And that, my parents said, was how The Day of Burning came to be.
V. THE DAY OF BURNING
All of Free Town was buzzing with the babble of excited conversations, the clanging of pots and pans, and the squeal of laughing children as they zig-zagged through town. And the scents… good God, the scents. Deep fried hawk mingled with the spicy aroma of batter dipped rabbit and the smell of those little wild onions that grow down by the south side of the wall was sweet and pungent, permeating the tents and shacks like the promise of heaven. Mushrooms, crispy crickets, rhubarb pie baking in rusty ovens whose sides had become blackened from the fires that crackled underneath: every household was preparing their finest dish in the hopes that the Emperor would bestow upon them the coveted title of Best in Show.
Tattered streamers had been strung between the structures of our city and the multicolored triangles and squares flapped in the breeze as if they were applauding the collective efforts of the residents. Some of the banners sparkled with large, block letters that formed words I didn’t understand: SALE!, Clearance, and Grand Opening. But these strange phrases really weren’t the point; no, the point was that a collective madness had seized the resident’s of Free Town and brought smiles to faces that otherwise were locked into deeply creased frowns and tight-lipped expressions of disapproval.
Two Finger Freddy had set himself up on the back of a flatbed truck and the strumming of his battered guitar was soft and haunting as Sadie Hoffman sang cryptic lyrics. Something about imaging there was no heaven or hell. Not normally my thing, but I, too, had been swept up in the whirlwind of cheer that made eyes sparkle like jewels in the sunlight.
I was lounging in the shade of what the older folks called a refrigerator with my eyes closed, breathing in the smells as my stomach gurgled, and listening to the music drift through the wordless drone of a dozen overlapping conversations. By the time the sun had begun its descent in the sky, the real festivities would have started: people dancing in the brightly colored costumes exclusively reserved for The Day of Burning, wrestling matches where grown men squirmed in mud in the hopes of claiming the wild pig that had been snared from the wilderness following the last Day of Burning and allowed to grow fat and round. Maybe I’d try for that pig, I thought to myself, bring it home and let my mother prepare it however she liked….
“Smitty.”
I opened my eyes and squinted at the boy who stood before me, shading my eyes with a cupped hand.
“S’up, Ballister?”
Tommy Ballister squatted down and began picking small pebbles from the ground as he cocked his head first to the left, and then to the right.
“You hear? The Emperor picked the Thompsons to be the Fire Bringers this time.”
He spat a glob of spit into the dirt and rattled his collection of small rocks in his hand as he looked up at me.
“Yeah, Skinny Tyrell said somethin’ about it earlier. He was pissed ’cause his family has never been picked and this is the second time for the Thompsons.”
Tommy leaned in so close that I could smell the rankness of his breath as he rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet. He glanced over both shoulders before dropping his voice to a whisper.
“I bet old lady Thompson is sucking his cock.”
“Whose? Skinny’s?”
Tommy laughed and shook his head as if he’d just seen a trained mouse perform an elaborate trick.
“Fuck no, rotter brain… the Emperor.”
I turned this over in my mind and tried to imagine Mrs. Thompson with her head bent over the Emperor’s lap. This time, it was my turn to laugh.
“No way, Ballister. He probably just feels sorry for them. Because of Sarah and everything.”
“Shit, man, who wouldn’t feel sorry for them? Having that little zombie lover for a daughter? Probably why she’s so sick… done caught the walking death from her little friends.
I bet she’d suck off one of the bastards if she had the chance. Probably even go all the way with the stinkin’ sons of bitches.”
I felt my left hand clench and imagined how it would feel to drive that fist right into Tommy Ballister’s nose: the sharp crack of bone, the squish of blood and mucus, the surprise and pain in his murky eyes. But, instead, I simply glanced over at the flatbed where Freddy and Sadie had now launched into a duet about islands in a stream. What the hell did that even mean, any way?
“I’m thinkin’ about going for the pig.” I said, changing the subject. “I think I could probably take just about anyone who….”
“No, you’re not.”
Tommy had begun chucking the little pebbles in his hand at the flatbed and they pinged off the metal at erratic intervals.
“Oh yeah, asshole? And why’s that?”
He had no clue exactly how close he was to getting the beating of his life. Every frustration, every time I’d ever caved and spat insults at Sarah, every iota of pent up anger would be taken out on his freckled, little face and it would take all of the Emperor’s guards to pull me away.
“Because, “ he said with a smile, “I been talkin’ to Carlos. We’re in, man. We’re fuckin’ in!”
I sat up so quickly that a wave of dizziness overtook me and my anger dissipated like fog in the morning sun.
“The Nation? Don’t shit me, man. I swear to God if you’re….”
“I wouldn’t pull your leg, Smitty. Not about somethin’ like this.”
Inside, I felt like turning somersaults all the way to the Thompson’s home, scooping Sarah’s fevered body to mine, and planting a kiss on those dry, chapped lips of hers. I wanted to laugh and dance, to jump up on the stage with Freddy and Sadie and lend my voice to their pathetic song.
“Fuck, man. Fuck….”
Tommy was grinning like a toddler eating rat as a smile devoured the lower half of his face, revealing rows of crooked teeth marred with dark cavities. He tossed his last pebble and it thudded against Freddy’s guitar, distracting the man just long enough to elicit a jangled chord that otherwise would have rang out like the tolling of a bell.
“Yeah, I’m sayin’. Carlos says we just gotta pass initiation and then we’re full fledged members. You and me, my man… The Rotter Nation, all the way!”
“What we gotta do?”
“I dunno. Somethin’ he called skinning the freshy. Whatever the fuck that is. Doesn’t matter anyway, fuckwad. The point is, we’re fuckin’ in, man!”
VI. THE ANTICIPATION OF THINGS TO COME
The rest of the day passed in a blur. I hung around the judging table as the Emperor tasted each dish before him, nodding his approval for some and simply shaking his head at others. I watched the sun slowly make its arc across the sky, wishing there was some way I could help it on its way, that I could push it closer and closer to the horizon. I half-watched the wrestling but the cheers of the crowd sounded as if they were miles away and my mind kept turning a single phrase over and over, trying to decipher its hidden meaning.
Skinning the Freshy.
I couldn’t even begin to fathom what secrets were cloaked in those three words. Would it require strength? Agility? Cunning?
Skinning the Freshy…
Or maybe it was just some sort of ritual that was completed; I’d heard rumors that Los Muertos required their new initiates to slice their thumbs with a special knife that was kept in a velvet lined box and used exclusively for this particular rite. Supposedly, each member of the gang also did this and then allowed their blood to drip into a cup shaped like a human skull.