How to Set a Fire and Why

1

Some people hate cats. I don’t, I mean, I don’t personally hate cats, but I understand how a person could. I think everyone needs to have a cause, so for some people it is hating cats, and that’s fine. Each person needs to have his or her thing that they must do. Furthermore, they shouldn’t tell anyone else about it. They should keep it completely secret, as much as possible.

At my last school no one believed me about my dad’s lighter. I always keep it with me. It’s the only thing I have from him. And every time someone touches it there is less of him on it. His corpse is actually on it—I mean, not his death corpse, but his regular one, the body that falls off us all the time. It’s what I have left of him, and I treasure it.

So, I said, many times I said it, don’t touch this lighter or I will kill you. I think because I am a girl people thought I didn’t mean it.

Someone told me they read in a book that a scientist saw a chimpanzee using sign language on a tree. Apparently the chimpanzee had learned sign language, and then it decided to use the sign language—and it used it on a tree. The amazing thing is, the story ends there. They made the chimp use it with researchers and such—no sign language with trees. I am completely against this sort of thing, and not because I think trees talk or anything—don’t worry, I am very clear-sighted. But still, I bet—you let this chimp talk to the trees and a decade later, well, you don’t know what happens, but that’s the point.

What I mean is, I have my own plans, my own ideas. Being kicked out of my last school—it didn’t really affect them. I guess I don’t really care which school I go to. But, I am sorry that I only grazed his neck with the pencil. I thought I could do better than that.

It was a pretty ugly scene. They had me sitting there in the principal’s room, with my poor aunt next to me (I live with my aunt—dad = dead, mom in lunatic house) and across from us the principal, and Joe Schott, and his dad and mom. His dad owns a car dealership, which means that everyone respects him, though I don’t know why. For instance, the workers at the deli call him boss even though he isn’t their boss. I’ve seen it happen.

Anyway, the secretary was there too, taking notes. The secretary is also the gym teacher, and I hate him, so, basically, apart from my aunt, a room full of enemies.

It wasn’t lost on me that the principal sat with the Schotts. They started it out in the worst way. The principal said to the secretary, are we ready to begin, and then it was, yes, I think so.

Schott senior said something like, Lucia, we are ready to forgive you, with this horrible expression on his face, and then Joe said, I won’t forgive the bitch. I’m going to miss at least two games, and then Schott senior put his hand on Joe’s shoulder and started to say something, but the principal cut him off—he said, hold on, let’s let her go first. Lucia, are you ready to begin? Do you have something to say?

That’s when I said, your little prince basketball hero shouldn’t have touched my lighter. Then I wouldn’t have put a pencil in his neck.

Well, they didn’t like that. Joe Schott is very admired in those parts, the town darling. There’s a burger named after him at the diner, and he even has his own house on his parents’ property—a “cottage” if you can believe it, which no sixteen-year-old guy should have. I know because a girl I was in study hall with went back there with him (he is good-looking). She is awful also, so I wish them well.

Lucia, if you are going to stay at this school, you must apologize to Joe and to his family.

I am sorry, I said, that I wasn’t clearer. Don’t touch my fucking zippo, Joe. Eventually, these people are all going to go away and you’ll be left alone. Do you understand?

My aunt squeezed my leg, so I didn’t say everything I wanted to.

She is really nice. I mean, my aunt is one of the kindest people in the world, I think. She must be. When we got back to the house, she said she was sorry that things had happened that way, with my dad dying, and with my mom going away, but that stabbing somebody wouldn’t fix it. She understood the sentiment, she did. Also, she didn’t care that I couldn’t go back to that school. She would find another school that would take me. The thing she was most glad about was: the police weren’t involved. Probably the school had wanted to avoid a scandal. But, a person only gets so many chances.

I love my aunt. She is my dad’s older sister and is at least seventy years old, I don’t know how. They were dyed-in-the-wool anarchists, she and my dad, that’s what my dad used to say. Then, he died and she clammed up. She has enough money to live pitifully and tend a garden. She was so sweet to me, I resolved right then to be no trouble to her ever. We went to a shitty movie theater to watch an old picture about horses. It was a terrible print, and the dialogue was horrid and sentimental. It wasn’t Flicka or Black Beauty, but it was completely ridiculous and awful. Anyway, we both cried a lot at the horse’s predicament and then we went back to the house and ate a lot of ice cream with big spoons. She said the big spoons were good on a day like that.

