The Burn-Man

by Z.D. Dochterman

They call me the Scar-man, the Burn-man. Now, my better half is charred. I’m telling you, I’ve always preferred being photographed from the left. The kids on the street don’t know what to do, so they stare at the igneous furrows on my face. Their parents tell them I’m to be pitied, politely. Or maybe that I eat cats and dogs off the street (I can’t say the thought hasn’t occurred). The waddling crowds, with their organic beets and oat milk lattes move out of my way, kindly eyes averted, like I’m some animal on its way to the altar.

But the ones who’ve heard the story of the fire are convinced I’m a hero. A melancholic. A murderer. For the people who get their understanding of the human mind from television commercials, you can be many different things at once.

I’m not as easily persuaded. Our entire lives are defined by the one day, the one event that rends us, that stares back at us through time’s hall of mirrors like a question mark…or an ellipsis? Until we can offer an answer to that moment, time refuses to budge.

My one day has been long. Years long. The same day, repeating.

I wake up on Descanso next to the laundromat. I apologize to Ronari, mostly with my hands and a grunt or two as he undoes the lock and pulls up the rolling shutters. He grunts back and brings me a water–likely so he doesn’t spit on me. Or perhaps he does care for me after all; we share a similar disdain for the men yelling about their investments into their phones.

Sometimes, we watch the soccer highlights on Univision until it’s 10 a.m. He shows me his boxing skills, tells me how he could’ve gone pro if he’d never broken his jaw in ’93. Ronari’s had the laundromat up for sale for ages now since he can’t afford the rent. I wish I had enough clothes to do a load and help him.

By noon, the morning haze still hasn’t burned off and the town seems like a drunk on a sofa. I get tacos at Delta with the settlement money I’ve been getting since the night of the fire. The pudgy woman behind the counter hands me a plate of tripas that’s been prepared in advance. Just for me. She knows me, she blows me kisses with her eyelids. Or so I like to believe. I get sent off with a plastic bag of pickled carrots and jalapeños so at least I have some dinner.

I head up to Aurora Street in the early evening. Tony chats with me about the bloated bass he catches at the algae-covered lake in Yoral Park. Tells me how he’d ride the bus two hours to work in the toy factories on Second Street. Ten, twelve hours a day and not get paid for half of it. He doesn’t know that despite keeping my luxuries to an occasional beer or candy bar, my settlement money’s almost run out. Rather than ask for a handout from a man like him, I think I’ll take a knife to the gates of the mansions. I add a Wusthof to my Christmas list. And a whetstone for good measure.

But then the time always comes, where the question mark, the ellipsis of my day unfurls dot by dot. The sun rests on the hillside like a head on the guillotine. At that hour, I know the moment has come to return to where it happened.

Inevitably, some wind comes along that makes me shiver. Nightfall only takes an instant in this arid land. Before long, the coyotes begin to trod past the yuccas and the trash cans and the sage.

At that moment, I go back to our street, back to the little house we owned, the house that now looks ready to collapse on itself like some puzzled skeleton.

I climb up onto the gate, my leg dragging itself over the No Trespassing sign, all vertigo and shaking spine. I jump over and land with a thud on the walkway, not bothering to check the cuts that have calloused over from so many encounters with the barbed wire. I reach my fingers around the curved brass door handle of the charred two-story home and walk inside.

This is where I got the burn, and every lost spirit orbits its abode. It’s why I expect her, Lucia, to be waiting inside. But she’s never there.

Condemn me, fine. But I thought the insurance money would free us. Would be enough to get us out of this lost city. I thought that Lucia would be at work that evening, earning her ninety-three dollars a day. That she would never know what started the flames.

But no, she was there, asleep on the upstairs couch, maybe dreaming of starfish and the constellations. Or of quitting her job. She was ill, so worn down that she had neither the energy to text me nor even the force it takes to call in sick.

And that was the night I poured the gasoline. That was the night I lit the match.

It was I who heard her screaming. Who ran in to save her. And the only one to emerge, coughing up smoke, burns across left arm, torso, leg, face before I could reach her. My body collapsed in the front yard, which is where the ambulance found me.

A hero, a melancholic, a murder. Everyone has it right.

So now, each night, at this time, I just stare at the ashy ruins, expecting an answer from her. Three years now I’ve repeated this, but in truth, not a single day has passed. I still hear fire and echoes, a crackle and a moan.

But time says nothing, and I can say nothing back.

Z.D. Dochterman writes speculative fiction and teaches in the Writing Program at USC. He also co-hosts a weekly creative writing workshop for formerly incarcerated people. You can follow him on X @zddochterman.