Obscura Burning (4 page)

“Why not?” Dad still doesn’t look up.

“
You
can’t even look at me, Dad. How the hell you think some kids are going to order food and not end up puking on the table when they see my face?” I smash my bowl in the sink and stomp out of the kitchen, slamming the screen door behind me. Dad calls after me, but I ignore him. Nothing he can say will change my scars.

* * *

I run all the way to Shira’s. It feels good, my lungs burning for air, my hair plastered to my face with sweat, my shirt drenched. I slip on loose shale and skin my knees, but keep running.

I bleed, therefore I am.

I stop to catch my breath and lose my breakfast in a clump of tobosagrass. Not even ten a.m. and already sweltering. Some think that’s Obscura’s fault too, messing with tides and affecting our climate.

Mirages dance on the horizon, making water out of the dust. Not a breath of wind today. Just stale heat that presses down on a person like a giant hobnail boot determined to crush your bones.

I jog the rest of the way, arriving sticky and smelly on Shira’s doorstep. Two knocks, and she answers.

“What happened to your knees?” She’s dressed in black, a dress that looks more like lingerie, her unruly hair curling around her face. Barefoot and brown. Shira’s more caramel than cinnamon thanks to her white mother’s genes.

“Where’s your mom?”

“Town, probably drunk by now.” She folds her arms and leans against the trailer door. “You didn’t call.”

“Yeah, I was a dick the other day.”

Her eyes search my face. I slick ratty strands of hair over my forehead, down across the keloid where my ear used to be.

“I’m sorry, Kyle. Guess I just feel awful about the whole thing. I keep thinking maybe if we’d just all sat down together and talked about things, you know? Things would’ve been different.”

“I’m the one who started the fire.”

“Maybe, but the reason we were there in the first place is kinda my fault.”

It would be so easy to make this all her fault. Part of it is her fault. She should’ve said no, but instead, she let me climb into her bed.

We’re both really interested in the ground for a while.

“Listen.” I break the silence. “I’ll do this stupid memorial thing.”

“
Stupid
memorial?”

“Yeah, I think it’s stupid, but I’ll still do it.”

“You want a soda?” She disappears inside the trailer and I follow her past clanking wind chimes.

We sit on her bed in the whirring respite provided by a rickety fan. She prods a grazed knee before tracing the nodules of scar tissue along my arm with a single finger. Tease.

“Do you ever wish it was me who died and not Daniel?” Her nail tickles a ridge above my elbow.

“No.” As if that’s the truth. I turn to look at her and kiss her forehead. Her bottom lip starts trembling again.

“Sometimes I wish I’d died.” She swats a tear off her cheek.

There was a time Shira couldn’t stop laughing, dissolving into hysteria every time Danny made a joke. Always the bubbly one, the one ready for adventure and fun. She’d had long hair then, beautiful chocolate brown that swished around her narrow hips. Not long after the fire, she’d visited me in the hospital. I almost didn’t recognize her. She’d used kitchen scissors, shearing her shiny hair into a haphazard bob. It made her look younger and more fragile.

“Maybe we all should’ve died.” I sound so bitter.

“You ever think maybe we did?” She stares off at nothing. “Like, maybe we’re really dead and this is purgatory. Or like maybe we’re stuck between worlds.” That’s Shira for you, warped spirituality somewhere between old Native tradition and New Age patchouli incense crap.

“Maybe Obscura’s preventing us from crossing over.” I grin, only it doesn’t sound nearly as ridiculous as I’d hoped. The sunlight splays its vermilion fingers across her bare legs. She lies back and the dress rides up her thighs. Gripping the sheer fabric between thumb and index finger, I tug the hem down toward her knees and leave my hand there. I want to tell her about Danny, about everything. I want to say sorry and mean it. The words are right there just waiting for me to open my mouth.

“I should go.” I tug my hand through my sweaty hair.

“Here, I found this. Thought you’d like it.” She picks up a postcard from her floor.

A picture of Shiprock. Nothing special.

“Turn it over, silly.”

And I do. There’s a poem scrawled in Shira’s curly letters, words about stars and dust and death.

She recites the words embossed on the card, and a chill sets all my hair standing on end.

“Is this Navajo?”

“No, Muskogee. I think it’s my favorite.”

