The End of FUN (43 page)

It moved closer. We were eye to eye now.

Homie
™
's voice was a rapid whisper now. It whispered to me about the breakfast of champions. And the best part of waking up. And how nothing can beat its tangy zip. How it's raising the bar, moving you forward, getting things done…setting the standard…making more possible…connecting people…

I must have slept. I don't know how long I was out for, but it must've been a while, because when I came to, the quality of the night had changed. It was still kind of dark out, but a different kind of darkness, a purple darkness—no stars twinkling above the lattice of branches. I sat up and shook off my fever dream, gazing up at the sheer walls all around me. The first thought that came into my brain was this:
When's the last time I went camping?
It had been a while for sure—but why the thought? Because of the smell. The smoky smell.

Somebody, somewhere, had a campfire going. Or maybe a barbecue grill? Maybe someone had woken up early and thought,
Today I'm going to grill myself a big ol' breakfast on my new Weber
®
One-Touch Lil'Smoker
™
Kettle Grill with One-Touch cleaning system, glass-reinforced handles, and high-capacity aluminum ash-catcher
(YAY!).

I tried raising myself to my feet, but I'd forgotten about my ankle, and with a shock of pain I remembered it again, pressing against my pants, heavy and swollen like a water balloon.

I got up on my other foot and hopped to the edge of the hole. It was cold. I was shivering and twitching, and I could barely keep it together.
Eight feet deep.
How was I going to get out?

Then I heard a voice—or actually a couple of voices—shouting out my name:

“Aaron!”

“Aaaaaaron!”

“Over here!” I called.

“Over WHERE?”

“HERE! In the hole!”

I looked up to see a trio of faces peering down at me, like three little owls: Evie, Sam, and Isaac.

“Aaron?” said my sister. “What are you doing down there? We've been looking
everywhere
for you!”

“I fell.”

“Are you OK? Can you get out?”

“I don't know. I kinda hurt my ankle.”

“Well, you can't just stay in the hole, Aaron! There's a fire!”

“A fire?”

“Oh, yeah.” Sam lowered himself over the edge of the hole and dropped down into the dirt. “And I'll tell you what. I
never
get out of bed this early and this is
exactly
why. Nothing ever goes right in the morning. Not
this
early anyway.”

“What's going on? What fire?”

“Your sister and Isaac wanted to go count birds at the reservoir, and as we were driving, we saw the flames, and Evie said to me, ‘
Doesn't that look like it's out near my grandpa's place?'
And I said, ‘
Well, I don't know, dear
.' And SHE said, ‘
Well, I think it is
.' And
I
said, ‘
OK, so let's go check it out
.'” He knelt beside me. “Now, which ankle is it? Ooh…yeah…OK, so that means I stand on
this
side of you. Here, give me your hands….”

And it's funny, but before I could go on, something needed to be said. There wasn't any other way. I just had to get it out.

“Sam, hold on.”

So I told him about me and Shiloh. I gave him the whole story. I'm not sure if Evie and Isaac could hear us from down in the hole. I didn't care.

“And afterwards I just blew her off like a complete coward,” I said, “and I don't even know why I'm telling you, I should be telling
her
, but I guess I just have to tell someone, so there, now you know. I guess I'm just tired of being such a shit. I guess I'm just hoping, like, to be forgiven.”

He'd been scrambling to get me up, but now he looked at me for a long time with his Labrador eyes.

“You're not a shit, Aaron,” he said quietly. “You just do shitty things on occasion—like everyone else.”

“Yeah, Oso said the same thing. That we're all full of shit.”

“If you want to know the truth,” he said, “Shiloh already told me about the whole debacle. But listen, Aaron.” He locked me in his gaze. “I have a lot of sisters but only one brother, and that brother is you. And I love you like I love Shiloh—which is why what happened between the two of you seems honestly a little strange and incestuous….But I'll get over it—I already have. So if you need forgiveness, I forgive you buddy. It's that easy. Don't do it again.”

“Just like that? You forgive me?”

“Sure. I've got lots of practice. I've got a big family.”

