Piece for October 21, 1988

FIREBUG

(in a high nasal voice, real fast, dressed like a homeless guy) Boy, yer tellin’ me! I was there the night of the big fire. I was there. I saw the whole thing, man. I saw the people screamin’ and jumpin’ and the ladies throwin’ their babies out the windows so they might has a chance. Cinch no chance in the buildig, man, no fuckin’ chance in the buildig. I remember this one old man, sandin’ there and lookin’ out his third story window. Real calm and not movin’ a muscle while all around him is orange and red fire and like people screamin’, brick collapsin’ ‘cause they ain’t got no wooden beams to hold them up no more and this one old man is just standin’ there like he ain’t afraid of nothin’. He’s crazy, somebody says, then some other guy says he might be blind and he don’t know what’s going on around him. Then I heard that this was a case of him bein’ a widdow man and he just got nothin’ in this life left to lose. His own life wasn’t worth the trouble it would take to try and save...I go to all the fires. I got one of them scanner things in my van. I like the way people are at fires, so honest and real. Them people in the building, they’re real honest. People watchin’ are honest too. Honest about being scared, or honest about being worried about the people inside, or just honest about liking to watch stuff burn.....Firemen are honest. Cops are honest too. Sometimes I think I might be the only dishonest one at them fires. Well, we’ll just have to wait and see what I say if somebody asks me how them fires get started.

(fast blackout)