2

You may be wondering why I am giving you this account. Well, I don’t know, really. A bunch of things happened, and I am just putting them in order. I’m doing it for myself. You are just a construction—you’re helping me to put things in order. You are my fictional audience, and as such I appreciate you very much. I figure when I finish, I will throw this out. Don’t think that I believe you are any less terrible than anyone else. That’s on you—if you want to behave like a decent person, do so. Those of us who aren’t miserable fools will probably recognize it.

Anyway—this is how it went:

My aunt found a new school for me to go to. That school was called Whistler High School. It was the school for the next town over. I could still bicycle there, or take a bus.

I had a month off, and then it was my first day—the start of the next quarter. I didn’t like the idea. You might think that I am some sort of hard case. I am just a quiet person who minds her own business. Going to school is terrible and it frightens any right-thinking individual.

That morning my aunt had a surprise for me. I came downstairs and on the kitchen table, there it was—my dad’s lighter.

How did you get it?

My aunt winked at me.

I took it from the office the day of the conference. It was there on the desk. I don’t want them to have it any more than you do.

What a lady!

Then it was time to go.

I always wear the same thing, so there isn’t really much getting ready for me. My aunt has bought me other clothes in the past; I threw them out.

I have:

a gray hooded sweatshirt (hood up)

black jeans

a white tank top

cheap black sneakers

++my dad’s lighter++

a notebook & pencil

house key

some money and ID

usually some book

some licorice for if I am hungry

I believe that a person such as myself can live off licorice. Luckily, I have never had to demonstrate the truth of this claim.

When we got to the school, she stopped the car. She said, you look pretty this morning. I said it is because yesterday I cut my hair like a boy. That’s one of those paradoxes you hear so much about. She laughed.

First, I was outside the school. It was big, bigger than the other school. All concrete and glass. I didn’t like it. I’m not sure that there’s any reason for building anything other than huts. Can’t we just live in huts and be kind to each other?

I suppose we’d better go inside.

3

I could draw my first day at Whistler like a diagram. There is a line that goes across the page a little ways and then it hits a Rorschach blot. When it hits the Rorschach blot it just dies, the line absolutely curls up and dies. Which isn’t to say that it went badly.

Here’s a sample:

GIRL So, your name is Lucia. You went to Parkson?

LUCIA …

GIRL …

LUCIA …

GIRL …

LUCIA …

GIRL I heard you, uh, stabbed somebody with a pencil.

LUCIA …

GIRL …

LUCIA Yeah.

GIRL …

LUCIA …

GIRL Uh, I won’t tell anyone.

LUCIA That’s okay. You can. It doesn’t matter.

GIRL …

There would be a part in the diagram where you could lay a transparency across with little red blots of color to show other things, like—when I noticed kids who seemed okay. I saw a couple of those, but they didn’t talk to me. One of them was reading some Trakl, which I thought was okay. I mean, it wasn’t a bad sign, at least.

One girl asked me if I was going to go out for sports, which made me spit out the apple juice I was drinking. I said that sports were part of the spectacle. She said what. I said the ruling class. She looked confused. I said otherwise people would get fed up and they couldn’t be controlled, so no. I mean, I would go for a run if it was a nice day, or definitely swim. I would do judo or something if they had that. But chase a ball? Do I look like a dog?

I am the captain of the field hockey team, she said.

So, that ended that.

My aunt wanted to know if I had made any friends, and I said that I had made a bunch. She said, tell me about the day. I said:

Well, it started out really well. There was a girl named Kimberly sitting next to me in homeroom and she made me a friendship bracelet. She is in Drama Club and I’m going to be in it, too. We ate lunch together with her boyfriend and a bunch of really nice people. I had so much fun. Then, her boyfriend took us into the back of the gymnasium where no one could see and he inseminated both of us, just like that. It felt really good, not the actual act, but, you know, afterwards, the glow of it … So, yeah, I’m pregnant, and I have friends, but no prospects, really.

That’s not funny, said my aunt. How did it really go.

Okay, I said. I’ll tell you tomorrow.

4

So, I should probably mention a fact. I am really good at guessing how things are going to go. I am a good predictor. I told my aunt that, and she said, like Cassandra? I said, no, because I keep it to myself.

