Fire Starters
prologue
Fitz Michelson’s first memory of fire was at his sister Scout’s ninth birthday party. He was six years old. He knew that he must have seen it before then, at his own birthday parties or in the fireplace at Christmastime. But never the less it was the first time he really remembered it. There was a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and ‘Happy Birthday Scout’ written on it in pink icing. His mother, Marjorie had gotten trick candles. She lit them, they sang happy birthday, and Scout blew out her candles with one forceful gust. Then as if by magic they reignited. Scout blew them out again and once again they flared up. The party guests laughed as Scout tried two more times. All the while Fitz had looked on with amazement; it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. Fitz reached out to touch the flame, enticed by the way it way it danced in the light spring wind. His mother slapped his hand away. ‘No,’ she’d scolded him. Then she had plucked the candles off the cake and dropped them into a cup of water.
That night he’d snuck downstairs to the kitchen and lit all the rest of the trick candles. He’d held them all in his hands and blew them out over and over before submerging them in water, like he’d seen his mother do earlier.
After that Fitz couldn’t stop thinking about fire. He started slipping out to the woods to burn leaves with packs of matches he stole from the kitchen drawer. By the time he was ten he began to burn anything he could get his hands on. He’d make his way out to the forest when no one was home with an armful of blankets, old bathrobes, canvas sneakers, and books. He’d douse them in the accelerant that his father used to start the barbecue and drop in a lit match. It was a magnificent sight, every color of orange and yellow and a little bit of blue in the very middle. It made him smile to watch the flames climb up the pile of crap he’d collected. It felt like the greatest release in the world. Anything bad that happened was released in the fire. The F he’d gotten on his math test, Davy Matthews calling him gay on the playground, his sister scratching him with her acrylic nails when he took too long in the bathroom: all gone.
He quickly became obsessed with fire. He learned as much as he could about them, starting them and stopping them. He started to collect lighters, so that if he ever had the urge to burn something, he could. Some of them he bought from the local 7-11. Some of them he stole. His favorite one, a silver lighter with an intricate design on one side and initials on the other, had in fact, been pilfered from a businessman at the mall.
Until he was thirteen Fitz was sure that he controlled the fires not the other way around. But one day when he was walking home from a particularly bad day at school he’d decided to take a short cut through an unfamiliar patch of wood. That was when he saw it, an abandoned shack. It was so small, one room, and from what he could tell people had just been using it as a giant canvas for graffiti. He’d wanted to walk by, to continue back home, but the lighter in his jean’s pocket seemed to be calling to him. Before he knew it he was inside the shack with a pile of dead leaves at his feet and then he’d bent down and lit them. The little hovel burned faster than he thought it would. The flames from the leaves caught onto the tattered old curtains and then it was more like a giant fireball. He’d watched it burn for what seemed like hours but in reality was only about ten minutes. Then Fitz heard the roar of sirens a few blocks away, and he’d sprinted off into the distance.
This one instance set off a habit. All of a sudden burning old duvets and t-shirts wouldn’t do. He needed more. So Fitz began to scout out other locations. He mostly stuck to abandoned shacks and old office buildings and factories. He would go in and throw a Molotov cocktail through the window. He’d watch the place burn until he heard sirens and then he’d get the hell out of dodge.
For a long time everything was all right until Fitz got caught.
He was sixteen and had found an old house, it was big, there were no neighbors for miles, and no one had lived there in years. He burned it to the ground and then hightailed it out of there. Home free, or so he thought. The next morning when he was getting dressed for school, the police knocked on his door. His mother had answered it.
“Hello mam,” said a large, balding policeman. “Is your son home?”
“Fitz?” the policeman nodded. “Why what’s happened?”
“If it’s all the same mam,” the policeman shifted from side to side “I’d really like to talk to your son.”
The policeman had handcuffed Fitz, read him his rights, and brought him to the station with Marjorie following behind in her silver Volvo. She’d left her husband and daughter at home without a word.
At the station the police informed that Fitz and his mother that they had evidence that he was at the scene of the crime: the tag, from the t-shirt that he had used to plug the bottle of malatov cocktail. A tag from a three-year-old t-shirt that his mother had bought in a three pack from Target with, Fitz Michelson, written on in it with black sharpie in his mother’s loopy handwriting.
Fitz had been given a lawyer, a short but slight man with red hair, named Martin Greenbaulm. Mr. Greenbaulm had advised Fitz to confess. So he did. He confessed to the police and then again to the court psychologist. He told them that he’d been setting fires since he was a little boy. That he had burned down dozens of places but he couldn’t stop, it was like an addiction. Everyone he knew had been shocked, his parents, his sister, maybe most of all his friends.
