“Fire Birds,” Fiction, Brian Hawkins.

When me and the boys get together on Friday nights, we like to burn things. Not buildings and shit. We ain’t pyros. Not crosses neither, so don’t be thinking we’re hillbilly racists tryin to scare off the Blacks. They ain’t that many around here, but the ones that is, is pretty good folks. So that’s not what it’s about. Just this competition to see who can grab the craziest burnable shit through the week, and then the four of us meet out in Hippie Bill’s big field on Fridays and we see what kind of blaze we can get goin. Hippie Bill don’t care if we do it - just says for us not to kill ourselves.

Seems I oughta tell you who “we” is, just to be fair. Always just the four of us: me – Junior Wells, Jr. (yes, Junior is my real first name and my asshole dad’s too, the goddamn drunk), Bobby Reynolds which we just call Shithead and he don’t mind so don’t go feelin all bad for him, Blake Peters who don’t have a nickname but ought to with the preppy one he’s got, and finally Blizzard who does got a real name but no one never uses it.

As I was gettin to, we have found some crazy shit to burn out to Hippie Bill’s. This one night we set up a old Harley Davidson. Thought the gas tank would explode maybe, but it didn’t. Seemed a shame, but wasn’t nothin savin that thing anyway. Seat burned up and the oil left in it smoked a little; not much else happened. Just left a black frame I ended up takin home, after it cooled down of course, and puttin up on my shed, up on the roof, in the back yard, kinda like a weather vane. Only it don’t turn to show the wind or nothin.

I mentioned we make a little contest out of the whole thing and the winner is chosen by me, cause doin it was my idea and so I get to make the rules and pick the winner. It don’t have to be fair – that’s one of the rules. Still, I try to pick honest as I can, and usually no one complains. The winner has to buy the beers for next week, but we all still want to win for braggin rights anyways.

Cool as it was, the Harley didn’t even win that night. I did. Pickin myself to have to buy the alcohol, I know, is ignernt. But mine was the best, and I ain’t just sayin it neither. That night I brought an old refrigerator box and put it on top of a little fire we already had goin. Now, it ain’t always the biggest flame that wins or whatever – sometimes it’s just the bitchinest or whichever one I want to pick. But that fridge box, man, let me tell you. Them flames musta lit the ass-end of God, Gabriel, and my great-great-granddaddy, rest his soul.

When I done it, I stood the box upright on top of the fire, with the open end down. We thought for a minute it might just smother the fucker out. No way. The sides started to blacken, streakin’ up toward the top. Then a little hole opened up here and another there. It got bright enough inside, it felt like we could see clear through the cardboard that was still there. I swear to you, I saw the Devil himself dancin with Hitler’s momma right there in the middle of it. Me and the others had to back away it got so hot, but that wasn’t even the coolest part. The flames from that damn box musta shot two hundred feet in the air. Okay, okay, I know it wasn’t that high. But we got a good fifty feet out of it, no kiddin. The air hit it all just right and the box kinda funneled the flames straight up into the sky like the baddest-ass-motherfuckin flamethrower in the world. Guess it wouldn’t do no good in war, except maybe to get guys parachutin down from the sky. I didn’t really think of it like that at all cause at the time we was just too excited about them flames to think of nothin. Whatever.

When it burned back down, Shithead, which had brought the Harley, said, “That wasn’t so much. Fire only burned for two minutes. The bike was better.” Now you see why we call him Shithead, right?

“Fuckin right it only burned for two minutes! You see how high it got? Damn. What you want, a holy holocaust?” replied Blizzard. I think he learned what the word “holocaust” meant from watchin that movie The Princess Bride, which is what they called that thing Andre the Giant wore when they caught him all on fire. Blizzard always was a big wrestling fan, anyway, so he bout went ape shit over that movie. I knowed he didn’t never pay no attention in history class.

“Damn, right,” I said. “I declare me the winner. I’m buyin next week, unless Shithead feels like he should cause he weren’t treated right.”

That’s usually enough to shut him up.

Still, little fights or not, we have us a good time out there in Hippie Bill’s field. I mean, there ain’t a whole lot else to do where we live anyway. Stoney, that’s the town we’re from. Actually, none of us is from Stoney, but that’s just the town that’s big enough other people mighta heard of it. So everyone around here says they’re from Stoney. Hell, ain’t no one never heard of Avoca, Indiana, right?

