Alligator - Lisa Moore [100]
In the cab of the truck the boy’s eyes were rolled back in his head and his eyeballs were bluish. The eyelids quivered but didn’t close. The whites of the eyes stared up at the roof of the cab and Valentin was taking the corner on two wheels. Froth bubbled up from the corners of the boy’s mouth; his breathing was ragged; his lips were moving as in prayer. The boy was reciting something to himself, something ancient and ordinary, full of rote spirituality. The wordless praying was interrupted by rough, weak coughs full of phlegm and it sounded like the boy’s lungs were irrevocably damaged. Blisters had come up all over his face and neck. The truck stank of melted plastic and smoke and the boy’s burns. His windbreaker had shrivelled in rough glittery scales, like the skin a snake leaves behind.
They had entered the house in the dark. The boy was stumbling and incoherent but he had noticed the piano as soon as they entered the living room. He had bent over to read the sheet music that lay open on the wooden ridge above the keys. It was too dark to read the sheet music but the boy continued to lean, his face close to the paper.
Valentin had said, We don’t need the lights.
Frank stood that way, apparently reading in the dark, until he began to weave slightly, forward and back, and had to put his hand out to steady himself. He avoided falling face first into the piano by pressing three fingers against the lid, which was closed over the keys. A passing car sent headlights zooming over the walls and they hit the fishbowl on the lid of the piano and the goldfish flared a fierce, pulsing orange and quivered all over and the aqua-coloured stones on the bottom and the plastic palm tree were all full of surging brightness and then, just as quickly, fell into shadows. The fish lost its colour and sank slowly to the bottom of the bowl. The boy turned his back on the piano abruptly and swayed sideways like a punching clown and righted himself.
I need to sit down, he had said. He had spoken in a formal tone, and he had closed his eyes in the effort to enunciate the thought. Valentin took him by the shoulders and helped him to the chair in the centre of the room.
I need a rest, Frank said.
You are a good boy, Valentin had said.
I’m pretty tired.
Sit down in this nice chair.
He waited until the boy’s head dropped. Frank was very still and then his head rolled back and his mouth hung open and he snorted deeply.
He would feel absolutely nothing. He would suffocate before he burned. He would never wake. Valentin waited before dropping the matches. He waited for an eternity, but the boy didn’t move. The boy was out cold. He struck a match and lowered it carefully toward the carpet but the flame leapt up from the floor to greet the match.
The fire ran in ribbons from the match he dropped. It traced the invisible ropes of gasoline, it ran down the hallway and into the living room and kitchen and the flames looked like something that had always been there, but had been lying in wait. Valentin had splashed the walls as well and the flames traced the splashes that had sunk into the paint. Through the living-room window Valentin saw flames leap from one curtain to another curtain. They leapt up the stairs like weasels. He saw one of the upstairs windows go bright, then the next window, and finally the third window on the second floor.
Valentin was outside in the fresh air and shoved the stick he had chosen beneath the handle and he tried the door but it wouldn’t open. He pulled hard on the doorknob and the stick dug itself deeper into the ground and the door didn’t open.
Then he ran down the path and got in the truck. He was pulling out of the driveway when he saw the chair come through the window and the boy hurl himself onto the lawn. He saw