I didn't know what to say. Funny. I was so grateful, I could almost cry. But there wasn't time. Sam was grunting, lifting me up to the lip of the hole. Evie grabbed one hand and Isaac grabbed the other, and next thing I knew I was standing on the surface of the earth again, one-legged, like a crane.

And then I saw the fire.

You wouldn't think a golf course could burn all that much, but this one sure could. A thin line of orange flame creeping along the ridge, less than a mile away. Above that, a black cloud had gathered, pillowy edges bruising pink in the first light of the day. The whole thing was going up in smoke.

“Crap! What do we do?”

“We go”—Evie stabbed her finger at the western horizon—“that direction! As fast as possible! In my car! Right now! Isaac already called the fire department—they're on the way. Come on!”

But something occurred to me. The horses. Anne's horses! “What about Anne Chicarelli's horses?!”

My sister squinted at where I was pointing. “
Those
horses? But that's in the wrong direction. That's where the fire is!”

“I'm supposed to be watching them! We can't just leave them there!”

“God, you're such a pain!”

The fire was brighter now, the smoke thicker, with little bits of papery ash floating down from the sky like a light snowfall. As for the horses, when we got to them they were pretty much losing their shit, both mentally and physically, racing around the corral, nostrils flared, stopping every now and again to shake their manes or dig at the ground.

“Let's hose the perimeter!” said Isaac.

But you can't fight a wildfire with a garden hose—I mean you can, but you'll lose. That much was clear as soon as we got the water going and observed the puny stream.

“We gotta move the horses!”

“Fine!” said Evie. “Open the gate and let's go.”

“Well, we can't just let them out!”

“Oh, yes, we can!”

“How would we get them back? We need to
lead
them. We needs ropes and…and…what are those things on their faces called?”

“Bridles?” said Isaac.

“Yeah, that! Does anyone see a bridle around?”

Isaac disappeared into Anne's yellow shed, emerging a few seconds later with a bundle of ropes in his arm. “Maybe some of these are the bridles?”

“Yeah! Here. I'll put them on the horses.”

“In your condition?” said Evie.

“I'll do it,” said Sam.

“Me too,” said Isaac.

But as soon as they stepped into the corral, the horses bolted to the far corner and wouldn't let anyone near them. Sam and Isaac ran around the corral like a pair of rodeo clowns while Evie and I shouted helpful advice from the railing. The horses bucked and snorted and spun around, dust rising up in a lavender cloud.

“Hold on! You're just scaring them!”

Sam came to the railing wiping sweat from his brow.

“Us scare
them
? Did you not see that? THAT ONE ALMOST MURDERED ME!”

Well, if I were one of the horses I'd probably be freaking out, too, what with the fire and the smoke and everyone running around like crazy. It might help if there was someone around who was confident and knew what they were doing. But there wasn't anyone, so someone was going to have to pretend.

“We need to try something else,” I said. “We need to coax them or something.”

“Hey! I know!” Isaac jammed his hand into his pocket and came out with a handful of purple candy. “Think one of these might do the trick?”

Candy in one hand, bridle things in another, I hobbled across the corral. The horses crowded together in the corner, eyeing me all warily, but they didn't bolt. Maybe they could tell I was injured. Maybe they trusted me. Maybe they were just tired of the whole fiasco. I don't know what it was, but they let me get right up next to them, and before I knew it I found myself standing face-to-face with Cain and Abel.

You forget how big a horse is until you see one up close again. They were right there, heads cocked to look at me with their giant bloodshot eyes. I held out my hand and they turned to me, nostrils like shot glasses, and when the white one breathed with a loud sigh I could feel it, the warm horse breath on my face. The animal smell of it. I unwrapped a candy and held up my hand. The horses eyed the shiny purple cube. The white one parted its lips, teeth like giant kernels of corn.

YAY! for Jolly Ranchers
™
—the purple sugarless kind—because as it turns out in a random survey, two out of two horses love the shit out of them. While they crunched the sweet candy, I put the bridles on. Isaac came in with some ropes, and we tied these to the bridles and walked the horses out of the corral. They were calm now, as if being led away from the fire was all they ever really wanted.