CHAPTER TEN
FIRE
The nurses had decided to take us on some sort of field trip to an Ice Cream parlor downtown. It was a ten- or fifteen-minute walk down the hill, past the rosebushes and stately trees of our beautiful hospital. The farther we got from our ward, the jumpier the nurses became. By the time we hit the street they were silent and closed in on us, and they had assumed the Nonchalant Look, an expression that said, I am not a nurse escorting six lunatics to the ice cream parlor.
But they were, and we were their six lunatics, so we behaved like lunatics. None of us did anything unusual. We just kept up doing whatever we did back on the ward. Muttering, snarling, crying. Balthazar poked people. Gabriel complained about not being as crazy as those other two. Dean walked ahead of us, behaving like our king.
We were in the middle of the winter, and there was snow everywhere. I had all of my coats on, and yet felt the chill wind on my bones. Samandriel, though, was walking besides us, the only one not to brake into the snow.
" Jesus." I whispered. "Look at him."
Bobby was trying to calm down Benny, who kept acting out.
I turned around to Dean, who was now walking arm-to-arm besides me.
"You know, taking us for ice creams in a blizzard makes you wonder who the real whack jobs are."
Lucifer came to the rescue. "You know I think it's kinda nice. I mean, I think it's nice to do something nice on Balthazar's last day." I looked at him, trying not to smile and failing miserably.
I thought a lot about Lucifer, and what he had done. Setting himself on fire. I think the gasoline had settled in his collarbones, forming pools there beside his shoulders, because his neck and cheeks were scarred the most. The scars were thick ridges, alternating bright pink and white, in stripes up from his neck.
Scar tissue has no character. It's not like skin. It doesn't show age or illness or pallor or tan. It has no pores, no hair, no wrinkles. It's like a slipcover. It shields and disguises what's beneath. That's why we grow it,- we have something to hide.
Lucifer. His name must have seemed ridiculous to him in the months- or years- before he set himself on fire, but it suited him well in his slipcovered, survivor life. He was never unhappy. He was kind and comforting to those who were unhappy. He never complained. He always had time to listen to other people's complaints. He was faultless, in his impermeable tight pink-and-white casing. And as childish and naïve as he could be, we all respected him. Because-what courage!
Who had the courage to burn himself? Twenty aspirin, a little slit alongside the veins of the arm, maybe even a bad half hour standing on a roof: We've all had those. And somewhat more dangerous things, like putting a gun in your mouth. But you put it there, you taste it, it's cold and greasy, your finger is on the trigger, and you find that a whole world lies between this moment and the moment you've been planning, when you'll pull the trigger. That world defeats you. You put the gun back in the drawer. You'll have to find another way.
What was that moment like for him? The moment he lit the match. I wondered if he knew what would happen. If he knew he would never see his puppy again, if that was even the real reason why he'd done it. Maybe it wasn't. Gabriel was locked up for being a liar, after all. I didn't have the courage to ask.
He lit the match.
Somebody found him, but not for a while. Who would kiss a person like that, a person with no skin?