Fire

I wake up before the Sun and jump out of bed, smelling my mom's cookin'.  The memory of the fire I saw in the night tells me to hurry. Bounding down the stairs, shoes in hand, I go to help in the kitchen. Mom has four heaping baskets of food lined up on the outside wall, under the large kitchen window; no light comes into the room, oil lamps are lit.

Mom is frying ham and eggs on the old wood stove "Annie", she says to me without turning her head, "put those baskets in the back of the truck, we got to drop 'um off on the way to church."

I can only carry one basket at a time, I am careful. This is all our food for a weeks time. I know we must slaughter something new tomorrow.

On my last load out, Dad walks up from the road and a car I do not know drives away. Dad is black with soot, slightly limping up toward me,silhouetted by the opening dawn. He moves in an odd grayed way, a tired black and gray form arising from the road with Sun behind him shining in all its glory. A stuck painting in my life, that my mind knows I will see in my head all my living days.

"Tired to the bone I am" he says to me, or to himself, in passing. Dad walks to the pump, working the the old iron handle, splashing the water into the wooden bucket, then onto his face, trying to clean up before going inside to Mom. Barefoot, still dripping wet ash, he leaves his boots behind. They look like the old skins that snakes shed off every spring; still seeming alive and yet discarded.

I turn my back on the site and cover all the food with a tarp,carefull to protect the precious baskets for what this day will bring. I feel a cold shiver running down my spine, while the hot Sun grows. I need to get back inside the house to eat and dress for Sunday morning service.

Everyone is around the table, Dad is saying Grace. "Thank you Lord for your bounty, that we share with those we can. The Lord givith and the Lord takes away,Amen, Amen Dear Lord." Dad's head stays bowed and we all wait until his hands unfold to lift his fork. I wonder if my Dad will ever get those hands cleaned up in this lifetime? Work and greif stain those strong hands, with many years layered in. They are not a white bankers hands, with quick moving fingers and nails cleaned by other people's hard working hands, nope my Dad's hands will be clean on the day of the Lord, someday when God so chooses.

Dad eats quickly now, sopping up the last of the egg yolks with a thick slice of Mom's bread. He stabs a chunk of ham, folding it into the bread, stands with effort, grabs his mug of hot steaming coffee and leaves the room.

Mom lets out an audable sigh, tears form in her eyes, but they do not fall down her cheeks, she wills them put. "Children"
and the soft saddness in her tone makes us all sit up straight. "Your father and I have been working since before birds thought of movin," her hands stay hard on the table. "Ya all know your Pa is a member of that new volunteer fire group. Remember how we all laughed when he came back from that new town meetin? Tellin' us all about those folks that was askin' him if he'd like
to pay less of their new taxes and get some kind'a insurance as well?".....Remember how he told us?  How he said "Ya betcha,I sure would like to give out less of my own money to ya." Remember how he said them folks said there was a catch to it. He'd have to
make himself available to fight fires and other such misfortunes
that might befall our neighbors? Remember?"

Mom looked us all straight on. "Remember, how strange it seemed to us, even kinda funny, that those people thought we wouldn't help our neighbors, how odd it seemed that the askin' had to even be made?" Mom pushed back her chair from the table, but did not stand. "The tele- phone rang last night and your Pa went to help. I stayed and cooked for those who needed it." Mom glanced hard in my direction, "Annie", that's the second load of
food you just packed on truck bed, the first went gone with that new man's family that just dropped your Pa back home."

"I'm a goin' to get dressed up for service now. Y'all clean up this here kitchen and get ya'selves ready for Sunday Mornin' Services, w'all be leavin on the half hour." Mom stands, takes off her apron, folding it neatly over the back of her chair. She lifts baby Karen up from the high chair. "We got to get this food over to the men before church starts. A whole bunch a people need our food and our prayers." she leaves the kitchen saying "Don't dawdle." We don't. The pick-up is pulling out and onto the road before our parlor clock stikes the hour. My little sister Jenny and I are sitting in the flatbed holding onto the food.

We smell it before we see it. An ugly smell, not like a bon-fire or a fire set to clear a field. It is a stinking searing smell, sharp like lightning without rain.

The truck stops short, Jenny and I hold on tight to the food.
Dad comes back around to my side of the truck, standing on a wooden plank. "Hand um down the mud's too deep. The men are comin' that are still here, w'all comin back after mornin' Service." Dad turns toward Ma as he takes two big baskets off our hands. "Ma, I'm a goin' to take a moment to find out what's what." He walks toward the men, stepping in jerky jumps, unsuccessfully trying to keep the mud off his Sunday shoes.

The men gesture wildly: they grab Dad like he is a lifeboat, moving him out of sight. We all sit and wait, I listen to the crackling and popping sounds,it is overwelming, combined with the stench, the smells are familiar and hide in my mind with fear. I bend out over the side of the truck to take a better look and I see what yesterday had been the home of a family.

It has not burned like a barn would, fast in fury. The skeleton is still alive. Sparks fly, pipes bang, and cables curl, lingering and hissing like snakes. A part of the chimmney stands tall, marking an open grave of movement and stillness.  Hiding in the smoke of this sad monument,orange stripped flames lick up at the opened wounds.
I bow my head in silent prayer and notice an oblong shape, glowing softly, silently, less than thirty feet from our truck. It is showing just the tip of a red tongue. Slinking, sliding willfully forward, slithering and giving off heat, hissing and crackling. It is speaking to me. I stare back at it with horror and breathe in it's sharp air.
I hear my Dad yellin' to Mom. I see him plowing through the mud, no longer concerned with his Sunday best shoes.
He is waving wildly and yellin' "get out of here woman, go home call up the Kansas City Fire Department, if they say it ain't their job, call the the Star Newspaper and tellem' ya got a story, don't bother with the Mayor of this place, he's a bad one by God."
My Dad looks down at the same orange glow that I see, nearer now to the truck and yells "get goin', NOW." Mom backs up and makes a sharp turn towards home. The baskets that had not been handed down, now fly off the truck, and Jenny and I hold fast, listening to baby Karen crying with all the other sounds. The sounds of the men screaming in anquished pain stay mixed in my brain. I see them briefly before we turn onto the lane, bent,tense and twisting in the ground where the the house had been. I stare, waiting for it to curl,hiss and strike them again. The picture replays blocking everything else from my brain, I see a small child lifted and crumble to dust in my fathers hands.