1

Amid the usual smell of sour milk at the Stratford dump, a burning odor. The rusty flatbed rolls off the scale, turns for the graveyard of refrigerators. Robert holds up his hand to the next truck, extends his neck and sniffs. “You smell that?” he says. It has not rained in weeks.

            The driver says, “Something burning?”

            “Sure hope it isn’t here,” says Robert, stepping off the platform outside the trailer and rushing a few yards through the dirt to where he can survey more of the place. “I don’t see any smoke.” He radios to the crew: Erik over in metals, Mary up at freon, Juan in general, Steve in recycle, Donna in brush. “You guys smell that?”

            Mary says, “Fire?”

            Robert says, “Not here, right? All confirm.” When he was a kid, lightning struck the antenna. Bugs Bunny disappeared and the floor shook. The fire hid for some time before the green wallpaper started curling into black wings. Since the phone was dead, his father had to drive to the fire department. The fire stayed with that one wall, and the volunteers doused it with enough water that all their things in the basement were floating. Didn’t matter that it could have been worse. Robert’s feared fire ever since. Never uses the fireplace. Never smokes. Never goes to a Full Serve gas station. His phone is always charged in case the power goes out. 

            Robert says again, “Everybody please confirm your zones have no fires.”

            They all confirm.

            Robert says, “Wonder where the hell it is.”

2

The Cessna buzzes down runway twenty-nine, hits fifty-three knots, rotates, and floats over the gray marsh. Bill and Chris will do some touch-and-gos to practice on a gusty day. They see it at the same time as air traffic control: a black horse’s mane ascending, dispersing in the wind. Flames grin below the dark vapors.

           The tower—Fred—says, “N63YS, we’ve identified a fire in the marsh, twelve o’clock, one mile. Advise return.”

            “WILCO.”

            “N63YS you are cleared to land, runway two-four, number one.”

            “Roger, heading back.”

            As they bank east for the runway, a whisp of smoke opens its jaw and lunges for the wing, disappears. Bill says, “Jesus, it’s moving.” The red heart sends firey arteries in every direction through the low tide.

            Once they land, they taxi, park, and climb the stairs to ATC. Fred says, “Fire department will be here any minute.” There is, of course, a department at the airport, but the fire is not on property. “Dry as hell today,” Fred says. “Holy cow is that thing spreading fast.”

3

“I saw you on the news,” Evy texts.

            Sam tries not to think about her now, since he’s in charge of the scene, which has become a five-alarm. As chief, he needs to focus on the incident action plan, which is complicated by the wind that has picked up. A row of houses waits like kindling across the street from the marsh. Bridgeport is helping, trying to surround and drown the two-acre fire that’s gaining hundreds of yards by the minute.

            What if he actually did it? Actually met up with her? Cheated on his wife?

            Life had become as stifling as the smoke that now blackens the sky above the marsh, though he has nothing to complain about. Fulfilling work, ample salary, a house, a loving wife, a loving daughter whose fifth birthday was last week. He’s been feeling like one of those exhibits at the Peabody Museum in New Haven, where they had Lila’s party. Just like the scenes of prehistoric life on display, his own life is a sample for the future: here is a family in Connecticut, April 2022. Look at the tired mother. The kindergartner in her Barbie Jeep. The dad recording on his smartphone.

            He met Evy when they put out the fire in her neighbor’s house. The family was running too many extension cords. After, Evy said, “Oh my god, can I give you a hug? Thank you so much.”

            “Sure,” he said.

            She was fifteen years younger, thirty, Greek. She said, “Let me get you something, a water, a Coke, something.”

            She wrote her number in black Sharpie on the red Coke label. What kind of slutty shit was that? It was so gross he tore it off and saved it. He texted Evy, two weeks ago. “Is this really you?”

            She replied with a picture: smiling, against a wall of white pillows, in a black halter top.

            He replied with a picture, too. A silly face, a kind of newscaster eyebrow thing.

            She replied, “LOLOLOLOLOL. But seriously thanks for saving my life.”

            “I didn’t save your life. My guys saved your neighbor’s TV.”

            “‘Your guys.’ That’s badass. Your men. You got men. Like a king.”

            He saved her in his phone as, “Lieutenant Evans.” Not that Lisa ever snoops on his phone. But he can’t be too careful with something like this. Not that anything has happened yet. He’s done something wrong by engaging. But something he can come back from.