“It’s…” There aren’t really words to describe what I’m feeling, and the words are more than beautiful. I recite the poem myself, liking the way the words fit in my mouth and roll off my tongue. It’s one I’ll have to learn by heart.

“Thank you.” I stow it in my pants pocket.

“Thought you’d like it.” She grins.

“What you doing today?” she asks.

“Going into town, maybe find a job.” I shrug. “What about you?”

She slumps into her pillow and scratches off newly applied nail polish. “Same as always.”

Staying home, fixing up more wind chimes in the shed out back, waiting for the station to call so she can go down and fetch her wasted mother. At least I never had to do that for my dad. Mom was the one who got midnight calls, who dragged him home from the bar.

“I’ll see you later. Thanks for the soda.”

Shira kneels on the bed and kisses me on the cheek. The left one with worse scars. I appreciate the gesture, but I can’t feel her lips. The skin’s dead, nerves singed.

“Think about what you wanna do at the memorial.”

I nod and step out into the harsh bright day.

* * *

Walking through town is like running a gauntlet. It’s been thirteen weeks since the fire and I still get apologetic glances and people I barely know asking me how I’m doing. Wonder what they’d whisper to each other at the supermarket checkout if I told them the truth.

There’s a sign in Shep’s hardware, says they’re looking for help over the summer. I go up to the counter. Bobby’s at the register, an old man of mixed blood, weathered and desert-bitten.

“Hey, Kyle. How you doing, son?”

There are two kinds of people, those that avoid looking at me altogether, and those that make a conscious effort to look only at my eyes and nowhere else. Bobby’s the eye-gazing type, staring at me without blinking.

“Sign says you’re looking for help. I’m up for the job.”

“Ah, yeah, well…” Bobby scratches his stubbled jowls. “I should really take down that sign. We just filled the spot this morning. Real sorry, Kyle,” he drawls, his heavy accent staining every word.

Mrs. Clark and her kid, Toby, aged six, are stocking up on duct tape and flashlights, batteries and matches. I walk past them without a glance.

“Mama, Kyle looks like a monster.” Toby doesn’t even bother whispering.

I traipse through town. It’s not hard to avoid people I know, easier for all of us to pretend we don’t see each other. Only one guy makes a point of letting me know he’s seen me. Sheriff Riggs. He’s strolling up the sidewalk in my direction. If I cross the street, it’ll be dead obvious I’m avoiding him.

Mostly Navajo and built like an ox, Sheriff Riggs pauses to light a cigarette with a lighter, regarding me through squinted eyes as the flame ignites the tobacco. I’m mesmerized by the dancing flame, the flicker of orange licking at the paper of the sheriff’s cigarette.

“Sheriff.” I nod by way of greeting.

“How you doing today, Mr. Wolfe?” The sheriff takes a deep drag and exhales slowly. It’s always questions with him. Why were you in Ghost Town?
To get drunk.
Where did you get the gasoline?
Stole it from my dad’s pickup.
Did you start the fire…? Should’ve have been easy to say yes, considering how many others I’ve started. But I gave up that sport when my balls dropped, when Armadillo Park ran out of rubbish bins to set ablaze.

“Fine, thanks.” I attempt a smile, but it turns into a grimace.

“You take care now.” Sheriff Riggs tips his Stetson at me and turns up the street. My palms are sweating. I wipe them on my pants and stalk off down the street hoping no one else wants to stop for a chat.

There are posters on every corner, in all the shop windows announcing the Fourth of July street dance. Last year we all went; I even wore this dollar-store cowboy hat. Danny came second in the chili-eating contest, and I danced with Shira for almost an hour to a ranchera band.

Don’t think I’ll be going this year.

A few of the dance posters are obscured by the same ridiculous leaflets decrying debauchery, demanding that all us sinners repent before doomsday cometh. Bunch of nut jobs. Nothing but eschatological propaganda. At least the townsfolk of Coyote’s Luck don’t seem to care too much; they’re more interested in the dance than the end of the world.

There’s an ice-cream van parked at the end of the street near the community center. Kids are on the court, a bunch of guys, shirtless and glistening with sweat as they bound after the ball. A girl turns away from the van with two ice creams, headed up the path. She stops dead when she sees me.

Gabriela.

Her ice cream’s leaving chocolate trails on her fingers, but she ignores them and glares at me instead.