As I was sayin, there ain’t a lot to do. I mean, there’s worse places. Loogootee, Salem, Orleans, just for instance. Them people actually come to Stoney for fun. Maybe it’s better than it used to be. Back when I was in school there wasn’t even a movie theater around here. Had to go all the way up to Bloomington to see one. Then, like, at the same time, they built two movie theaters. Right next to each other. Ignernt as all get out, I know. But I swear to God that’s what they did.

Now we got them two places, if you can afford to see a movie anymore. Shit, I can’t pay thirty bucks every time I want to take some gal to see some stupid move. That’s what it costs for tickets, one popcorn (no refills unless you get a large, which I do), and two Cokes which she don’t even drink all of. We could sneak it all in, I guess, but it just don’t feel right.

Still, that can turn into some expensive pussy if you ain’t careful.

Anyway, I keep getting’ distracted – we also got a bowling alley which sucks except when they have the glow lanes and black lights and all that damn crap. It’s okay I suppose, but expensive too. Then you can go sit in a restaurant and drink free refills, but you can’t smoke or nothin. Not to mention the sidewalks roll up pretty early around here, so most of em close early – like eleven or somethin stupid. Lots of people go hang out in the parkin lot by the Bob Evans, but the cops just run us off. Then we go to another one and they do it all again. Fuckin cops.

This one time I was headin back home through Paoli. That town ain’t got nothin. I guess it’s kinda cool now cause they’re only like ten minutes from the new casino down in French Lick. But otherwise, nothin. Anyway, I was driving through there, and all these people were parked around the square. And you know what I saw? Cops. Not runnin people off – just sittin there talkin to em. Makes sense though, don’t it? Cops talk to them kids and keep em all in one place, least they know where they are and what there doin. Stoney cops ain’t that smart. No common sense.

So anyways, me and the guys worked out this deal with our girls that we get Friday nights together and then we spend the rest of the week with them, including Saturday nights. It’s better anyway, cause then we ain’t as hung over for Mass on Sunday and I just gotta feel guilty about a little fuckin (sometimes there ain’t even nothin to feel bad about, unfortunately – if you know what I mean about that) and not about all the other shit we mighta done if we’d all went out and got drunk together. Hey man, we might be Catholic, but we ain’t that Catholic.

I guess I said all that just to tell a little about why we get together and burn stuff. And no women allowed. Not no more.

See, this one time, Blizzard had the bullshit idea of bringin chicks out with us. We hadn’t been out there in a couple weeks cause it snowed a whole bunch and even though we couldda got our trucks back there to the field, none of us wanted to stand around in two foot of snow. Let me tell ya, that was a snow like your grand-momma ain’t never seen. Drifts bigger’n Manute Bol. You know - big boy from Africa? Played in the NBA back when Larry Bird was the shit? Right, lots of snow. So when we decided to head back out, Blizzard said we should take us a couple girls. Stupid, but we did it.

We had a pile already, mostly wood and branches and leftover stuff from the fall we hadn’t got to yet. By this time, the snow was gone and we had us a little warm snap. No too warm, but enough to get the ground a little soft. A plus for us cause we like to go muddin anyways, so this just let us do a little-a both.

This one gal who come out with us, Rachel, was somethin to look at - let me tell ya that. Hotter’n a Chinaman what worked all day buildin railroads, that one. I don’t even remember who brought her that night, but it don’t matter. None of us had girls right then, and nobody was too attached to the ones they brung, so it was all good.

Rachel was the one I noticed, even though I had brung some other girl whose name I can’t even remember. I’d saw this Rachel around a time or two, and one time this fella told me about this tattoo she had somewhere. I wouldda like to of seen that for sure.

Her hair dropped down just past her shoulders, and she had one of them cute little nose rings to boot, though they ain’t never really rings, right? Just little studs. Also, she was thin and had some nice boobs. That’s the combo I’m always on the lookout for. I can tell you, we’d of hit it off, if she’d give me the chance. That never happened though, and let me tell you why.

When we was ready to light the fire that night, get a little atmosphere goin, if you know what I mean, Shithead stuck a couple of papers down near the bottom. The pile was still a little wet, so we knew nothin was gonna happen real fast. But as much practice as we get, we’re pretty good at startin em up. So Shithead, stuffed them papers in there and lit up a match. We all pulled in close since there wasn’t much heat yet.