            In the meantime, the fire has gained an acre. His captains do not want to endanger the firefighters for a marsh, but they need to make sure it did not spread to the row of houses, whose neighbors look like they’re prepping for evacuation even though not ordered to, out on their lawns, in their driveways.

4

Mark goes around closing windows. Dozens of firetrucks have lined up on their street, trying to drown the fire closest to the neighborhood. Cops are stationed at Lordship Boulevard, the perpendicular street that goes through the marsh to the airport, over to Lordship, that island that juts out into Long Island Sound. They’re only allowing residents to go in and out of the little seaside village. Linda brings the cat carrier up from the basement. They throw a bunch of clothes into one suitcase. They have the safe by the back door, along with their medicines, some dog food, some cat food, a box of Mark’s baseball cards, and Linda’s jewelry.

            A firefighter tells them they’ve put the fire out for forty yards of the marsh nearest the houses, but the flames are several stories high in the middle. It has spread to almost five acres. “It’s so dry,” he says, “and so windy, that it could come back this way. Tide is coming back in, so that should help. Should.”

            “Do we need to evacuate?”

            “I hope not. But you’re ready to?”

            “We’re ready,” Mark says.

            “Hang tight,” says the firefighter, who goes over to the next neighbors.

            Linda is hugging herself, wiping tears from her cheeks.

            Mark says, “We’ll be fine.”

            “You don’t know that.”

            “Yes I do. Come on, now. The whole town and other towns are here, and we’ll have plenty of time.”

            “But our house, Mark! Our home! We’ve lived here forty-eight years!”

            “I know,” he says, putting his arm around her. “I know. Breathe. I love you.”

            She blows her nose, says, “Look!” and holds the tissue up to her husband. There’s a faint trace of black on the white Kleenex. “From the smoke!”

5

Tim hangs on every word that comes across the radio. He wants desperately to see it, to drive from his parents’ house in Easton, down to Lordship, but they need him at the firehouse—in case Fairfield gets called to cover Bridgeport, who’s already covering Stratford. In that case, Easton would cover Fairfield. It’s the one downside to being a volunteer: all this covering, being on call, not getting to go watch the spectacular thing when it’s raging just a few towns away.

            He loves being a volunteer, overall, though his real dream cannot happen. He failed the psych exam when he applied to Bridgeport. The psychiatrist found that Tim would not be able to focus in high-stress situations. Tim found out on a Tuesday and went immediately to Secrets, the strip club in Bridgeport, and drank himself stupid and got thrown out for touching the dancer. He zigzagged home in his car and passed out in his bedroom. His mother was knocking on the door to let him know dinner was ready, but he said he was sick, which was true, because he threw up moments after waking.

            If Bridgeport had hired him, it would have meant an end to his days being constantly in and out of different jobs—the registers at a few grocery stores, the restaurants he’s bussed and washed dishes at, the neighbors who’ve hired him to do some landscaping or clear out garages or attics or basements or all three for an estate sale. At only twenty-one, it seems like he maybe shouldn’t be in such a hurry to have life all figured out, but so many of his friends he grew up with, who he went to Staples Elementary, Hellen Keller Middle School, and then Joel Barlow with, seem so much further ahead. Almost all of them are graduating college this year, going on to grad school or making money right away as accountants or finance people on Wall Street. John Ferlund is the only other kid from their kindergarten class who didn’t go to college, or rather didn’t finish college. John was busted by the FBI for child porn his freshman year at UConn. Doesn’t exactly feel great for Tim to seem so associated with John, though they were never friends. They’re just the two members of the didn’t-go-to-college club, which seems intimate. 

            Tim needs to get to the firehouse, but as the radio buzzes with details about the fire, how it’s spreading, how the flames are way into the sky, how people might need to evacuate, he’s overwhelmed by its power, by what must be a staggering beauty, and he falls on his bed, unbuttons his jeans, slides them down over his pale legs, grabs a few tissues, pictures Cara, who he hasn’t seen since high school and never had a chance with. She’s watching him, and he’s down at the marsh, grasping that firehose, the mighty blast of water, and she is so impressed, and the water gushes, gushes, turning the blaze into white smoke.

6

From Port Jefferson, New York, the black cloud hangs over the ferry’s destination in Connecticut. Captain Gutierrez observes the hellish scene through her binoculars as the remaining cars load below her. Bridgeport Harbor Master says the fire is far enough away that it won’t affect normal operations, but from a fifteen-mile distance, across the wide, dark Sound, it looks like they’ll be sailing into the center of the beast.

