Onion Songs

HOW TO SURVIVE A FIRE AT THE GREENMARK

Odd, Jane thought, that she’d never before realized the value of pure and simple anger in today’s world. People acted as if something was wrong with you when you were angry, as if you wouldn’t even need to be angry if you just had your shit together.

Well, fuck that. Fuck them.

Nothing better than a pure and righteous anger to scour the mind of all its useless debris. Nothing better to focus yourself, to remind yourself just who the hell you were at this point in time on this particular mud ball careening through soulless space. A healthy bout of anger burned through you like a flash fire, reducing all those little shames and regrets to such a fine ash it was no trouble at all sweeping them out before the next asshole came into your life with a pocket full of fun money and a big-toothed grin.

She’d been seething all day. Combustion was inevitable, and she didn’t give a damn who got burned.

Jane gripped the receiver until her knuckles turned white. The peculiar thing was that even when she willed herself to relax, to let go, the muscles in her hand and arm refused, remaining locked and rigid, as if she had somehow misplaced the key that would release them. “You bastard,” she said. She knew she had been repeating herself. She just didn’t know for how long.

Calling me names isn’t helping things any. I’m going to hang up. I said I was sorry.

“You promised you’d be here. I took the day off and God knows I can’t afford it. I’m lying in this awful, stinking hotel because this is the place you chose. There was a goddamn used condom on the floor when I got here, Richard! Do you have any idea how this makes me feel? It makes me feel like a whore, you bastard!”

I really don’t think this is a fruitful conversation. I’m going to hang up now. Perhaps later when you calm down…

“Goddamn you! If you hang up I’m telling your wife!” The bastard didn’t say anything right away. Jane smiled but it wasn’t a smile she enjoyed. Something was wrong with her jaw. Smiling hurt her face.

And I’ll tell your husband.

“I really don’t think he’ll be listening. I don’t think he’s capable of listening, actually.”

What’s that supposed to mean?

“He’s dead, Richard. And aren’t you the forgetful one?”

What are you saying?

“Jesus, you’re a dense bastard! The gun in your glove compartment? Is it still there?” Despite herself, her smile spread. As her rigid facial muscles stretched and burned she almost screamed from the pain.

You crazy bitch!

She laughed out loud, and then she did scream. Flames had spread from the bed sheet to the black plastic phone, and now the receiver was too hot to hold. “I’ve got a little problem here. I’m going to hang up now. I’ll call you right back. You pick it up right away, you hear me? You don’t and you’re a dead man!” She slammed the phone down, then watched as it melted. The skin of her hand had blackened and was dotted by a dozen or more blisters like tiny pearls.

It was a hell of a thing to happen to her. But it actually made her feel better.

Jane leapt to her feet and opened the door. There were no indications of smoke or fire damage. She padded halfway down the hall before she realized she was wearing only a bra and panties. She hesitated, listening. Oh, the hell with it. She followed the hall around the perimeter of the hotel, finding three staircases leading down. She went up to the elevator doors and put her blistered hand on the outside of one. It wasn’t particularly warm. On her way back to the room she passed an elderly couple who stared. “There appears to be a fire,” she said with a smile. “I suggest that you stay off the phone, douse yourselves with water, crawl into bed and hold each other as tightly as you can.” She took a few steps away then turned. “Sexual intercourse would be optional,” she added.

She went back to her room. One entire wall was enveloped in flames. She thought this was all Richard’s fault, but she wasn’t sure how. She walked calmly into the bathroom, soaked several large towels in the tub, went back to the flaming wall and spent five minutes beating the fire out. The flames disappeared with surprising ease, as if they had been sucked into the ugly wallpaper. (Red and green and black clusters of geometric shapes—from a distance they looked like bugs chewing on the wall. How could people fall asleep in such a room?)

The fire was at least partly her responsibility. Emotions kept pent up over long periods of time can reach dangerously high temperatures. She had read this in some popular magazine, the woman on its glossy cover large-breasted and nude except for a bright red scarf around her neck. Jane supposed the scarf represented the strangulation brought on by female sexuality. Or maybe the woman’s throat was on fire from all the things she could not bring herself to say.

But Richard’s responsibility was even graver. The bastard. The prick. He should have paid more attention to her. He should have been truthful. It wasn’t fair that all these innocent people might burn up in a fire while he was safe at home, free to continue cheating on his wife. Her face suddenly flushed with anger or with heat from the fire.

