The fire began at night
sometime after the winter sun had set. It started in Mr. Broderick's back yard.
A pile of firewood had caught fire. Some say it was from a discarded cigarette
butt which had not been fully extinguished. Thank God no one was hurt and the
fire was quickly discovered and put out within minutes once the fire trucks had
arrived,
Mr. Broderick did not
smoke and he had not been in his backyard all day.
"Someone passing by
must have thrown the cigarette butt on the wood.” he told the fire inspector
investigating the case
"But, its odd that the
wood caught fire fro a cigarette butt, isn't it?" The fire inspector
asked.
"Besides the wood pile
is at the back of the house away from the street." he continued.
The inspector was puzzled
and so were Mr. Broderick and also the small crowd of local curious people who
had gathered to be witness to the spectacle.
Narrow Straits was a small
town, an inbred community where everyone knew one another and families often
intermarried so everybody was somebody's cousin. It was a town where people
grew up and stayed, even those who went to college, (which were very few.)
"We like it here,"
Jake once said when he was asked why he liked living there. "It's peaceful
and we have no crime."
The town of
About a week after the fire in Mr.
Broderick's wood pile a second fire broke out. This was in Mr. Cullen's
trashcan near the side of the road. Again the fire brigade came to the rescue
and put out the fire before it could become a blaze and once again it was
started at night close to nine in the evening. At least that's what the fire
inspector suspected. This time no cigarette butt was found but some old
newspapers had been set on fire which set a stream of red flames and black
smoke into the air.
Mr. Cullen was surprised
that his trashcan had been torched.
"Who would set a trashcan
on fire?" he asked the police officer who had joined the fire inspector
for the investigation. the police sergeant and the
fire inspector called both Mr. Broderick and Mr. Cullen into private counsel.
"Do either of you men
have any enemies in the community? I mean, does anyone here bear you a
grudge?"
This interrogation shocked
both men. "No, this is a peaceful town.”
“They argued in defense.
“We've been here all our lives. No one we know wants to hurt us."
The homes of the Brodericks and the Cullens were
several blocks apart and the origin of both fires remained suspicious.
After further queries the fire
inspector announced, "We suspect this is the work of arson. These fires
are deliberate and we have to find the person involved."
With the help of the local priest
an emergency meeting was held in the church hall. The announcement was posted
in stores and on billboards in town. Notices were attached to telephone poles
and fences. "Emergency Meeting! All town folks
are asked to attend a meeting at the Church Hall at 8 p.m. on Friday the 21st
concerning the two fires at Mr. Broderick and Mr. Cullen's home."
When Friday arrived the
Church hall was filled to capacity. Fr. Kiernan the local pastor remarked that
more people were present at this meeting than ever came to Church services.
The mood was somber and the
fire inspector along with the police commissioner led the meeting.
The fire inspector was
the first to speak. he stood up and gazed out at the
crowd gathered to hear what the meeting was about.
"We called you here tonight
because we think you have a problem in your community. As you know, over the
past two weeks we have had two fires. No great property damage was done and the
fires seemed to be accidents, yet we have reasons to believe that they were
deliberate and meant to get attention."
The group gathered began to
murmur among themselves. One gentleman raised his hand and stood up, "Can
you be more specific?"
The fire inspector continued.
"We have seen this pattern before and we have reason to believe that the
fires were deliberate and will occur again unless the person who set the fires
is stopped. We also believe that the person is a member of this
community."
The group began to murmur among
themselves and became agitated and enlivened.
"We also think,"
the fire inspector continued, “that there may be some of you here who know who
the person is and are trying to protect him or her from the police."
The crowd suddenly became silent
and the police commissioner stood up, "Arson is a crime but it is also a
call fro help. Whoever has been setting these fires is a very sick person and
needs immediate help. If any of you know who the person is please come forward
and let us know. If you don't want to be known, we can give you a number to
call and you can leave a message, but we need your help."
The crowd gather in the hall
became somber and serious. They looked at each other and began to suspect one
another. "This has always been a peaceful town." "It has always
been a safe place to live." "We never had to fear walking the streets
at night." This is what went through the minds of those present.
Suddenly they were confronted with
suspicion. An arsonist walked among them. He was in their midst. He was their
neighbor. Perhaps he had grown up among them, worked with them, taken part in
their festivals and was known to everyone. Who could it be?
days
passed and suspicions grew. No one was to be trusted. In the evening everyone
stayed awake for fear their home may be set on fire. The community had been so
closely woven together into a fabric but it was falling apart at the seams. It
had been a community of trust but now it was a group of people who began to
isolate themselves from each other.
"It must be someone from outside the neighborhood" was the
general conclusion reached by most people. What was once an ideal place to live
now became xenophobic and unwelcoming even to the point of becoming hostile and
strange, Even the lone driver who stopped in a store
to buy a pack of cigarettes was not welcomed.
