Sea and Fire
By Jane Frankel

 

Sean picked at the sand under his fingernails, the little grains lodged between skin and nail.  It smelled like dead fish and salt, the monotonous beat of the waves loud and intense.  His dog, Carebear, had just gotten out of the ocean and was rolling in the sand so that it stuck to his wet fur, making him look like a dirty rug. 
           
Coming the other way was Derrick, with his mastiff.  He was a black dot at first, slowly approaching, and when Sean saw them, he stopped in his tracks, tensing.  He leashed Carebear, who pressed himself against Sean’s leg, leaving a wet place. 
           
The mastif came loping down the beach barking, hackles raised, a loose white bandage wrapped around his right front paw.  Carebear tensed and leaned harder against Sean’s leg for protection.
           
“Hey,” Sean said, “What’s up?”  But Derrick just kept walking, as if he hadn’t heard. 
           
“Dumb moron,” Sean muttered under his breath. 

“Hey, Jackass.  Floating turd,” Derrick said.

Derrick lived on the other end of his street, they had talked briefly.  Long enough for Derrick to decide that Sean was a pussy.  All Sean learned was that Derrick liked violent video games and they’d both be going to the same high school in the fall.

He stuck his hand in his shorts pocket and fingered his lighter.  It was the clear green one with just a little kerosene in the bottom and a jagged crack down the side.

“Your dog looks like a retarded sheep.  Kill it, Runner.”
           
The mastiff came running toward them, and all he could think was Cujo – Cujo is going to kill my dog.  Rip out his guts and run down the beach with his intestines hanging out of his drooling mouth.

A look of anger crossed Sean’s face, and he braced himself as the dog ran toward him, grabbed Carebear’s collar, and hauled the dog behind him.  Then, as the other dog came within range, he kicked it.  Right in the ribs so that it yelped.

“If your dog ever comes near us again, I’m gonna kill it,” Sean yelled.  “I’ll kill that fucking piece of shit.  And then I’ll set its body on fire and leave it on your fucking doorstep, you bastard.”

Derrick walked past him, giving him space, looking at him as if he was insane, something to be feared.

Good, Sean thought.  In his last school there had been shouts of faggot after him in the hall and harrowing plummets down isolated staircases.  Threats of padlocking.

“I’ll kill you, fucker,” he mouthed as Derrick walked by.  Gave the boy his evil I’m-possessed-by-the-devil look.  Kicked angrily at the sand.

He focused on the ocean, as if he was trying to calm himself, transfixed on the different shades of moving blue.  Looked down at his feet, at the clumps of dead horseshoe crabs.  He picked one of them up by the tail and flung it around for a while.  Then he got out his lighter and held the flame under the rim of the dead animal’s shell until there was a scent like charred meat and seaweed.  He sighed and threw the thing away from him, its legs making a dried crackling sound against the shell.  Then he left, calling Carebear, who had been playing in the water.

                                                               ***

He entered his dad’s office tentatively that night, hands in his pockets, his t-shirt stuck to his body with sweat.  The office was small and neat, except for the desk, which was overflowing with books and papers, his dad’s glasses balanced precariously on the edge.  There was a messy pile of old business cards sitting on top of a dictionary.  Sean picked up a bunch of them, like he always did, and put them in his pocket.

“Hey, Dad,” Sean said, moving to sit down in one of the huge leather chairs.  He swiveled back and forth before starting to speak.  “So, now that we’re in a new town, I was thinking that instead of starting a new school, I could just home school.”

His dad stopped Sean from swiveling by putting a foot on the chair, surprise registering on his face.  “Home schooling?”

“Yeah.”

“Why would you want to home school?  School isn’t that bad, is it?  You need to go to school so you can make friends.  Socialize.” 

Sean’s face hardened; his eyes narrowed.  “Like at my last school?”

“Your last school wasn’t that bad Sean.  Listen, we didn’t move because of you.  You had a few problems at the old school, but now you can make a new start.  Be whoever you want to be.”

“I like who I am.”
           
“Look, Sean, as far as I’m concerned, the problems you’re having now are a phase you’re going through.  Being a teenager is tough.  I know, I remember.  Only six more years, Buddy.”

“Great,” Sean said, and left the office. “Great.”

                                                               ***

He stood at the end of the dead end street, one street over from his own, his bike tipped over and lying at his feet.  Carebear was with him, his black, shaggy head still shedding sand.  Sean’s hand was wound in the tangled fur at the scruff of his neck, the dog’s face was resting against his leg, and a line of drool ran down Sean’s calf.  He slowly turned the front wheel of his bike with his foot, not looking at the girl.  He had found her sitting on the bumper of a parked car, reading.  He tried to strike up a conversation, awkwardly, but with the intensity only a fourteen-year-old could manage.  “What’s your name?”

