An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England_ A Novel - Brock Clarke [13]
I was sitting on my front porch, which was really just a concrete slab that we called a porch because we liked to sit on it. I'd just turned off my mower, the roar of it still in my ears, and so I didn't hear the son of my accidental victims drive up, park his jeep on the street, then walk up the driveway, didn't know he was there at all until he was right in front of me. His name was Thomas, Thomas Coleman, although I didn't know this yet. I was looking down in thought when he came up to where I was sitting, and so I saw his feet before I saw the rest of him. He was wearing hiking boots, the waterproof kind.
"Are you Sam Pulsifer?" he said. At the sound of the voice, a stillborn lump caught in my throat, because I thought I knew who this voice and those feet belonged to. I was sure it was a reporter. I hadn't spoken to one in years, but I remembered the way they talked, always leading you away from your version of the truth and toward theirs; I remembered their tiny spiral-bound notebooks and the way they looked so eager to ask you their questions, to which they already knew the answers, and so disappointed in the way you answered them.
"Yes, I'm Sam," I said, then raised my eyes to look at the reporter and found that he wasn't one, which I could tell at first glance. For one thing, no visible notebook. For another, no pen or pencil. And unlike the reporters I remembered, now that he'd asked his question and I'd answered it, he didn't seem inclined to ask another one but instead just stood there and looked at me. I let him, and looked back, too. He was not so tall, but he was skinny, real skinny; I could tell this even under all his clothes. He was wearing lined jeans (I could see the red flannel peeking out from under the cuffs and over the hiking boots) and a flannel shirt over which he wore a corduroy shirt over which he wore a fleece vest, even though it was freakishly warm out for November, and if I'd known the guy better I would have told him that if he ate more he wouldn't have to wear so many clothes. I was a walking, shirtless advertisement for that truth. And then there was his face, which was gaunt, and pale, so pale, and pockmarked, too; if my face was the flaming sun, then his was the cratered moon.
"I'm Thomas Coleman," he said.
"OK, nice to meet you," I said, and stuck out my hand, which Thomas didn't take. His jaw started pumping a little bit, as if working up some saliva to spit on the hand I offered to him, and so I took it back.
"You don't recognize my name, do you?" he said, and he was right in that. There was nothing, no bells or whistles; right then my memory was a happy, empty, echoing place.
"Well, I do recognize the name Thomas," I said, trying to be polite. "But then again, it's a pretty common name." Which it was, and I meant this seriously, but he took it as sarcasm. I could tell by the way his jaw started working double time. He was an angry man, all right, and maybe that's why he was so skinny: chewing so hard on his anger that he didn't have the time or the energy or the appetite to chew on anything else.
"Thomas Coleman," he finally said. "My parents were Linda and David Coleman. You killed them in the Emily Dickinson House fire."
"Oh!" I said, since I didn't know what else to say, and then, because this suddenly seemed like a more formal occasion, I put my shirt on. Once I was fully clothed, and out of nervousness, I went into a flurry of greeting: I shook his hand ― I went out and grabbed it this time, there was no stopping me ― slapped his back,