A week had passed since the town meeting
when the fire inspector made a visit to the parish priest.
"Father, may I speak with you?"
"Yes, of course."
"Well, I mean in private."
The priest led the fire commissioner
into a consultation room next to the rectory.
The fire inspector seemed both pleased
and worried.
"Father, I think we’ve caught our
man."
"You mean the arsonist?"
"yes," he said with a nod of
his head," We think it's Jim O'Connor."
The priest turned white.
"No, it couldn't be him. He’s only
a kid."
"Sixteen. Old
enough to know right from wrong."
"But he comes from a good family
and has always been a good boy. He would never do that!"
"Father what you say is true
but all the evidence points to him and he needs help."
Jim was sixteen years old and well-bred
in the neighborhood. He was a quiet, shy boy who always respected his teachers
and tried to please his elders. At school he did well and got along with his
classmates who treated him as equal even tough the found him difficult to
understand. he was mysterious and preferred to be
alone most of the time often distancing himself from the group. Although he was
not the best student when it came to grades, he was earnest in his work and
never was absent from classes.
It was in his second year of high
school when his mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer. It was discovered at
a routine health check and caused no pain. a period of
denial, delayed therapy until its constant and steady growth progressed through
several stages.
Jim watched his mother slowly succumb
as her health deteriorated. he kept the pain within
himself as he observed his once
strong, indomitable mother slowly lose energy and weaken into helpless
debility. How such a strong mother who managed a home of seven children could
be humbled so quickly by a ravaging disease.
Her illness only caused him
to retreat further into himself and a distance grew between him and others. He
confided in no one and spoke to not a soul about his other's illness convinced
that in silence there would be a cure.
When his mother died, Jim showed
no remorse, not even a tear, but he was totally changed. he
sat in front of her waked body like a soldier with eyes focused on her remains.
It was as though his own soul had taken a departure from his own body to join
her in the afterlife.
The months that followed the
funeral were quiet and lonely. At home the children hardly spoke about their
feelings. The mother's presence was everywhere in the home. Her spirit lingered
in corners and crevices. Everyone expected her to reappear at any moment to
prepare a final supper, to offer consolation and advice, to encourage and most
precious of all - to be silent. She had been a driving force within the family
and even in death her spirit refused to let go.
Several months after her
death, the father, an equally power presence in the family announced to the
children that he was going to take on a second wife. He explained to the
children that such a decision was based on a need more powerful than love, a
need to provide the children with someone to care for them, prepare their
meals, clean their clothes, and maintain the home. His announcement was met
with a profound silence.
What he thought would be a
solution was really an open door to confusion. The children had mixed feelings
about accepting their new mothers into their home. It was unfortunate because
she was a good woman. She did not want to replace their real mother or to prove
herself a better substitute. She only anted to fill a void, to give then
security and a place to call home.
All of the children accepted
the substitute except Jim. He felt pain. He did not want to be appeased. He
wanted what was and had been and not what could be. He could not express his
anger and frustration but he wanted his protest to be heard.
It was then, after three months of
isolated pain, that he set his first fire. He set it in such places where it could
not spread and then he retired to a distant spot to watch it grow. The red
flames, the burning glow and power of anger and love - fire - the paradox of
nature. We need it to keep warm and when not under control, it destroys.
After the first fire, he was
appeased for a while. Then came an urge; a second, large fire was needed to get
full attention; a cry for help or a manifestation of power?
The second fire was larger
and brought forth the concern of the community. It was Jake who first saw him
as the one who set the fire. But Jake had known the boy since he was a child.
He was protective of the family and kept his silence.
In small communities silence
is hard to keep and eyes are ever vigilant.
"This setting of fires is
only a phase,” Jake reasoned with himself, "Besides he sets them off away
for the houses. Just a phase he'll grow out of one of these days. Give him
time."
But the fires continued and
the fire inspector and chief of police came upon the scene, and with their
instinct and training played detective and found the arsonist, sixteen year old
Jim O’Connor.
******************
"So what are we going to
do?" the priest asked suggesting the decision was also his.
"Well, we'll take him down to
the station, make a report and have him speak wit a psychologist to determine
his motive. It's a bit of a routine.” After a pause he continued. “We’ll go
easy on him.”
The news spread quickly through
the community. It was murmured in the supermarket near the school and the post
office near the gas station. In rumors came also the embellished retellings,
details were added which had nothing to do with the truth.
An officer came later that
afternoon to the O’ Connors home and took Jim away. A small group had gathered in
silence at the front door as Jimmy’s mother and father stood tear-stained in stoic
silence at the entrance.
Soon after the O’Connors
sold their home and moved away from the town of Narrow Straits. No one spoke
much of the fires afterwards and in time they were near forgotten buried under
the passage of time and the onward thrust of the change of seasons.