Free One-Hundred-Knuckled Fist by Dustin M. Hoffman Page A

thumb.
    “What’s this faggy shit about?” Randall said, grabbing Jackson’s broomstick wrist.
    “I don’t know.”
    “You go to the beauty salon to get that done?”
    Jackson’s sunken chin sucked tight against his collarbone, and Randall wished he hadn’t said anything. Maybe doing nothing was better. Jackson would survive school, would fuck girls and tell his dad about it over beers someday. Randall just had to wait.
    He followed the trucks onto Amber Street and saw the smoke rolling east over moss-scabbed shingles. So close to his neighborhood, like the last five fires. The trucks groaned to a stop in front of the Leylands’ house.
    Randall parked, and before getting out he grabbed his name tag from the cup holder. Etched into the polished metal, tall letters spelled his title at work. He slid the name tag into his pocket and then worked his way toward a crowd already gathered on the sidewalk around the Leylands’ new add-on. Jackson scurried in the opposite direction, across the street to the sidewalk, where it was safe, where three old ladies were gabbing.
    The Leylands’ house was close to theirs but closer to the golf course, where Randall had played with borrowed clubs a few times. Mr. Leyland had a membership, until he was laid off from his position as senior quality inspector at Playbuoy Pontoons last month. The Leylands lived on the border, a line down Decatur Avenue that separated new aluminum siding from sun-blistered pine, lawns patched yellow from thick green sod. Jackson took his place on the brittle yellow side while Randall joined the crowd around the Leylands’ wilting sod.
    The fire crawled up the aluminum siding. The metal already drooped, singed black. The flames swung like hair in the wind, auburn hair, shocks of bright yellow, a flash of blue springing when the gusts blew.
    “That’s the goddamned baby’s room,” somebody in the crowd said. “Just built that add-on for her last year. I bet she’s still in there.” The speaker had a brown mustache, ropey arms, wore a stained yellow tank top. He was hard to recognize without his coveralls, away from the stacks, but the tattoo of Saint Florian’s Roman skirt and muscular thighs gave Vance away. Florian’s gold armor was hidden under Vance’s yellowed bandages. The refinery had fired him three weeks ago, just after Randall had caught him smoking on the catwalks. Vance had been a good worker, but good work meant nothing without safety.
    “I think I hear it crying,” someone else said.
    “I’m going in if that baby’s not out in the next thirty seconds,” Vance said. “The rest of you civilians should step away.”
    “These boys can handle it,” Randall said. He stepped in front of the crowd, spread his arms wide, and planted them over the Leylands’ fence. “It’ll be safe.”
    “Shit, Randall,” Vance said, brushing up his mustache, “I’m a full-on substitute firefighter now. It’s my responsibility to watch out for the public.”
    “The public’s fine.” Randall reached into his pocket, thumbed the grooved letters of his name tag. The grooves felt shallow, the letters numb to his callused thumb.
    “Twenty seconds, and I’m going in.” Vance crossed his arms, flexed the forearm that wielded Florian’s fancy skirt.
    Two firemen clomped through the front door. Randall squinted at the fire knocking at the second-story window, where a baby may or may not have been. He imagined the window shattering, Mrs. Leyland clutching a blanketed bundle of screeching. She’d yell to the crowd, toss her baby through the flames as if it were a bouquet. Vance would dive too early, and Randall would catch it. No one else, because he was calm, because fire didn’t scare him. Jackson would lift his sunken chin and nod to his father.
    The wind blew hard, and the fire surged toward the crowd. Someone screamed. Randall felt the heat against his chest. He gripped the fence harder, facing down the orange shoulder that jutted toward