Age of Blood

36

Instead, Laws had taken Walker away to do something mysterious, leaving the youngest and newest of the SEALs to recover the equipment, which was just fine with him. He found the task relaxing and enjoyed the mechanical movements of breaking weapons down and putting them back together. But while his hands were busy, his mind was free to go where it wanted. Yank had never had the discipline to just turn things off. Normally, when his mind began to work or remember something, he just let it go. Like now, when the day his mother died replayed itself for the thousandth time in his mind’s eye.

It was the crash of breaking glass that brought him awake. At first he thought it was from across the street, but then the sound of a car’s tires biting into the street before they peeled off brought him to a sitting position. Then he heard a whoompf and shot to his feet. He wobbled unsteadily for a second. He’d been dreaming of something with that girl from school, Shawna, a talking pumpkin, and an Italian restaurant. And then he saw the telltale orange glow of fire, like what might have come from a living room fireplace if they’d had one. He rushed to his door and stuck his head out just in time to see the couch turn into a gush of living fire. He stood transfixed as it sent long fingers creeping up the walls to the ceiling. Wherever the fingers painted a line of flame was created, until the front wall was covered with what could only be the art of an invisible pyromaniacal monster, intent on eating his house alive.

Then he remembered his mother. He forced himself to turn away from the fire and rushed down the hallway. He shoved the door open with his shoulder, cracking the fake wood.

“Mom, wake up—fire!” he cried, each word capturing his desperation and fear.

But she lay unmoving. He scanned the bedside table and saw her glass of gin, half full, where she’d left it before passing out, just as she had every night for as long as he could remember. She claimed it was for the leg pains she got from cleaning floors on her hands and knees.

He rushed over and shook her shoulder. She moaned something unintelligible but didn’t wake. He shook her again, this time hard enough to dislodge the wig that made her look sort of like Whitney Houston.

“Mom, wake up! Fire!” He was beginning to feel the heat from the front room blasting through the doorway. He glanced at the windows. Like all of them, this one was barred to protect them from the outside. Their only way to get out was through the front or the back doors.

He shook her again, hard this time, and in his fear, pushed her hard in the shoulder, a half push that was as much a punch. He felt scared to hit her. He felt scared not to. She wasn’t reacting. He grabbed the side of her head and shook it. Her eyes fluttered open.

“Uhnn. Shonn.”

“Mom, please wake up! The apartment’s on fire!”

Her head lolled and she sighed, expelling a cloud of noxious gin fumes that snapped him into action. He grabbed her by her shoulders and heaved. Her wig fell askew and he fought the urge to fix it. His back was beginning to sting. He wished he was big and strong like his cousin or the other boys, especially Lebron. He’d been left back two years and was the strongest of them all.

Yank managed to jerk her off the bed. Even when she hit the floor, she didn’t wake up. He fought back a sob. He glared through tear-prismed eyes at the half-full glass of gin and juice, and in that moment knew that it had killed her.

He was pulling her through the door when a piece of the ceiling fell on him.

He screamed as his face and hair caught fire and his entire existence was consumed by a pure, crystal moment of pain. Then he was pulled and grabbed. He heard people yelling as he was screaming. Then he was outside, red lights strobing the world as white men pointed at the orange glow behind him.

His screams became sobs as he was rushed to an ambulance and a white woman with a ring in her nose and a tattoo of a hummingbird on her neck began to work on his face. She laid him down. He sobbed and let her turn his head. Then he realized he’d somehow held on to his mother’s wig. The edges were singed and slightly smoking. As his face was caressed by what felt like razor blades, he tried to let go of the fake hair but his fingers wouldn’t follow his commands. So he held it as the sirens screamed and his mother was cremated along with any chance of him living a normal life.