What I am not saying is—I can predict the future. That’s garbage. It’s this: I have a good way of modeling things in my head, so I can guess how to avoid having to do things I don’t want to do, or avoid being involved in things I don’t want to be involved in.

For instance, I am always sick when it is time for gym class. Mostly, this works. But I’m not sick right at gym class, no—I get sick during the class prior, so that I have to go to the nurse, and then returning from the nurse (where I turn out to be fine) takes a long time, and then gym class is over, so I am just starting to get changed when it becomes clear I shouldn’t bother. This was a point of contention between myself and the gym teacher at my first high school.

Another example: I made friends with the janitors and security guards at the school on my second day. That is, I said hello and offered them some licorice at the entrance to the foul little room where they sit together when they are doing nothing. As simple as that. Now, they like me. They know I’m not like the other shits who attend this school. What does that mean?

It means that when I sneak out the back of the school to go to the store for cigarettes or licorice they won’t say anything. Also—there is a girl who looks kind of like me whose locker is six lockers down, and I managed to take her license out of her bag when she wasn’t looking. Now, if I need to get in somewhere, I can use that, and it will be on the record that she went there.

I think about the future state of affairs, and what will be needed. I know that kind of thinking is foreign to some of you, but you’ll have to wise up, chumps! This is the world we live in.

On the second day, a guy asked me on a date. I am definitely not very attractive, that’s for sure, but I am pretty skinny and not a leper (my apologies to any lepers out there—not your fault). This guy, he probably figured it was the time to strike, right when I got there. Well, I said we could go out if he wanted, and he said what about for pizza that evening, so we went. He bought me pizza, which was good because I don’t have any money. I would rather have bought my own, but what can you do? He got a really big soda, and I asked him if he had a library card. He was mad that the counter guy had talked to me a little too much. He said a whole lot of stuff that I didn’t hear, and at some point we went outside and I left. He was really tall, so there’s that. I looked into the future and I saw that the short guys at the school would figure I only go on dates with tall guys and the tall guys would think she ditched a tall guy after one date, so things were looking good.

5

Maybe I mentioned that my aunt has a garden? Well, she does. She has a garden wedged in between the house and the garage and a side wall. It looks kind of like this:

X is the edge of the map. It’s important to let people know where the map ends, if you make a map for someone. I read that in a cartography book. Cartography is mapmaking, yeah? It used to be hard and all the maps were mostly wrong, but now it’s easy, that’s what they say.

So, my aunt’s garden. I guess there are two kinds—French gardens and English gardens. Well, maybe there are Chinese and Japanese ones too, but those have mostly moss and stones, so they don’t count right now. I’m talking about gardens with plants, yes? So—a French garden, as far as I can tell, is a garden that gets tended. You know, my aunt, she walks around it slowly and bends down now and then to pull up some shit, or to stick some other stuff in somewhere. That’s a French garden. An English garden is something that used to be a French garden but that no one does anything to anymore. So, it looks run-down. Things don’t grow in proper lines. This is what they tell me. My aunt’s garden goes back and forth between these two extremes. Sometimes it is more French, sometimes more English. I asked a French exchange student about this once and he said that English gardens actually aren’t gardens. But, he also thinks everyone in France was in the Resistance. To me—an embarrassing number were probably Vichy, and I’m not talking about the ones who got lynched. That’s just how it is with history. You do things and later on when people see what you did, it looks bad. The only exception is if you get to defend yourself, but mostly you don’t. History is just people behaving badly.

In the diagram you can see that the house is pretty big. That might lead you to think that my aunt is doing pretty well for herself or something like that. When people drop me off, they drop me off in front of this house, and it is a huge house, so they think, well, maybe she dresses like a hobo, but she must be wealthy. I guess it’s okay for them to think that. My aunt and I live behind that house and behind the garden. The garage is converted and we live in it, as if it were a little house. It must have been a hassle for my aunt to take me in when they sent my mom up. I sleep in the one bed and my aunt sleeps either in a cot or in this big chair that is in the corner. She often falls asleep reading, so I think it is nice for her.

I mean, I said no way, at first, I will not take the one bed, but since she is actually asleep most times in the chair and there is no one in the bed, I do sleep in it.

One night I woke up in the middle of the night because of the full moon (bright) and thought for at least two hours about my aunt dying and how it would probably happen any day. Of course, the women of this family are long-lived and all that. She will live to be ninety-two in utter misery. That is likely.