She looked at him warily from the corner of her eye.  “Why?”

He smiled.  “Why do you think?  I don’t know you; I’m getting to know you.”

She didn’t seem thrilled.  “Robin.”

“Can I tell you something?” Sean asked her.

“I guess.”

“Well, a week ago my brother died, and I was really sad about it.  I would just sit
watching TV, drinking a Stella, and I haven’t smiled until today when I met you.”

She just sat there.  “That was the dumbest pickup line I’ve ever heard in my life.”

He smiled, grinned, told Carebear to sit.  A seagull screeched and dropped a clam shell onto the pavement.

She scratched at her eyebrow, pulled at her lip.  “Where’d you get that pickup line, anyway?”

He shrugged, looking out over the lawn.  “A friend back home.”

“Oh.  Did you have a lot of friends back home?”

He shrugged, his thin shoulders hunching forward.  “I guess.  I knew most of them since I was little.  Me and my best friend, Josh, we were tight.  Then he started hanging out with this girl, so I didn’t see him as much.  Then we moved.”

Robin nodded, swung her legs.  “Oh.  So why did you move?”

“My dad changed jobs.  We were sick of being there anyway.  I kind of had a bad reputation.  Not that this place is better.  One circle of hell to another.”

Robin looked up at the sky and then down at her nails.  “It’s okay.  You’ll get used to it.  Or maybe you won’t.”

“Even the smell?”

“It’s the ocean.  It’s supposed to smell like that.”

Carebear barked, his whole huge body shaking with it.  Robin jerked back involuntarily.

“Are you afraid of my dog?  Don’t be, he’s nice, and he likes you.  He only kills people like that jackass Derrick.  Do you want to pet him?”

Sean withdrew his hand from Carebear’s fur and took Robin’s hand which hesitated somewhere near the huge dog’s ears.  He drew her hand over to Carebear’s head and pulled it in an awkward petting motion.  The dog tilted his head up, trying to see the hand that petted him.

“See, he likes you.”

Robin smiled and continued to pet Carebear herself.  “He’s cute.”

“I know.  By the way, I don’t have a brother; I’ve just always wanted to use that pickup line.  I had a little sister though.  She died two years ago.”

Robin put her hand over her mouth, “Oh my god, I’m so sorry.”

He looked down, made his face sad.  “It’s okay.”  His sister wasn’t dead; she was away at summer camp.  He scuffed at the tarmac with his shoe; it was so hot, there was a sharp tangy smell of asphalt in the air.  He watched as Carebear sniffed his shoe.  “Quit it, stupid,” he said to the dog.

“So what do you do around here for fun?” he asked Robin.

She shrugged. “Hang out with my friends.”

“And your boyfriend?”

She looked away but smiled smugly to herself.  Derrick passed by on his bike on an endless movement around the block.  “Asshole,” he shouted at Sean, who gave no indication that he heard anything.
           
“I don’t have a boyfriend,” Robin said, her eyes focused somewhere behind Sean.

“Do you want one?”

She didn’t respond, but she was fidgety and kept glancing at him when he wasn’t looking.
           
“So do the schools around here suck?” he asked.

“They’re actually pretty good.”

He sighed and looked off into the distance.  At bad schools, he could get away with more, could be invisible, at least to a certain extent.  But at good schools, they constantly watched him.  He had teachers after him, trying to help him, berating and encouraging him alternately.  He had to talk to counselors at least twice every week, fascinated with his thoughts and why he thought them.  The why, where, and how of him.
           
“What do you do after school, Sean?” they’d ask him.
           
“How do you get along with your family?”
           
“Are you interested in girls?
           
“Have you had any dreams that made you feel 'funny'?”

“Why, Sean, why do you burn things?”

“Because I like it.”  He was at that age when one discovers that everything in the adult world is about sex.  That you do things because they feel good.  That it wasn’t something you grew out of.  

                                                               ***

It was summer, so he hadn’t started school yet, but he’d been on the school grounds.  It was neat and beautiful, the grass cropped so that it didn’t reach above your shoes.  There was a wooden sports equipment shack behind the gym.  It was old and rotting, empty looking.  He couldn’t help staring at it, breathing slowly, his hands clenching and unclenching.  His father came over and put a large hand on his shoulder, his face grim but oddly understanding.

“It’s ugly. I hate it,” Sean said petulantly.

“Hey, what are we doing this afternoon, buddy?” 