            The red mark on the northern horizon, the problematic spot. Black rolling boils of smoke, char of her lungs. Tomorrow, the doctor should call with the biopsy result. Decades of setting those lungs ablaze, that consoling burn.

            She turns on the radio. “Thankfully, while the fire is spreading, up to six acres now, firefighters have been on the scene long enough, and families in the nearby vicinity are still not ordered to evacuate. We spoke with Chief Sam Hoffman of the Stratford Fire Department, who says that crews are in position if the fire spreads to either the airport itself or the Lordship neighborhood. They’re not going to endanger firefighters by putting them down in the marsh. The fire should, I repeat, should burn out on its own. I suppose the sad thing is the animals it might be affecting, the residents of the marsh itself, but otherwise no human life is in direct danger. Folks can sit back and watch the show. And it is rather stunning, as I behold the view from our helicopter. What a blaze! The flames have to be three stories high, and the smoke is just so thick, as thick as molasses, folks. That’s why we’re hanging back, watching this otherwise dangerous situation from a safe distance.”

7

Mark is fucking pissed. Linda is over there in the front seat, looking satisfied with herself, which is different than relieved to be escaping danger. He puts the car in reverse. They have not been officially ordered to evacuate, but the strong gusts have blown the fire back towards the street, where crews had extinguished it earlier. It’s so hot that the water used to douse the grasslands has dried up. Every excuse she needs to be dramatic.

            Simon, their Australian Shepherd, is in the back seat, and Garfunkel, the cat, is in the carrier on Linda’s lap.  She says, “I’m calling the Fairfield Inn.”

            “You think that’s necessary?”

            “If I have to explain myself, or my feelings, in this terrifying situation, one more time—”

            He puts the car in drive. “What about my feelings?”

            “What about your feelings?”

            “I’m scared too, but I don’t think we need to stay in a hotel. Let’s drive around, see what happens.” He is not scared, not really, not as long as the fire department is still there, lined up in front of their house, ready to extinguish anything that starts up again.

            “Then we can stay with my mother,” she says. “Though my mother will just be upset by it.” Her mother, who she got off the phone with twenty minutes ago, is almost ninety-nine, living in her own house with an aid.

            “At least you still have your mother around,” he says.

            “What’s that got to do with anything? You know? You’re just like a little kid. Even now, even in this terrifying situation, always trying to show me.”

            “Show you. Show you.”

            “Yeah, show me.”

            “Oh, Linda.”

            “What, Mark? What? Oh, Linda, what?”

            He can imagine it: his life without her, without her exaggerations, overreactions, pettiness. They could welcome their mid-seventies with a divorce. But that possibility comes with a certainty established and strengthened each time the fantasy plays out: as annoyed as she can make him, he would not be well on his own. He says, “Nothing. Call the hotel.”

8

In the evening, the best water source a unit could ever dream of establishes itself.  The fire is six acres. But the moon climbs into position, like a member of the department, and drives the Atlantic Ocean toward the conflagration. Three hundred, twenty-one thousand cubic miles of water shifts with a prowess to shame the gods. The monster moans and sizzles like some orange Witch of the West, the black hat shrinking and shrinking and shrinking.

            Evy texts Sam, “Channel Eight says it’s almost out?”

            He needs to stop. He needs to ignore her. Block her. He’s not going to cheat on his wife. He somehow knows it. He’s been playing with fire, that’s all. And just as the ocean has helped him with the marsh fire, has entered like something out of his control, to quench something else out of his control, so too will this thing inside him, this loyalty, prevent him from making the worst mistake of his life. He watches the salt waves lap at the smoldering ash. He thanks God that he’s not like some cheater. He won’t ruin his wife’s life. His daughter’s. He’s a good guy. So he can text her one more time. “Just about.”

            He remembers when she said, “‘Your guys.’ That’s badass. Your men. You got men. Like a king.”

            But he doesn’t send it. He deletes the text and blocks her number. The smell of the saltwater rushes through him, and he sees his reflection in his shiny black shoes. He’ll rendezvous with his lieutenants and captains and Bridgeport, confirm they’re ready to overhaul, that they’re all set. Then he can go home and take Lisa upstairs and lock the door and give her everything.

– Michael Brelsford