“Hey, Gabriela,” I say when I get a little closer.

She gags then spits a gobbet of saliva aimed at my shoes. It lands in the dust a hairbreadth from my toe. Gabriela pushes past me, shoulders back and head held high. I guess I deserve that.

I watch as she stomps along the path, handing a dripping cone to her boyfriend, Angel. We went to school together, but the guy’s never liked me. He takes the ice cream, staring daggers in my direction, before draping his arm across Gabriela’s shoulders.

Another girl’s leaning over the ice-cream counter, reading, her blonde hair falling over her shoulder from a high ponytail. I can’t be sure because of the bug-eye sunglasses obscuring her face, but my insides twist into knots all the same. She looks up from her book and smiles.

“Hey ya, Scarface, want an ice cream?” No one’s ever acknowledged my scars so bluntly. It can only be her: Mya, the bitch from the swimming pool. She flicks the hair off her shoulder, and shoestring straps thin as gossamer strands are all that’s holding up her shirt. I should walk straight on by, ignoring her, but I can’t. Instead, I smooth my bangs over the left side of my face and approach the van.

“Are you always this rude to prospective customers?” I ask.

“Only the cute ones.” She grins. It must be sarcasm, so I guess that makes me the sucker for sticking around.

Mya pushes her sunglasses up onto her head and reaches for a spray bottle, one of those plastic things with a fan attached. She mists her face then aims at me, dousing me in cool water.

“Thanks.” I wipe my face and she rewards me with a smile. White teeth, not quite straight across the bottom, and flashing hazel eyes. “Can I get a Coke float?”

“Coming right up.” While she’s busy with soda and soft serve, I peek at the book.
Astronomy for Dummies.
She’s folded the corner of a page, bookmarking the part on visitors, comets, and meteors.

“You into astronomy?” She hands me a tall glass. The ice cream’s already melting. I take a slurp before answering with a question of my own.

“Why were you such a bitch the other day?” I ask before I realize this Mya probably doesn’t know what the hell I’m talking about.

“Whoa, I haven’t seen you since Christmas.”

“Sorry, I get confused.”

“Not like we ever had a conversation before anyway.” She flips open the book and continues reading while I just stand there struggling to find words to fill the silence.

“So you weren’t at the pool the other day?” I’m an idiot for saying it out loud.

“Kyle, I haven’t seen you in months. What pool?”

Awkward. I can’t backtrack so I’m honest. “Thought I saw you at Sully’s Fitness Center.”

Mya looks at me and closes the book, folding her hands on top. “You sure those flames didn’t cook your brain too?”

“Still a bitch.” Some things don’t change between worlds. I stomp away and slump down on the dead grass ridge overlooking the courts.

Long legs appear in my peripheral vision. She’s tapping her foot.

“OK, two things, Scarface. One, Sully’s has been closed for renovations for weeks, so no, I don’t go swimming at some decrepit shithole that’s under construction. And two…” She takes a deep breath. “Aren’t you sick of everyone being nice to you just ’cause you got char-grilled?”

Pain in my head again, sharper this time, making me squint. The knot in my belly turns to a block of cement.

“You look like you’re gonna puke.”

Implosion seems imminent. I think I might just crumble into dust. I rub my hands over my face. It’s still wet with mist and sweat.

“Sorry, I get confused sometimes.”

“Yeah, whole planet’s getting addled thanks to Obscura.” Mya plonks down next to me, her arm brushing mine. We sit in amicable silence for a while watching the basketball game.

“Hey ya,
mamacita.
” One of the guys waves from the courts to Mya. Nicholas—I can’t remember his last name. Lanky guy with a lazy smile and ripped abs.

Mya responds with her middle finger and Nicholas shrugs, but he continues to put on a good show. I’m checking him out a lot more than Mya is.

“Friend of yours?” I nod in his direction.

“Ex,” she says emphatically.

“You’re right though,” I say when Nicholas and the others finish their game and don their shirts again.

“I always am.” She grins and I return her smile with a lopsided one of my own.

“I mean about people being nice to the freak. I wish I had a quarter for every time someone said they’re sorry about what happened.”

“I’d aim higher, I’d ask for at least a dollar.” She stretches out her legs. She’s wearing the same denim shorts that don’t even reach midthigh.