“So you guys do this all the time, right? Burn stuff? What fun is that?” Rachel asked.

“Honey, you just wait,” answered Blake. “This fire gets goin, you’ll see what the fun’s all about.” Dumbass had no idea how right he was. Rachel was about to get the thrill of a lifetime. Too bad it had nothin to do with me.

“You have any beer?” she asked me. I told her we did indeed and ran over to my truck to grab the cooler. Once we both had a brew, and the fire was buildin up a bit, Rachel and I started talkin and moved over to the other side of the brush pile – the side that still hadn’t caught flame.

“Damn, baby. You are fine,” I told her. The others were all talkin and out of earshot, but I spoke low anyway so she’d have to lean in close to hear me. It’s an old standby, but it works fine to this day. Get em close and go for the gold. “You like bein outside or are you one of them rarified types?”

“I like to think I’m a little of both,” she said in reply. “I’m finishing up classes at IU, but I like to get natural once in a while.”

Natural. She might as well have dropped her britches right there. Talk about a signal, boy – that was one and I hadn’t missed it. I figured I might be able to get past a lot of the crap with this one – no Marvin Gaye needed tonight, thank you m’am.

As I reached out to put my arm around her, something caught my eye, a tiny rustle in the still-wet leaves on our end of the burn pile. At first I didn’t think much about it – sometimes critters’ll make their homes in these unburned stacks of debris – they feel safe down in there - and rush off when the fire gets too hot. Happens all the time. Once in a while, they wait till it’s almost too late, since some of em dig down in the ground. It don’t get as hot and they don’t realize the danger so quick. But almost always, they get out just fine and run off into the higher grass parts of the field we hadn’t burned off. I figured it was near to the same things this time.

“Hey, Rachel. Take a look right there. At the bottom of the brush. There’s a little mouse right there just waitin to run out. You can tell he’s still tryin to figure what’s worse, us or the fire comin at him.”

At the word “mouse,” she stiffened a little. I started to have my fun with her – sometimes that gets the girls a little hot, you know, to be scared - and yelled, “Watch out here he comes!”

The others heard me holler and all looked over near at the same time. I caught Shithead’s eyes and gave him a wink.

Later, I figured out that when I looked up, that mouse musta made up his mind and took off. Right up Rachel’s pant leg.

It wasn’t like the little thing was on fire or nothin, but at the time all I knew was that this girl who had been standin right next to me, half ready to get in the truck and head for the house, was screamin high hell and Dr. Pepper.

Good for her— she didn’t just freeze right up, but tried to beat it off with her can of beer.

Bad for her— in the commotion, she got her feet all twisted up as she turned to run away.

Where in heaven she thought she was gonna go, I have no way to answer. But as she tried to aim herself in some direction, she fell flat on her face and down into the muddy field, bare and black from all those fires over all those years. Somehow, she also managed to spill beer all in her hair. Go figure that one.

I don’t even think she remembered the mouse at that point. She didn’t move for a second and we was all quiet enough, you could hear every sob. When she got up, face covered with mud except for the places where her cryin washed a bit off, I tried to get her to go back to my place to shower up before goin home. I figured once we got there, maybe she’d be in a better mood feelin all clean and then I could get a little feel myself. She wanted none of it and insisted that we take her back to her parents’ place, even though I told her I liked the smell of beer on a girl. Blue balls for me, but it was a pretty good laugh later.

Not enough of one that we ever let girls come back with us though.

In our time, we’ve burned craploads of all kinds of stuff. We’ve did couches, even though some guy who works up to the school told me that when those things burn they give off chemicals that’ll kill people. Says that’s why they ain’t got nothin worth sittin on in the whole damn place. We done it anyhow, of course. And old doors, windows - lots of different kinds of furniture, and just about anything else that’ll catch fire. One time we had one of them old cabinet stereos, like from the 70s. I wished I’d kept that one. It’d look pretty awesome back at my place. We’ve done lots of clothes, couple of books even though I don’t like to do that. Makes me feel like a Nazi or some shit. Hippie Bill don’t like that neither.