“Buddy,” he muttered.  “Buddy, Buddy, Buddy.”

His father looked at him, head tilted, thinking, and Sean knew he was questioning his son’s mental sanity.  Wondering if he shouldn’t have sent him to a more specialized school like his last counselor had suggested.

“I’m going out with this girl I met,” he said, looking into his father’s face.

“Oh, yeah?  Is she cute?”

Dad, please don’t pretend to be my age, he thought.  You’re forty and balding.

“She’s okay.”

“See look, you already have one friend,” his dad said.

He kissed her that night, sticking his tongue deep into her mouth and trying to put his hand up her shirt.  She let him at first, seemed willing.  But soon she broke away, wanting to talk.  They were sitting on a wooden bridge that connected the slide to the jungle gym at the playground of the local elementary school.  It was evening, making the air cooler and the mosquitoes come out.  Sean slapped at his arms, scratched at the nape of his neck.  The stench of rotting seaweed was more intense than usual because of low tide.

“You like animals, right?” she asked, tilting her angular face towards him.

“Yeah, I guess.  You’ve seen Carebear.”  Silence.

“Now you ask me if I like animals.”

He paused, letting her wait.  “Do you?”

“Yeah, mostly cats.”

More silence.

She swung her legs back and forth, stared across the empty playground.  “When’s your birthday?”

He shrugged.  “December.”

“December what?”

He leaned back, looked up at the sky.  “Eighteenth.”

“Mine is on the Ides of March.”

He held his hand over his eyes to cover the glare of the sun.  “What’s that?”

“March fifteenth.  When Julius Caesar was killed.”

“Oh.”  He leaned back a little, letting the wood splinters dig into his hands.

“My mom thinks it's bad luck.  That I’m cursed.”

“Well, you met me, so maybe you are.”

She was silent for a while, looking at him.

“You’re not really a good talker,” she said.

“No, but I’m a good kisser, right?”  He smiled, leaned forward, looking into her face.  She didn’t answer right away and her mouth contorted into a vague smile.

“Yeah.”

“Can I hold your hand?”  The wood of the bridge was biting into his skin, making him grimace.

“It’s sweaty.”

“I don’t care.”

He looked at her intensely, the muscle in his jaw twitching.  Her hair was different shades of yellow, there was a tiny scar above her nose, and her eyes were still, searching.

“I’m kind of pissed we met, you know,” he said.

“What?”

“Well, I mean, I’m glad I met you because I was in hell in this town; this town is hell.  With you I’m only in purgatory.  But we’re fourteen, right?  So by the time I’m a real person, an adult, we might not even know each other anymore.  And I feel like I want to know you forever.”

She laughed with her whole body, rocking back slightly.  “You’re weird.”

“I know.  I have to show you something, look.”  He took out his lighter and moved the tiny lever all the way to the left so that the flame would be as big as possible.  He took out one of his dad’s business cards and lit it, inhaling the smell of heat and charred paper.  Fixated on the way the flame moved steadily inward, the browning, crisp edges.  He dropped the card onto the bridge, watched it as it burnt away, leaving a brown mark on the wood before he put it out with his hand.

“So now you probably think I’m insane and never want to see me again.”  He smiled and gave a small laugh.  She didn’t say anything, just rolled up her shorts and showed him the red frayed skin, deep scratches that looked like they were made by something sharp, but not sharp enough, a safety pin or a pencil.

The breeze blew in their faces, pushing Robin’s hair back and drying the sweat clinging to his scalp.  He reached out with his fingertips and drew them over the rough lines gouged into her skin.  Her upper legs were smooth and tan.  He moved his hand past the cuts, making his palm flat against her skin.  He reached up under the leg of her shorts and kept it there, still.

“Sometimes I wish that I could burn up this whole damn town,” Sean said.  “And that kid Derrick and his fucking dog.  I like dogs but that thing is scary as shit.  It just wants to rip your face off, you know?  Carebear would never do that.”

“Sometimes people are a lot like their dogs,” she said.

“Yeah.”

                                                               ***

“You know that girl I met?” he asked his dad.  They were in the office again, Sean in the swivel chair.

“Yeah,” his dad said, preoccupied.

“She’s a little effed up,” Sean said, running his hand through his hair.  “She cuts.”

His dad was still, all except for his eyes, which darted everywhere nervously.  “Well, is she a nice person?  Do you like her?”

Sean shifted, moving his weight, making the chair creak.  “Yeah, she’s cool.  I like her.”

His dad smiled.  “Maybe you can help her.”

“Maybe.  Maybe she doesn’t need to be helped.”

