An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England_ A Novel - Brock Clarke [46]
"Good afternoon," Mr. Frazier said as he passed them.
"Fucked up," one of the boys said. When he said the word "fucked," he didn't exactly enunciate the c and the k but slurred the word straight into the final d. The other boy didn't say anything but just laughed and shook his head.
I wanted to say something to the boys, something like, Hey, what's that? What did you say? or maybe, Why don't you show some respect, punk? But I was following Mr. Frazier's lead and he kept walking and so did I. He had to know, of course, that the boys were talking to him, but he probably didn't know to what exactly they were referring, and neither did I. Something was fucked up, that much was clear, and it wasn't Mr. Frazier, no matter what the boys said. If anything was fucked up, it was the boys. Maybe they weren't really boys at all: maybe they were grown men dressing like boys and acting like boys and not working adult jobs and not supporting their families, if they had families, and swearing like black people were supposed to swear, even though the boys looked white. The word wigger came to mind -it was a word I'd once heard on television ― but I quickly got rid of it and didn't mention the word to Mr. Frazier. No, Mr. Frazier did not want any new words in his mouth or head; I knew this without having to ask. There were enough words in the world already, and too many of them were curse words, and too many young people cursed in such a way that you could not discern the object of the swearing and in such a way that made you think that this was simply the way they talked ― to one another, to strangers ― and it made it difficult to tell whether the swearing was friendly or threatening, whether the swearing was black swearing or white swearing, whether there was a difference, whether it mattered to the person who was being cursed, if he was actually being cursed. I imagined poor Mr. Frazier all alone in his house at night, his lights off and him standing at the front windows, not being able to sleep, just looking at the neighborhood, which is even darker than his house and so, so strange to him. Somewhere out there, Shamequa is eating pussy and then testifying to that fact on the sidewalk with her pink chalk, and the trash is rolling through the streets like tumbleweed, and the words "fucked up, fucked up, fucked up" are blowing in the wind, and you can't get away from them or know if they refer to you or to someone else. It was fucked up, all right. For Mr. Frazier, not knowing whether he was being cursed at or not must have seemed liked the most fucked up thing of all.
By the time we got to the store ― it was a Super Stop and Shop all right, but I was on Mr. Frazier's side now, and so it was a store ― I was in something like agreement with the boys: it was fucked up, "it" being the store itself, which was more parking lot than building. And it was fucked up that those boys could speak to Mr. Frazier, that sweet guy, the way they had and suffer no consequences. Mr. Frazier had to be angry, at least angry enough to burn down a house or to want someone else to burn it down. But why the Edward Bellamy House? That's what I didn't understand.
"Hey, what do you say, Mr. Frazier?" I said to him. "I have a couple questions for you."
Mr. Frazier didn't respond. He bought his paper from the machine outside the store (who knows why? Maybe as long as he didn't enter the building, he could in good conscience continue calling it a store), then turned and began walking back home. He was really setting a good pace, and I broke a sweat trying to catch up with him. Soon after I did, we passed by those boys again, still sitting on the steps, as if waiting for