Nighttime Fires

Barreca 5 Regina Barreca Nighttime Fires When I was five in Louisville we drove to see nighttime fires. Piled seven of us, all pajamas and running noses, into the Olds, drove fast toward smoke. It was after my father lost his job, so not getting up in the morning gave him time: awake past midnight, he read old newspapers with no news, tried crosswords until he split the pencil between his teeth, mad. When he heard the wolf whine of the siren, he woke my mother, and she pushed and shoved us all into waking. Once roused we longed for burnt wood and a smell of flames high into the pines. My old man liked driving to rich neighborhoods best, swearing in a good mood as he followed fire engines that snaked like dragons and split the silent streets. It was festival, carnival. If there were a Cadillac or any car in a curved driveway, my father smiled a smile from a secret, brittle heart. His face lit up in the heat given off by destruction like something was being made, or was being set right. I bent my head back to see where sparks ate up the sky. My father who never held us would take my hand and point to falling cinders that covered the ground like snow, or, excited, show us the swollen collapse of a staircase. My mother watched my father, not the house. She was happy only when we were ready to go, when it was finally over and nothing else could burn. Driving home, she would sleep in the front seat as we huddled behind. I could see his quiet face in the rearview mirror, eyes like hallways filled with smoke. ...