stole Jerri’s wallet and walked to the thrift store to buy some pants and a shirt, I went grocery shopping at Kwik Trip. The hot dogs will be quite good cooked on the fire,” Andrew said, again without laughing.
“They’ll taste like the bugs in your clothes.”
“Duh, Felton. Fire burns all the germs away.”
“I was making a joke.”
“Yes. I know,” Andrew stared at me.
I stared back and then said, “I’m going to bed.”
I heard Andrew banging around for another couple of hours before I actually fell asleep. To relax, I tried to imagine Aleah still playing the piano, with her dad still on the couch reading poetry essays. But I didn’t sleep until the house was silent.
***
I was a little late on the paper route the next morning. Aleah waited for me in her yard, with her little Walmart mountain bike lying on the grass next to her. (She determined it would be good for her to get her own bike so she got some exercise instead of having me do all the work; because he’s an attentive dad, Ronald bought it for her immediately.) She sat up, wearing her dorky tiger-striped bike helmet. She said, “Good morning. I was just thinking that we should watch