                                                               ***

He pulled at the tail of his sports shirt, pulled it out of his pants, then tucked it back in.  His mother seemed nervous, antsy, so that she was constantly touching him, pawing at his hair, brushing at his shoulders, even trying to tie his shoe, as if he was four.  He kicked at her, lightly, trying to shake her free.

“Sean!”  His father had seen him.  

“Tell her to stop tying my shoe; I learned how to do it myself a long time ago.”  His voice was bitter, almost a man’s voice.

“If you know how to do it, why don’t you ever?”

“Because.”

“My son, master of the two syllable answer.”

Sean said nothing, but stared straight at his father, unsmiling.  He took out his green lighter and turned it over and over in his hand.

“Can we bring Carebear?” he asked, his face softening, eyebrows lowering slowly.

“Not a good idea,” his dad said.  “He’s too big; you know how he knocks little kids over.”

“Fine.”

They were going to meet family who lived in the town, obscure relatives he had never met before.  It was a barbeque that Sean had desperately tried to get out of.  He rubbed at his cheeks, which were already burned and peeling, the skin grainy and flaking.

They arrived at a tiny house with a rolling back yard.  There were faces everywhere, all plain and wide, smiling at him as if he was a moron.  There was no shade out back and not enough chairs.  An aunt came up to him, sweaty and gleaming, thrilled to meet him.  An old great uncle, bent and hairy, a fat cousin.  He was ushered over to a group of young people, the oldest nineteen, the youngest nine.  They all looked the same, with thin brown hair and round faces.  The oldest girl, who looked about fifteen, seemed to be the leader.  Sean stood with them, holding a greasy paper plate in one hand and a slimy plastic cup full of generic brand soda.  There were no dogs there.

“What’s your name again?” the oldest girl asked.

“Sean.”

“So, Sean, are you looking forward to going to our high school?”

“No.”

“Why not?”  Her voice was happy, carefree, and taunting.  She had a spray of brown freckles across her cheekbones.

Sean’s voice was casual and bored, but he fumbled with the lighter in his pocket.  “Because, I’m just not.”

The nine-year-old smirked and then hid her mouth with her hand.

“You know Derrick?” he asked the oldest girl.

“Derrick London?  Lives at the end of your street?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, why?  Has he been giving you shit?”  Her voice was sympathetic for a moment, soft.

Sean let out a breath and smiled.  “Yeah.  He’s a real dick.”

She raised her brown eyebrows and pulled her mouth down.  “Really?  Because I think he’s pretty cool.”

Sean looked back at her, his own eyebrows going up automatically.   “He’s not cool, he’s a jerk.  How can you think someone like that is cool?”

“He makes fun of people, yeah, but it’s funny.  People should be able to take it; he’s just joking.  We’re friends, me and him.”

Sean took his lighter out and held it clenched in his hand.  “Whatever.  You can be friends with whoever the hell you want.”

The oldest girl glanced at the nine-year-old, who was looking around the yard and didn’t even seem to be listening.  “Can you watch your language please?  There are little ears that are listening.”  She took a sip of her drink and crunched on the ice.

He stared at her, the lank, slightly greasy hair, the thin, pale lips.  “I can’t believe I’m related to you people.”  And with that, he walked off.  Across the mosquito infested yard, through a group of soft-speaking adults, and down the street.  He found himself at the high school, aimlessly pulling at the handles of the locked doors, wandering through the manicured field.

There was the falling-down, rotted-out equipment shack.  He walked slowly over to it, skimming his fingers over the dry harsh wood.  He circled it until he came to the side facing away from the school, the side covered with graffiti.  Faggot, cunt, cocksucker.  He took out his lighter, traced the word faggot with the small flame.  Then a loose board was set on fire.  He picked it up, swung it around as if he were writing words in the muggy air.  He touched the tip of the board gently onto the bottom part of the wall.  The flame started slowly, and he scuffed at it with his foot, wanting to put it out.  He’d never burned anything so substantial before.  It had only been business cards and tissues, candy wrappers.  The fire spread faster than he thought it would, climbing up towards the middle part of the wall, and then the roof.  He backed away slowly, mesmerized and shocked, breathing hard, the heat from the fire pushing against his face.  And then he gave in.  He was still holding the burning piece of wood and he swung it like a bat and slammed it against the word cunt.  It threw sparks that he didn’t try to avoid.  He swung again and the wood broke on impact, almost hitting him in the leg.  He took out his lighter again, stared at it, smiling slightly before throwing it into the building flame.  He walked away before the building started to collapse, not even bothering to watch it fall in on itself.