In truth, I guess he ain’t really a hippie, but he’s a strange one alright. He collects books. Millions of books. I swear to God. His house’s full of em, his garage is full, and he built two or three buildings just to hold the others. Even then, he’s got the fuckin things stacked all the way up and down his driveway covered with Visqueen, though I don’t see no way that keeps the water off of em. In fact, I know it don’t cause I seen em warped under that plastic myself. Now tell me what good it does to have all them books just gettin moldy? None, that’s what I say. Bill’s also got this wig he wears, but I’m not sure he knows we know it’s a wig. Kinda long, black and curly.

One time this guy told me Bill was up to the lake with a bunch of people and there was this tube slide into the water. Bill jumped in, feet first, but knocked his head off the top of the tube. Guy said that wig flew off and he was sure Bill’s head’d come right off, too. Scared that fella shitless, let me tell ya. I’ll say this, I ever go bald, I’m just gonna be bald.

But the guy’s real smart – that’s what I don’t get. He’s got all these degrees and shit from all these universities and he says he’s not that far off from bein done with a couple more. I don’t know myself how all that stuff works, but seems if it was me that could finish up with two more degrees and get a job payin somethin, I’d get the fuck done and make some money. Bill, he just works down at the McDonald’s though. Not a manager, just the guy who puts onions on your burger. Does that make any sense to you? It don’t to me.

Still, I guess he’s okay, even if he is crazy. He lets us burn stuff, but as I said, he don’t like us burnin books, which as I also said don’t bother me none. We do our thing way away from his house so there’s no danger settin all his books on fire. Seems to me like we might be doin him a favor if we got a little out of control and he lost a few hundred thousand of em. He said he’s got over a million. Shit, that many books, I’d sell em all for fifty cents apiece and retire to Florida.

Anyway, you get the picture. We burn just about everything.

But it was really just this one night I wanted to tell about. One night when we didn’t really have nothin worth talkin about to set fire to. Just the four of us standin around a barrel throwin in some trash and pieces of this old deck Blake’d helped a guy tear out that week. They tell us you ain’t supposed to burn that shit either. Fuck em ‘s what I say to that.

I don’t even know if I can tell this right. I ain’t the most articulate guy, as I’m sure you can tell already. In fact, “articulate” may be the biggest word I know. I didn’t like school so much – just wanted to get to work cause my drunk old-man never did any of it hisself. So I’ll try to tell about this one night we was all out at the field burnin crap, but just bear with me if it don’t sound like James Patterson or that one chick who writes about them vampires and werewolves and whatever the hell else. Also, if I say “fuck” too much, I apologize. I’m workin on it.

It’s funny what makes a guy think about stuff. Like this one night which wasn’t really special at all. As I said, we didn’t have nothin big or excitin to burn and it was just the four us of around this barrel talkin – shootin the shit, they say.

“I heard that some jobs might be op’n up to the GM plant. You know my Uncle Kenney’s big with the UAW. He says he’ll try to get me on. Probably second shift at first. But that’s some good money up there for doin die cast work. We might have to start comin out here a little later. Unless you all plan on burnin without me,” said Blizzard.

If we weren’t talkin about chicks, we were always figurin how we could get better jobs. None of us really had any plans to get outta Stoney. Place is okay, I guess. No harm in stickin around. We all figured big city life weren’t for us, so why trade our small town problems for someone else’s? I guess it just comes down to the fact that I actually like it here. We all do.

“Dumbass, you been sayin that for three years. What’s differ’nt this time?” ol Shithead asked him.

“Man, leave him alone. He wants to think he’s gonna get a job up there, let im. I hope he does. I hope you do Blizzard. Go make some money for yourself. Nothing wrong with that,” I added. “Shithead, go to the truck and bring that cooler back over here. My beer’s startin’ to disappear.”

“Sure, man. Whatever,” he replied. He didn’t like it much when we took a side against him, but since he said so much stupid crap – he got that name for a reason – it happens a lot.

When he got back to the barrel, we opened up a fresh round. The boys moved on from GM to girls. Truth was, Blake had a girl, but Blizzard and Shithead was about as likely to get one of those big-payin jobs as they was some pussy. Less they got some drunk girls to go home with em when the bars closed or if they paid for it, which I would not put past either one of em.

While they were goin on, the sun was pretty much droppin down below the horizon. I kept thinkin about what Blizzard had been sayin. Truth was, there weren’t no reason at all to think that any of us could get one of them jobs. Not since Bill Clinton and George Bush sent all the good ones to Mexico. I don’t know much about politics, but that’s one you hear round here pretty regular. And I’ll tell you this, true or not, people in this county used to work, then we got Bush, Clinton and Bush. Now there ain’t a whole lot a guys makin money right here. Coincidence? Maybe. Who gives a fuck when the bottom line is jackshit for everybody?

