You're On Fire Pt 7

The firemen are coming out of their houses, pulling windbreaker hoods over their heads and slapping on ball caps, rain spreading through their clothes in dark patches. Your father makes them wait outside until his family has walked through every room, his hand on the shoulder of each of his sons; you pause when you reach the bottom of the stairs going up, looking at the carpet color that your father names blood-n-guts. When you kids bust your heads open it’ll blend right in, he says.

That’s not funny, your mother says from the other room where she is changing the baby.

That’s not funny, Dan mocks, tapping his wedding ring against his belt buckle; it was Rory Whitehouse’s, his best friend he went to Vietnam with. He was arguing with Dan about the Cubs when he got his head blown off by the gooks.