Jane walked around the room as she dialed the bastard on the phone by the closet. The cord became more and more entangled, but she could not stop herself from pacing. His line was busy. She dialed his number again and again, standing by the window, watching as flames shot out of one window, and then another, in the hotel wing across the courtyard. In the hazy distance other buildings appeared to be on fire. The ringing of telephones had risen to a deafening din. Obviously other women were going through the same things with their men. All over the city, men were being bastards. All over the city, women were turning into blackening, melting candles.

Jane? Is that you?

“You’re a dead man.”

My father called. I couldn’t get him off the phone.

“He’s probably a bastard, too. Is that where you learned how to treat women? From that bastard father of yours?”

Look, I know I screwed up. Let me make it up to you.

Veins of fire suddenly issued from one corner of the floor, flowed up the wallpaper, made jagged patterns like lightning across the ceiling over her head. Beautiful and deadly, as all things should be. “Come down to the hotel. We’ll see what we can work out.”

He didn’t speak right away. She gave him some time. She didn’t want to scare him off. She was a woman, after all, capable of great patience. I don’t think I want to do that.

“You’re not a little scared are you?”

Sounds like I may have reason to be, don’t you think?

“Just come down here. I just want to talk to you. You talk to me and everything’ll be okay—I’ll make it right. But if you don’t come down here in the next half hour you’re screwed. Royally. That good life of yours is over. And you know I can do it.”

But if there’s traffic…

“Call my cell phone from your car in fifteen minutes. Then I’ll know you’re coming.”

She held on to the phone after he hung up, watching in fascination as a narrow trail of blue flame followed the cord from the cradle, around the tangles, toward the handset. She dropped it when her hand began to burn. More blisters. She did not find them unattractive.

Behind her the closet ignited explosively. Without considering the consequences she went for her clothes. A wall of heat pushed her back, but she managed to get her slacks and top out. Her shoes were already on fire. She watched them burn: the colors were spectacular—red, yellow, cobalt blue.

A sheet of flame spread steadily up the wallpaper behind the headboard. Jane stood and watched. Those little bugs were suddenly very unhappy, curling up and tumbling off the wall in all directions, their bug parts blazing. Of course she should have been making her escape, getting out of that room as quickly as possible, but she couldn’t help herself. Once the fire reached the flame-retardant ceiling it rolled back on itself, further complicating the patterns of flame. Gorgeous. Like a headboard of passionate dream. She wanted to stretch out on the bed and feel the heat, sleep while all the tension of the day burned away.

Something in her hand. She looked down. Her cell phone. She wasn’t even aware of getting it out of her purse. Of course. There was always the right thing to do, the thing that announced itself and judged you when you did not act. She dialed the hotel switchboard.

“I’d like to report a fire.”

Location?

“Four-oh-two-oh. My room. My bed. My goddamn life.”

Any idea how long? A man’s voice. She wondered what his name might be. He sounded like a Bob or a Bill, maybe a Tom. Certainly too sincere to be a Dick.

“Pretty much forever.”

Then you’d better get out.

“Oh, I will. You just watch me.”

The door was warm, but that might be simply because her room was on fire. Did they ever think of that? She’d seen movies in which the hapless victim had opened the door against all advice and been blown backwards by the explosive force of the conflagration on the other side. A great word, “conflagration,” much more impressive than mere “fire,” but a much harder word to shout during a dire emergency.

Jane could feel the hairs on the back of her neck begin to curl and singe. She jerked the door open, ran out and slammed it behind her. Muzak continued to play in the quiet corridor, vaguely reminiscent of the melodies they played at buffets. She felt a little embarrassed about running down the hall in her bare feet. Somebody might think she was having an affair. Somebody might think she’d been stood up. Somebody might think she’d been a fool. So she walked, head high, posture proud.

Halfway down the corridor she noticed that some of the walls had become transparent. The only thing worse than a glass house is a glass hotel, she thought. This slowed her down when she should have been making for the stairs. But it was a peculiar thing—her theory was that somehow the intense heat had reduced the walls to a microscopic thinness, causing things to be all too clear. She could see people inside their rooms watching TV, dressing for dinner, making love. Sometimes they stared at the walls as if they could sense her presence, her gravity, but apparently they could not see her as she could see them.