I don’t think it would be so bad being old, but there are all kinds of things that old people like, they really like them a lot, that I don’t like. So, it seems like maybe it isn’t for me, at least not yet. I hate thinking about it. Getting older is—you think you are getting your way and you think you are getting your way and you think you are getting your way and then you are old and it turns out you didn’t get your way. Or—you did, like my aunt, but the consequences are deeply ironic.

I saw a documentary once about the pyramids and it said that the PB (pyramid builders) were aliens, and that they were essentially cicadas (but bipedal), and that their cycle was ten thousand years rather than ten or fifteen years, and so eventually they would wake up, and, at least the person who was narrating the documentary, he thought that they would be really angry. But, it seems to me that they would be used to things having been ruined while they were sleeping. I don’t think they would be angry—not that I believe the documentary. Most documentaries are worse than fiction.

6

Well, the next day was a disaster. I don’t even really want to write about it, but fair is fair, and if I am doing this at all, I might as well put everything down.

I showed up in the morning and they made me leave class to go and see the school psychologist. What’s worse, the teacher—who is a fool, I mean, he didn’t have to say out loud what it was—said in this awful theatrical baritone voice, Miss Stanton, Ms. Kapleau would like to see you during first period. And everyone knows what that means.

So, I had to meet with this Kapleau individual, who asked me about my mom and dad, and pencils, et cetera. And then, when it was over, she asked me if the work was okay or if I maybe should be in a lower grade, which was insulting. I said a dolphin could be valedictorian of this shithole in a heartbeat, and she smiled gently and told me to go back to class.

And that was the beginning of the bad time, because after that, people kept asking me why I had to go to the psychologist, and I had to say because I have a disorder, cataplexy, and that if I laugh, I fall asleep. Which is why I never laugh. Since I never laugh, some of them believed me, except one kid—Stephan—who is smart. He said pretty quietly that it was interesting I should say that, and also, cataplexy is rare, very rare. Luckily, no one listens to him.

The pencil thing hadn’t really caught on during my first day, which was good—but now with the psych visit, people were talking about it. I had to eat lunch in a buffer, which is fine. I don’t care if I have someone to talk to. But, having people space themselves out in a weird way when you’re in line doesn’t feel good. I really will stab you if you don’t stop, I thought about saying, but—obviously not a good thing to say.

Things took an upturn between fifth and sixth periods when I overheard two kids talking. They didn’t know I was there, and the short, dumb-looking one told the bigger one that it had been arranged and the Sonar Club was going to meet at the usual spot that afternoon. They were trying to be real cloak and dagger about it.

I’m sure that doesn’t mean anything to you. You’re wondering, why is she happy about some Sonar Club. That doesn’t sound even remotely fun. Well, I have a friend—I do—who told me about something he heard about from someone else—and what it is, is this:

Right now, there are clubs forming up all over the country. They call themselves sonar clubs, or even radio clubs—but what they are is clubs for people who want to set fires, for people who are fed up with wealth and property, and want to burn everything down.

S - O - N - A - R = A - R - S - O - N

He said you have to burn something down just to get in, and when he said that I thought—I haven’t heard something so exciting in a long time. If you don’t like fire, you are not a living person, in my opinion.

7

A really awful thing happened final period, though, in Social Studies. We were doing a mock trial and I was supposed to be a witness to a murder, so I was on the witness stand. One of the supposed lawyers, a girl named Lisette, was asking me questions. But, she did this mean thing, a slightly clever mean thing, where she asked me questions about my actual self. At first, she slipped them in a little along with the other questions. I wasn’t sure where she was going with it.

So, you just arrived here at the school. Did you know the defendant prior to your arrival here? Under what circumstances?

There was some chuckling. I said I was not in school and hadn’t been for years—I was supposed to be an old man. Did she not see my beard? (No one laughed.) I said I had seen the defendant before, of course. He was one of my tenants.

On the night in question, you were out walking the streets for what reason?

People laughed again.

I said I wasn’t in the street. I was looking out my window.

That was when she went for it:

I’m sorry, I know it’s not a part of the trial, but, how did you manage to get jeans from four years ago? Did you use a time machine?

So, Lisette Crowe. It seems that’s another person I have to get revenge on. She is rich but her speech is just television speech. She doesn’t speak like a person with a real mind. Her parents’ money wasn’t enough to protect her brain. I hate listening to the way most people talk. It is enough to turn you into a hermit. My mother had a beautiful way of speaking. I like to think about it sometimes.

