“Stop being such a wimp,” I told him. “You’re a dog in a park—go chase a squirrel or something. Eat a bunny rabbit. Reclaim your birthright as a wild animal.” He growled pitiably and dropped his head on his paws.
“Yeah,” I said, just to have something to say. I tilted up the grill, which let out a metallic squeal, and started to build my fire. There are plenty of ways to build a fire, but I tend to use a method called the log cabin: thin sticks, laid out in a square, with larger and larger sticks on top of them to build up the walls. I wasn’t supposed to light fires, but that was just a self-imposed rule: there was no law against it. The city had built these stupid metal boxes expressly to light fires in. There was nothing wrong with it.
Except that I’d told myself not to do it, and now here I was.
I built the log cabin about four inches high, and then built a larger one around it. The flames would start on the smallest sticks at the bottom of the center, and then slowly spread up and out until the entire thing was on fire. I had nothing against a good accelerant, of course—sometimes you needed a good dose of gasoline or lighter fluid to save time—but if you built it right, all you really needed was the wood and a single match. I prided myself on doing it right. I studied my layout, crouching down to see inside, choosing exactly where I’d place the match, and when I was satisfied I pulled out a matchbook and ripped out a single cardboard stick. I folded the book backward, pressing the bulbous chemical head between the starter strip and the outer flap, and ripped them apart. The friction ignited the chemicals, which flared to life in a sputtering yellow flame. I cupped it in my hands to keep it safe.
“Think I can do it in one match?”
Boy Dog gave a noncommittal whine.
“You’ve never supported me in my dreams, Boy Dog,” I said. “I could have been the best arsonist there ever was, but you wanted me to go to law school.” I leaned in close to the log cabin, and gently held the match to the prime lighting spot I’d made out of twigs and splinters; it caught, and I dropped the match and watched the yellow flames turn orange as they found more fuel to burn. The metal was still wet from the snow, but as the fire heated up, the damp disappeared—it didn’t hiss or steam, but seemed as if it simply ceased to exist.
This was my pressure valve. When everything else was just too much to take, and all my … rage, I guess. Confusion. Energy. When all of the emotions I’d never known how to deal with finally built up so high that I thought I would burst, I lit a fire and let them out, and everything was good again.
Except it wasn’t working.