After the confession, because he was under eighteen, the state had offered a plea deal. No time in a juvenile detention center and his record would be expunged when he turned eighteen, if he agreed to enter a mental health facility for his pyromania until he was deemed mentally competent by mental professionals.
That night he’d snuck downstairs to the kitchen and lit all the rest of the trick candles. He’d held them all in his hands and blew them out over and over before submerging them in water, like he’d seen his mother do earlier.
After that Fitz couldn’t stop thinking about fire. He started slipping out to the woods to burn leaves with packs of matches he stole from the kitchen drawer. By the time he was ten he began to burn anything he could get his hands on. He’d make his way out to the forest when no one was home with an armful of blankets, old bathrobes, canvas sneakers, and books. He’d douse them in the accelerant that his father used to start the barbecue and drop in a lit match. It was a magnificent sight, every color of orange and yellow and a little bit of blue in the very middle. It made him smile to watch the flames climb up the pile of crap he’d collected. It felt like the greatest release in the world. Anything bad that happened was released in the fire. The F he’d gotten on his math test, Davy Matthews calling him gay on the playground, his sister scratching him with her acrylic nails when he took too long in the bathroom: all gone.
He quickly became obsessed with fire. He learned as much as he could about them, starting them and stopping them. He started to collect lighters, so that if he ever had the urge to burn something, he could. Some of them he bought from the local 7-11. Some of them he stole. His favorite one, a silver lighter with an intricate design on one side and initials on the other, had in fact, been pilfered from a businessman at the mall.
Until he was thirteen Fitz was sure that he controlled the fires not the other way around. But one day when he was walking home from a particularly bad day at school he’d decided to take a short cut through an unfamiliar patch of wood. That was when he saw it, an abandoned shack. It was so small, one room, and from what he could tell people had just been using it as a giant canvas for graffiti. He’d wanted to walk by, to continue back home, but the lighter in his jean’s pocket seemed to be calling to him. Before he knew it he was inside the shack with a pile of dead leaves at his feet and then he’d bent down and lit them. The little hovel burned faster than he thought it would. The flames from the leaves caught onto the tattered old curtains and then it was more like a giant fireball. He’d watched it burn for what seemed like hours but in reality was only about ten minutes. Then Fitz heard the roar of sirens a few blocks away, and he’d sprinted off into the distance.
This one instance set off a habit. All of a sudden burning old duvets and t-shirts wouldn’t do. He needed more. So Fitz began to scout out other locations. He mostly stuck to abandoned shacks and old office buildings and factories. He would go in and throw a Molotov cocktail through the window. He’d watch the place burn until he heard sirens and then he’d get the hell out of dodge.
For a long time everything was all right until Fitz got caught.
He was sixteen and had found an old house, it was big, there were no neighbors for miles, and no one had lived there in years. He burned it to the ground and then hightailed it out of there. Home free, or so he thought. The next morning when he was getting dressed for school, the police knocked on his door. His mother had answered it.
“Hello mam,” said a large, balding policeman. “Is your son home?”
“Fitz?” the policeman nodded. “Why what’s happened?”
“If it’s all the same mam,” the policeman shifted from side to side “I’d really like to talk to your son.”
The policeman had handcuffed Fitz, read him his rights, and brought him to the station with Marjorie following behind in her silver Volvo. She’d left her husband and daughter at home without a word.
At the station the police informed that Fitz and his mother that they had evidence that he was at the scene of the crime: the tag, from the t-shirt that he had used to plug the bottle of malatov cocktail. A tag from a three-year-old t-shirt that his mother had bought in a three pack from Target with, Fitz Michelson, written on in it with black sharpie in his mother’s loopy handwriting.
Fitz had been given a lawyer, a short but slight man with red hair, named Martin Greenbaulm. Mr. Greenbaulm had advised Fitz to confess. So he did. He confessed to the police and then again to the court psychologist. He told them that he’d been setting fires since he was a little boy. That he had burned down dozens of places but he couldn’t stop, it was like an addiction. Everyone he knew had been shocked, his parents, his sister, maybe most of all his friends.
After the confession, because he was under eighteen, the state had offered a plea deal. No time in a juvenile detention center and his record would be expunged when he turned eighteen, if he agreed to enter a mental health facility for his pyromania until he was deemed mentally competent by mental professionals.