Anyway, everyone was laughing at me.

Yes, when she said her little nonsense everyone laughed and I am of two minds about this—is laughing enough to get you put on the blacklist? I think if you are a shallow person, essentially a tool for others, then no, you are not really at fault for laughing. But, I think if you are a person of greater capacity—not intelligence, you understand, just wherewithal—then if you laugh, you can indeed find yourself on the list. Because you didn’t have to. Anyway, I noticed some of those. Consider them added to the list.

By the way—there is nothing wrong with my jeans. I don’t even know what she was talking about. In a blind test, I bet she couldn’t tell them apart from four other pairs.

But, that’s the thing—if someone is wealthy and popular, they don’t even have to be right. Whatever they do, they still win.

8

(which is why they all have to die)

9

At the bus stop after school (it is the city bus), I met a guy who was in college. At least, he said he was. I said I was too, and I think he bought it. He was reading a book about Chernobyl, which seems interesting at first, but actually isn’t that interesting. I mean, if you picked up a book like that, you would look at it for a second, and then you would put it down. I don’t think you would end up reading it at a bus stop. What’s worse is, he was right at the beginning. He hadn’t started the book yet. To me, that is a sign that the book is a show-book. Show-books are books that people carry around to seem smart. Anyway, his show-book put me on my guard.

He asked me what I was studying and I said that I was studying the idea of poisons. He asked me what that meant. I said many things are poisonous, but only some of them are poisons. Who gets to decide that cutoff point? Historically, the cutoff point moves around depending on who benefits. I mean—alcohol is pretty poisonous, for instance. He said he liked alcohol. Of course you do, I said.

Do you like to go to shows?

Not really.

Why not?

Because they are expensive. Sometimes my friends and I get in for free.

He said he wasn’t surprised that they would let us in for free.

I said that one of my friends is really pretty—so that’s probably why.

He said, no, he was saying he wasn’t surprised—that he figured I could get in for free, friends or no.

He asked me if I wanted to go to his place, and I said yes, but when it was time to get off the bus, I stayed on it. He got up and he was like, this is the stop. And I just stayed put. I looked out the window. Then, the bus had started up again and he was off it. Maybe I won’t ever see him again. That would be okay.

10

My aunt and I play cribbage sometimes, but she thinks that it is boring, so we have set up a gambling system. Usually you play to 121, and you accrue points in order simply to win. Well, she had the idea (my aunt) that the points could potentially be spent, and that it might make the game more interesting. So, during hands, and between hands, there are ways in which you can use points in order to do a bunch of other things, like nullify cards, or redraw, or double the stakes of a particular game, buy the crib, or double the pegging points. This makes the game very fun. My aunt likes to win. I also like to win. The table that we eat supper on has an inset that you can pull out to reveal a giant cribbage board. We use that when we play. The giant board makes it more fun when you win and less fun when you lose. Whichever one of us is the current victor gets certain privileges in the house. One of those is never doing dishes. Another is getting the blue blanket. At this point, she was the current victor. To be honest, she is usually the current victor. I think she understands the whole thing better than I do. Her claim is that we are both equally good, but this is disproven by the fact that she is the victor more often. I guess it could be true that she is demonstrating some distribution where she is lucky in the early running. Anyway, when she is the victor and she is tired, she sometimes refuses to play because she doesn’t want to lose her crown. The conversation that night went something like this:

LUCIA Let’s play cribbage.

AUNT MARGARET You promised to tell me about school.

LUCIA Cribbbbbbage. Cribbagggge. [Looks at the floor.]

AUNT MARGARET Oh, here is something for you.

She gave me a notebook with a black felted cover. My old notebook was just a marble notebook. This one was pretty obviously superior. I took it and looked at it under the lamp. I liked it immediately. It is really very nice. Maybe it is the nicest thing I own—in terms of how much someone else would value it.

Right then I had a really good idea. I would use the notebook for writing down my predictions. It would be

THE BOOK OF HOW THINGS WILL GO

I don’t know, maybe you think that an idea like that is not a good idea. I am pretty confident in my predictions, so it seemed to me like my sum total of happiness would be improved by having such a book. Not that I need to use the book to prove to anyone that I was right. I don’t tell people about the predictions, so that isn’t a thing.

++

I opened it and wrote on the first page: