Three Fires

Hollywood Nights

*For my paid subscribers: Trying a new thing… there is a voice recording of this story if you scroll all the way to the bottom. Let me know if this is something I should continue to do! (Pardon the dog growls at the end.)

Put black around my eyes till I become sexy raccoon. Glitter too if I have the patience. Strap on the sky high, platform heels from H&M that I often teeter and stumble around in even though they hurt like hell. Once I’m drunk enough, it won’t matter, I won’t feel a thing.

Shimmy into silky dress, but really it’s polyester, has a stain on it and is too big. That’s okay cause it’ll be dark where I’m going. It doesn’t fit right, my boobs are falling out, probably because it’s not mine. No, I stole it from someone. I do that. I steal clothes from everyone; girlfriends, boyfriends, one night stands, girlfriend’s boyfriends that I have one night stands with (to be fair, that only happened once), family members.

I’m kind of a klepto. Though, the puffy grey coat I’m wearing was a gift. People love to give me things. That’s why I can’t see the line between stealing and receiving. Because there’s something about my deer in headlights eyes and little face of innocence that makes people want to either take care of me and give me things or eat me for dinner.

Now I’m at Hyde and I’m bored. Bored until I see someone who looks like what I’m looking for. I make eyes at him. It’s a talent I have. I do a thing with my eyes and it draws whoever I’m doing it to right to me. Works every time. This guy, this boy, he is very cute. Clearly more boy than man, now that I’m seeing him close up. We are likely the same age. Early twenties. It’s loud in the club, probably Rihanna’s “Umbrella” or “Crazy” by Gnarls Barkley.

He yells in my ear, “Wanna get out of here? I live next door.”

As I nod my head in agreement, he slips a pill into my mouth. I don’t know what it is and I don’t care. He might have tried to tell me but his words immediately drowned in the explosion of low sound waves coming from the subwoofers. I vibrate with excitement as he takes me by the hand, but maybe it’s just  the subs.

He leads me out onto the street and the lights of Sunset blvd glow like a synthetic sunset… red, orange, pink and blue. He really does live right next door, in an apartment just above Greenblatts deli. We climb the dimly lit stairs, and I hold onto his hand so not to fall as the pill is kicking in and my heels are sky high. I hold his hand, also because I like him.

We are inside the surprisingly cute apartment, my surprise due to the fact that a young boy lives here, and boy apartments are usually gross. He pours me a glass of red wine. A goblet, actually. I take off my coat and throw it on the red, antique sofa. Behind that are red, velvet drapes. Candles are already lit. Or maybe he lights them when we walk in.

Now we are on the couch, his tongue is in my mouth, his hand on my breast that has fallen out of my dress, his other hand is sliding up my thigh. The pill has made everything soupy but fun and I ask again what we took and he tells me and again, the answer eludes me.

He pulls me into his bedroom, and we take off our clothes. All of our clothes. He opens the drawer in the nightstand next to his bed, and says, “Shit. I’m out of condoms.”

I tell him it’s okay because I don’t care about anything and in this moment I especially don’t care about anything, and I’m surprised when he says, “I’m just gonna run to Rite-aid and buy some. Don’t move. Be right back.”

Rite-aid is just across the street and a block down. But I can’t imagine running anywhere to do anything so I’m half impressed and the other half, annoyed that he interrupted what I was enjoying. I hear the jingle of change and keys as he pulls his pants up, then the clank of a belt. And then I hear the silence of his absence.

I slip into oblivion.

The boy returns to his apartment, plastic rite-aid bag in hand with a package of magnum condoms, a pack of American Spirits, yellow, and a bottle of Evian, to find the living room enshrouded in flames. The red velvet curtains are on fire, the red velvet couch is on fire, the alarms are blaring, and the neighbor across the hall runs out of his apartment and into the hallway which is filling with smoke. They leap into action, the boy opening his Evian bottle, and the neighbor grabbing a fire extinguisher.

In the bedroom, in a pile of off white, rumpled sheets, I sleep a dreamless sleep. The sleep of the dead. Whatever the pill was, it took me right out, and I’m oblivious to the fact that within just a few moments, had the boy not returned when he did, I was going to be incinerated.

The boy and his neighbor manage to put the fire out, with cups of water, and a fire extinguisher. He pokes around the charred, disaster zone, coughing from the smoke, and as he flings open the windows, he notices that my once puffy, grey coat was laid over a candle, just behind the sofa.

In the morning, I stretch and yawn and my hand hits the warm flesh of a body and after a moment, I remember where I am. I am suddenly aware of the smell of burnt toast. Wait… is that smoke?

“What is that smell?” I say out loud. “Jesus, it’s really strong,” I continue, sitting up and rubbing my eyes. I remember I’m still wearing my contact lenses but they’re dry and stinging, and I blink and yawn again to try to make my eyes create some moisture.

“You don’t remember?” He says.

“Remember what?” I ask.

He goes on to tell me about the fire. Then he tells me that it was me who started it, by throwing my coat on top of a candle. I don’t believe him. We stand and walk into his blackened living room; the red velvet sofa is singed, the curtains are just ashes on the floor, and the leather jacket he was wearing (his absolute favorite) is as good as a piece of charcoal at this point.

“Where’s my coat?” I ask. And when he points it out, I marvel at it, thinking how much it resembles a hockey puck.

“So… I did this? I set fire to your apartment?”

“Yes,” he says without even a thought.

“Did we have sex?” I wonder out loud.

His answer eludes me.

Later that very same day, I am at my apartment in Los Feliz. I am hungover, and coughing from all the smoke I inhaled, both cigarette and apartment-fire smoke. I need to go for a hike, to clear my head and clear out my lungs. I drive up the hill in my navy blue, 80s BMW, to my favorite hiking spot in Griffith park. I pull into the lot at the Vermont Ave. tennis courts like I always do. I leave my blackberry in the car, because I want to be alone with my thoughts.

I walk up the hill between the tennis courts and as I reach the top of the very first hill, right before me, I see a burning bush. The bush right in front of me is on fire. I can’t believe it, my eyes are seeing the burning bush but my brain cannot compute. After a moment I understand that this is real, and I run as fast as I can back down the hill and jump into my car. I dail 911 on my blackberry. No service. I turn the ignition and hightail it out of the parking lot and down the hill, dialing 911 again and again until finally I get through and say through my breathless, shaking voice, “Vermont tennis courts. There’s a fire at the top of the hill.”

“We already know,” she says.

Soon the entire park is on fire, and the sky rains ashes for days. I feel scared to tell anyone what I saw and I feel scared to tell anyone about the boy’s apartment and I feel scared to even be with myself so I just drink wine in my apartment and wait to see if I need to evacuate.

I know I didn’t start the fires. Well, maybe I did fling my coat onto a lit candle, but he shouldn’t have lit candles hiding on small tables behind sofas. And the bush. It was already on fire when I got there. It really was.

Soon after there was a third fire. I can’t for the life of me remember what it was that was on fire, or the circumstances, but I know it’s in one of my journals, because I found my chicken scratch recollection of it recently. Strangely though, as soon as I read about it and went, oh yes, that’s right, that was the third fire, it left my brain. The memory eludes me.

I can never remember the third fire, but I know it crystalized a fear that I had of myself and my powers, and I started to do research on Pyrokenesis (starting fires with your mind). But I really don’t think it was me, and it seems that Pyrokenesis has been proven to be bullshit.

I may have been a kleptomaniac but never a pyromaniac.

There was a time when I’m pretty sure I made the wind blow. I don’t think there’s a name for that one.