42
BY THE TIME we reached the center of town, most of Babbington seemed to be there, drawn by the light of the fire or the sound of the sirens. Margot and Martha and I squeezed through the crowd to get as close as we could. Standing, facing the fire, we felt the heat of the flames, and yet we also felt a chill on our backs, and so, oddly, the flames were comforting, and the night air was unsettling, just the opposite of what one might ordinarily have expected.
The girls felt the chill, and shuddered, drew closer to me, and linked their arms with mine.
“What do you suppose it means?” I asked.
“Means?” asked Margot. She shuddered again.
“Yes,” I said. “It must mean something, don’t you think?”
“Why?” asked Martha.
“I don’t know why, exactly,” I said, “but—look!”
The marquee was beginning to collapse. It announced a film called We Walk a Dusty Road.
“It’s sad, isn’t it?” I said.
“The paper said it was a bittersweet comedy,” said Margot.
“I meant seeing the theater burn.”
“I knew what you meant,” she said, and she dug her elbow into my side.
The marquee pitched toward the sidewalk, then fell in a burst of sparks and soot.
“It’s the end of something, isn’t it?” I said.
“It’s the end of our Friday nights at the movies,” said Martha.
“We could always see the cowboy pictures,” I said.
“Let’s go home,” said Margot. “It’s cold.”
We looked for Andy and Rosetta, to tell them that we were going, and found them in an animated conversation with Mr. Locke. He had been the principal of the high school the night the Nevsky mansion burned and was now the superintendent of schools.
“Essentially, then, what you’ve been saying,” Mr. Locke was saying to Rosetta, “is that the fire is somehow more than merely a fire. It is a sign of something. It means something.”
“That’s what I was saying,” I whispered to Margot.
“Of course,” said Rosetta. “Of course it means something. The meanings in such things come from ourselves, you know.”
“Ah, yes, exactly, exactly!” said Mr. Locke. “As I always say, the meanings we find in events are ours alone, the laggard stepchildren of the facts. Now, a fire, like this, we might see as the end of something—”
“I said that, too,” I whispered to the girls.
“Shh,” said Martha. “I want to hear this.”
“Oh, certainly,” said Rosetta. “All you have to do is think of all the metaphors we have derived from fire, and you could make a catalogue of all the meanings that people will take away from here when they make their way home.”
“Up in flames,” suggested Andy.
“The first spark of love,” offered Mr. Locke.
“The last dying embers,” said Andy.
“Rekindling an old flame,” said Rosetta.
The girls were snuggling against me, and I put my arms around them. In the crowd, it seemed to me, no one was likely to notice.
“Burning passion, flaming desire,” said Mr. Locke. He threw an arm around Rosetta, apparently unthinkingly.
“What are you up to back there?” asked Rosetta.
“Up to?” said Mr. Locke. “Oh—ah—just—smoothing your coat—”
“I thought you were picking my pocket,” said Rosetta.
“Oh, that’s good!” said Mr. Locke. “That’s very good! Picking your pocket! Oh, there’s Mrs. Locke at last! Excuse me, won’t you?”
He made his way through the crowd, and Andy began to laugh.
“It’s getting cold,” said Rosetta. “Why don’t we go?”
The five of us left, taking the route that the girls and I usually took, through the alley and along Main Street, toward the park.
When we reached the Poop Deck, Andy said, “Rosie, how about a little slivovitz? What do you say?”
“I wouldn’t say no,” she said.
Glancing at us, Andy said, “You kids don’t want to come with us, do you?”
“No,” said Margot. “We’ll go on home.”
“I’ve still got a lot of work to do,” I said.
Andy and Rosetta went into the Poop Deck, and we walked on, through the park, to the Nevsky mansion, where we stopped and stood for a minute, looking at the ruined shell, silhouetted against the glow of the dying Fine Arts fire.
“You can see why I thought the mansion was burning, can’t you?” I asked.
“Sort of,” said Margot.
“Only sort of?”
“I can see that you’d see it if you wanted to see it,” she said.
“I guess you’re right,” I said, and I could see that she was. “I think I wanted to be in one of those old stories.”
“Now you have a story of your own,” said Martha. “‘The Night the Fine Arts Theater Burned.’”
“It was so vivid,” I said. “It seemed real.” I paused, then turned suddenly, as if startled, and took the part of Sven in Frozen Dust, calling out, “What was that?”
“What?” said Margot.
“I thought I heard the cry of a herring gull being disemboweled by a goshawk.”
“Nonsense,” said Martha.
“Must have been my imagination,” I said. “Let’s go.”
We hadn’t taken more than a few steps when I stopped and said again, “What was that?”
“What now?” said Margot.
“I thought I saw a dark-haired girl cross the road and disappear into the shadows.”
“Nonsense,” Martha said again.
“Must have been my imagination,” I said.
They threw their arms around me and drew me into a lizard kiss.
[to be continued]
Have you missed an episode or two or several?
You can begin reading at the beginning or you can catch up by visiting the archive or consulting the index to the Topical Guide. The Substack serialization of Little Follies begins here; Herb ’n’ Lorna begins here; Reservations Recommended begins here; Where Do You Stop? begins here; What a Piece of Work I Am begins here; At Home with the Glynns begins here.
You can listen to the episodes on the Personal History podcast. Begin at the beginning or scroll through the episodes to find what you’ve missed. The Substack podcast reading of Little Follies begins here; Herb ’n’ Lorna begins here; Reservations Recommended begins here; Where Do You Stop? begins here; What a Piece of Work I Am begins here; At Home with the Glynns begins here.
You can listen to “My Mother Takes a Tumble” and “Do Clams Bite?” complete and uninterrupted as audiobooks through YouTube.
You can ensure that you never miss a future issue by getting a free subscription. (You can help support the work by choosing a paid subscription instead.)
At Apple Books you can download free eBooks of Little Follies, Herb ’n’ Lorna, Reservations Recommended, and Where Do You Stop? and What a Piece of Work I Am.
You’ll find overviews of the entire work in An Introduction to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy (a pdf document), The Origin Story (here on substack), Between the Lines (a video, here on Substack), and at Encyclopedia.com.
Share this post