Truth is, I wanted, back a couple years ago, to go to one of them diesel schools. You know, where you learn to work on engines. I ain’t too bad with cars and they say you can make some money comin right outta one of them places. But you gotta live in Chicago or Detroit or some God-forsaken shithole like that. What kind of fuckin country is it when a man can’t even live where his granddaddy lived and make a livin?

Just as I was thinkin all this stuff – at least it was all rumblin around in my head, I don’t know how much of it I couldda said out loud right at the time – I caught somethin right outta the corner of my left eye. My right one don’t work too good. Nothin happened, just borned that way is all. So not really payin attention and all, I thought maybe it was mice like that time before or maybe a couple little birds had dropped in to visit. They didn’t usually get up that close to us, but oncet in a while crazy shit like that happens. So, from what I could tell, it weren’t mice, but these two, tiny black birds were fluttering around just two or three feet from the barrel. The guys were on the other side and I was kinda off by myself. As it was gettin dark, not quite yet though, I didn’t want to move too fast and scare em off but I did want to get a little closer and take a look.

I turned my head, real slow you know, to judge the distance and took a little step toward em. They jumped just a scooch or so farther away, so I stopped. After waitin just a second, I nudged around to get a better look. I had been thinkin that this was kinda cool, gettin a up close look at a couple birds at our little burnin party. Guys like us do go out and shoot things here and there. Lots of folks don’t get that, that we do it cause we believe in nature more’n we believe in people. Somethin spiritual bout shootin a deer. God’s truth. I can’t explain it, but there it is.

Plus, them deer make some chilli to die for.

Course, I wouldn’t of hurt these birds. That’s the thing. We don’t kill just to see things die; we only kill for a purpose. Songbirds don’t hurt no one and they ain’t big enough to eat, so I just like to look at em. Maybe that’s what God put some things here for – to give us pretty shit to look at.

But when I got my head turned all the way, I felt pretty stupid. Them things bouncin across the ground weren’t no kind of birds – they was just little bits of cardboard, still on fire, what had hopped out of the barrel. Mostly black, each had one end still aglow from the fire. Not enough to start a blaze, not in a wet season like that one for sure, just enough to push those burnt bits out into the wind to hop along and fool me.

Fire birds, I thought. We may be fire bugs, but them things is fire birds. Just as fragile as the real thing. More really. They’ll only live for a second or two, flippin’ across the ground like that. They won’t need to store up no seed and they won’t never have to worry about gettin ate by a hawk nor a snake or shot by some mean body who don’t care enough to leave em alone. Short life, I reckon, but a good’n.

“What’re you doin’ over there Junior?” Blake asked me. “Looked liked you had your eye on something. Ghost maybe?” The others laughed. I did too.

“Naw. Nothin’. Just tryin’ to figure out how to sneak up on your sister again tonight. She likes it when she don’t know it’s comin,” I said changing the subject back to where it oughta have been in the first place – how Blake’s sister looks nekkid.

“From what I hear,” added Blizzard, “when it’s you, most girls can’t tell if it ever happened.” Funny boy, huh?

We didn’t stay around long that night. I just didn’t have too much to say. I couldn’t get them little things hoppin around outta my head, hard as I tried. Free little things, no worries and no boss to answer to. We all went home, and things was pretty much the same after. Blizzard still hadn’t got no job up to the GM plant. Bobby’s girl left him for some ultimate fighter from Mitchell. Shithead’s still a shithead. I still wonder about why things has got to be thisaway.

I never did tell the other guys about them little birds. I don’t really know why – just figured they wouldn’t get it.

That I had me, for just a bit, a couple pet fire birds.

Brian Hawkins lives in southern Indiana with his wife, Lacy. He has earned degrees from Indiana University, Indiana Wesleyan University, and Morehead State University. His stories fluctuate between quiet examinations of rural, small-town life and literary-ish pulp/noir tales which never seem to end well for anyone. Brian's work has appeared, or is forthcoming, in The Barcelona Review, Cowboy Jamboree, Cardinal Sins, Alabama Literary Review, and After Dinner Conversation. He can be found on Instagram @brian.hawkins.author.