She should warn these people, but she couldn’t very well knock on every door—she wouldn’t be able to save herself. Then she saw the rooms one by one fill with fire and there was no one left to warn. Their spirits floated through the walls and accumulated on the ceiling of the hall.

She fell to her knees and crawled, trying to stay as far away from their toxic spirits as possible. She refused to look at them any longer, even when she heard them weeping, even when their tears drizzled down from the storm clouds they had become. They probably thought she was some heartless bitch. But you can’t always control what other people think about you.

The door to the nearest staircase was difficult to open, as if it hadn’t been used in some time, or as if heat had welded it. But it wasn’t hot to the touch. It was hard getting leverage in her bare feet, but finally, when she pulled on the doorknob while pushing her naked soles against the frame, the door popped open like a cork in a vintage wine bottle, sending her sprawling. She scrambled to her feet and made it through the door before it closed again.

The staircase had that unfinished look that emergency exits so often do: unpainted, the seams of the wallboard exposed, looking as if she had stepped back through time and the building was still under construction. The silence was what she really found disturbing, however. The only sound she could hear was the harsh labor of her own breath as she pounded down the stairs. She needed to work out more, she thought. She was woefully out of shape.

When Jane’s cell phone went off in the midst of all that quiet, she barely stopped herself from tumbling head-first down the stairs. She sat down on a step and fumbled the phone from her pocket, noticing that one of her feet was bleeding as she thumbed the phone on. “Yes?”

Okay, I’m almost there. I’m calling, just like you wanted.

Richard. She’d actually forgotten all about him. Amazing. She could barely keep the pleasure out of her voice. “That’s right. Good boy. How far are you away?”

No more than a couple of blocks, I guess. Say, what’s with all the smoke?

She caught her breath. “Smoke? You see it? My God, I was beginning to think I’d imagined…” She stopped herself.

What was that? Christ, is there a fire there?

“No, no. They’re throwing a big barbecue up on the upper deck. Texas style. Have you had lunch?”

I don’t feel much like eating, Jane. What do I do when I get there? Do you want me to come up to the room?

“Oh, you mean our room?”

Yeah, whatever. Is that where I’m supposed to go?

“Why, you sound a little angry, Richard.”

He didn’t answer right away. You’re the one in charge. What do you want me to do?

“That’s a good boy. Meet me down in the lobby. Like I said, ignore the smoke, no matter what else you see or hear. You got that, Richard?”

I got that.

“Good. See you in five.” Gleefully she switched off the phone.

It seemed imperative that Jane reach the lobby before Richard figured out what was going on. Before anyone else figured out what was going on. Where was everybody, were they sleeping? She hadn’t even heard a fire alarm go off, much less a sprinkler. Shitty hotel. People died in hotels like this, not even knowing what hit them. As far as she knew, the hotel staff already knew about the fire and had made their escape from the building without telling anyone. People were scum, especially people in the service industries. Didn’t they give a damn about the people they were supposed to be serving? No wonder customers got angry all the time. You just couldn’t get good service anymore.

Jane threw her head back and howled. The anger rose in great rings of dark cloud up the stairwell. The walls closed in to maximize the echo, becoming like another throat that surrounded her and gave amplification to every bad thing she’d been feeling for twenty-odd years.

Jane entered the lobby at a dead run. People stared at her, then went back to whatever it was they were doing. It occurred to Jane that they were dressed quite nicely for a fire. And impeccable behavior. No one was crying. No one looked even the least bit scared.

Obviously no one had told them about the smoke. No one had told them about the fire. Or perhaps they’d been told about it, but they had failed to listen. People were always failing to listen.

“You know, for a minute there I thought you’d set the place on fire.”

Jane turned and saw Richard standing there, the smug expression on his face, his take-charge stance.

“Oh, but there is a fire. Can’t you smell it, Richard?”

He was still looking at her with that confident expression when his sleeve burst into flames. This change in circumstance had barely registered in his face when the rest of him fell forward. The fire burned itself out as quickly as it had begun, leaving a dark, warped misery lying on the smoking rug.

Several in the crowd screamed. A woman standing beside Jane began to cry. Jane turned: she was young, pleasant-looking. She felt sorry for her. “Spontaneous combustion,” Jane whispered into her delicate ear. “It’s everywhere these days. Didn’t you see the spread last month in Cosmo?”

The young woman stared as the lady walked through the lobby and out the front door in her bare feet. Everywhere the lady stepped, a scorched teardrop appeared in the rose-colored carpet.