An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England_ A Novel - Brock Clarke [53]
"I was drunk!" I told him, realizing for the first time that one of the things drink could transform was one's bumbling. Sober, one's bumbling was a kissing cousin to failure; but drunk, one's bumbling could be triumphant. "I quit my job because I was drunk!" I told him. "And you were right: they didn't know I was a murderer and an arsonist. But I quit before you could tell them! And I didn't even do it on purpose!"
This deflated Thomas. He sighed and sat down across from me; some of the color left his face. Disappointment took its rightful place in him, evicting strength and optimism. I felt a little sad for Thomas until I remembered why we were having this conversation in my parents' house and not my own, and what he'd told Anne Marie.
"Why did you lie about me having an affair?" I said. "Why did you tell Anne Marie I was having an affair with your wife?"
The question cheered Thomas up some. His eyes grew far away and dreamy and this disturbed me more than anything he'd done or said thus far. "She's kind of beautiful, you know," he said. "I can't figure out why you would ever cheat on her."
"I didn't cheat on her," I said, and nearly reached over the table to shake him out of his fiction and into our truth. He must have sensed this, because he stood up from his chair and backed a few feet away from the table. "I burned down that house and killed your parents," I yelled. "Why didn't you tell her that?"
"Why do you think?" Thomas asked. I could see that he was trying to be a detective, too ― that is, if being a detective means making someone answer questions that you should be able to answer yourself but can't. This didn't make me feel any better. Did he really not know why he'd told Anne Marie one thing and not another? Did he not know what he was doing here? Was he an amateur life wrecker after all, and if so, would he do more damage as an amateur than he would if he were an expert? There was no way to ask these questions, of course, and expect an answer, and so instead I asked, "Why did you set fire to the Edward Bellamy House?"
"What?" he said. "Who?" Thomas looked genuinely baffled: his eyes retreated a little deeper into their sockets, leaving little lines in their wake, and his mouth puckered as though bewilderment were something sour. Then curiously, his face relaxed: a little, flickering smile illuminated his lips. Thomas cocked his head in the general direction of my dad's room and said, "Is your father home?"
"No," I said. "He's at work." And then, "Wait, do you know my father?"
"So long, Sam," he said, and then turned heel and walked out the front door. I sat there for too long, making sure I fixed the details in my head before I lost them for good. Thomas had mentioned my father. But so what: after all, he knew where to find me, and so he also knew that I had a father, as so many people did and as Thomas did not. But there was that cock of the head. Was that coincidental? Was it just a tic? Or did he cock his head in the direction of my father's room, knowing that it was in fact my father's room? And if so, how did he know that?
I got out of my chair and ran to the front door, trying to catch Thomas before he left my life for who knows how long this time. And I might have caught him, too, if the bond analysts hadn't been there, on my porch, blocking my way.
I CALL THEM THE bond analysts, but of course they had names. There was Morgan, as you know, and there were also two Ryans, one Tigue, and one Geoff, whom everyone called G-off. G-off was the only one whom I could keep straight, because he had dark, curly hair and looked slightly ― by comparison and for lack of a better word ― ethnic. The rest I could never tell apart, and looking at them now, I still couldn't. It wasn't especially cold out, but they were wearing duck boots and khaki pants and ribbed turtleneck sweaters, and each of