Educated

I decide to ask Richard. He’s older than I, and has a sharper memory.
Besides, last I heard, Luke no longer has a telephone.
I call. The first thing Richard remembers is the twine, which, true to his
nature, he refers to as a “baling implement.” Next he remembers the spilled
gasoline. I ask how Luke managed to put out the fire and get himself down
the mountain, given that he was in shock when I found him. Dad was with
him, Richard says flatly.
Right.
Then why wasn’t Dad at the house?
Richard says, Because Luke had run through the weeds and set the
mountain afire. You remember that summer. Dry, scorching. You can’t go
starting forest fires in farm country during a dry summer. So Dad put Luke in
the truck and told him to drive to the house, to Mother. Only Mother was
gone.
Right.
I think it over for a few days, then sit back down to write. Dad is there in
the beginning—Dad with his funny jokes about socialists and dogs and the
roof that keeps liberals from drowning. Then Dad and Luke go back up the
mountain, Mother drives away and I turn the tap to fill the kitchen sink.
Again. For the third time it feels like.
On the mountain something is happening. I can only imagine it but I see it
clearly, more clearly than if it were a memory. The cars are stacked and
waiting, their fuel tanks ruptured and drained. Dad waves at a tower of cars
and says, “Luke, cut off those tanks, yeah?” And Luke says, “Sure thing,
Dad.” He lays the torch against his hip and strikes flint. Flames erupt from
nowhere and take him. He screams, fumbles with the twine, screams again,
and takes off through the weeds.
Dad chases him, orders him to stand still. It’s probably the first time in his
whole life that Luke doesn’t do something when Dad is telling him to. Luke
is fast but Dad is smart. He takes a shortcut through a pyramid of cars and
tackles Luke, slamming him to the ground.
I can’t picture what happens next, because nobody ever told me how Dad
put out the fire on Luke’s leg. Then a memory surfaces—of Dad, that night in
the kitchen, wincing as Mother slathers salve on his hands, which are red and
blistering—and I know what he must have done.
Luke is no longer on fire.