I write fiction. I write persuasive (I hope) letters. I write design specs and analysis. I write descriptions and quotations for products and engineering services.
What I haven't written much of, until now, is memoir or personal reminiscence. It's a dangerous highway for at least a couple of reasons. The first is, "Who the hell cares?" The second is that veracity is always suspect. No matter how well-intentioned the writer, the shades of truth can span vast gradients. Some say you can't get there from here. Mebbe so.
I'm reminded of mathematical asymptotes, like those used to help define the curve of a hyperbola. As you travel far enough along the curve, it drifts closer and closer to a straight line of the asymptotes, but it never quite makes contact. The curve only approaches the straight line. The story only approaches the truth.
Nevertheless, I've started down the craggy, ankle-twisting road. I have several pieces written, with more to follow. My writing group and my family have read them. I'm encouraged. Someday if anyone cares enough, I might publish a collection. I have the title "Approaching the Truth" in mind.
I won't be putting more than a couple on this blog for various reasons. Still, I haven't started this post without the intent of publishing
something now. It is, to nearly my best ability, the truth as I genuinely remember it. If there are any factual errors, they're not deliberate.
Fire Bug
(copyright 2013 by Spencer Luster)
When I was eight
years old, I set our living room couch on fire while my thirteen-year old sister
Robin was sleeping on it. Hilarity ensued.
Well, it might
have ensued had I been older and better able to squeeze humor from the jagged stones
of experience.
The truth--the
absolute truth, I swear--is that it was an accident. This despite the fact that
I loved playing with fire. I built model cars for the express purpose of crashing
them and seeing the engine compartments erupt into infernos. (Tiny investigators
usually suspected an accelerant was involved.) Entire battalions of green
plastic army men feared me, although they would often take vengeance from the
grave by dripping hotly on my little pink fingers. I'd heard that paper did
have purposes other than as tinder, such as for writing on, but those foreign
customs didn't belong in south Chicago,
at least not in my part of it.
I blame my fascination
in part on the boyfriends that my sister Lyn and my cousin Eddy had.
(Actually named Edna, later changed to Sherry, and can you blame her?) I was a
bright, likeable kid, and these fellows often played with me no doubt to
ingratiate themselves with my sister and cousin. One in particular, whose name
I wish I could recall, dazzled me with magic when I was a mere six-year old. He
taught me how to make matchstick rockets, bottle cap bombs, and the conjuration
of glowing smoke from the properly prepared striker of a matchbook. From such
seeds what else could have grown but a fire bug?
Recently my
brother Allan, twelve years my senior, revealed to me that when he was a
rambunctious lad he very nearly burned down the family's apartment building. Twice.
Apparently my penchant is also partly genetic. I wonder whether my Filipino or
Finnish side carries greater responsibility?
And then there's
my boyhood city itself, Chicago,
home of the Great Fire of 1871. Although our clan of Lusters didn't arrive in
the city until well into the twentieth century, perhaps Mrs. O'Leary's
fictional cow was also half Filipino.
Altogether, my
background and environment had somehow catalyzed to become--dare I say it?--a
hotbed for pyromania.
And yet.
The couch fire was
truly, honestly, and in all other factual ways an accident. It happened this
way:
Mom was at work as
a second shift nurse's aid at Billings
Hospital. Lyn and Eddy were
elsewhere, and my brother had already moved away by that time. This left Robin
and I home alone, a common situation.
Robin lay asleep
on the couch. I had been playing behind it, rolling a nickel along the
windowsill just above the multi-colored steam radiator. The radiator, by the
way, was multi-colored because of the many crayons I'd melted on it during the
previous winter. Yes, I'd cleaned up the long, lovely drips, but faint stains
remained. At any rate, the rolling nickel dropped to the floor and continued
rolling directly, almost deliberately, under the couch.
If you're of a
certain age you'll recall, I'm sure, what five cents could buy back in 1968. A
bubble gum cigar or a set of wax lips, two golden-foil-wrapped Ice Cubes chocolates
with a penny left over, or five rolls of Smarties. That nickel also represented
five twelfths of a comic book. There was no way I'd let Mr. Jefferson escape my
sticky hands.
I pushed aside the
little fuzzy dingle balls hanging from the back of the cheap couch cover and
peered deeply into the yawning black abyss. I could detect no glint of my
treasure. I briefly thought about reaching into the darkness anyway, but who
knew what lurked there? We already had roaches, and maybe there was something
worse. I definitely needed some light. Being a clever and determined chap, I
retrieved a book of matches from the kitchen. This was my automatic solution to
many problems.
I struck one of
the magic phosphors. I held it low to cast its Luciferian light under the couch.
Aha! There lay my nickel.
And there went one
of the fuzzy dingle balls on fire. It was quite pretty, a dancing little bluish
glow that reminded me of the flame from our gas stove. I watched slightly
mesmerized as the fire gently enveloped the little ball, transforming it into a
tiny Christmas ornament. It took a moment, but it occurred to me that this
development was probably not good.
I thought quickly,
and ran to get something to put an end to the flaming dance routine. My logic,
if it can be called such, followed a short path. A glass of water would make a
mess and I'd get in trouble. Besides, the flame was small.
When I came back
from the bathroom with my firefighting equipment--a wet washcloth--I was
shocked to find actual gouts of fire leaping from the back of the couch.
I recognized that
even a whole gallon of milk had no hope of extinguishing my mistake.
Robin still lay
sleeping. Again I thought quickly and said, tentatively and quietly in my
embarrassment, "Uh, Robin?"
No response. Maybe
she won't notice.
Finally some
weird, illogical instinct kicked in and with no conscious thought on my part my
mouth opened to yell, "The couch is on fire!"
I must have been
traumatized by the ordeal because I honestly don't remember much of anything
that followed. I know screams resounded, some from me, many from Robin. I
recall a lot of smoke, and singing heat. I know that firemen showed up. I had
to have been punished, but I truly don't recall any bit of it. I've remained in
ignorance about the aftermath for nearly forty-five years. Emotional stress and
trauma can do that to a person, I've heard. At least it makes sense to me.
After all, I never
recovered that nickel.
