They Called Her Lizzy
by Bryan Wiler
I didn’t plan for it to end like that, but when you’re seven years old you don’t really understand fire or repercussions or the fragility of life. You’re just focused on kid stuff – the missing piece of your spaceship Lego set or why Jimmy can’t come to your birthday party or the best place to hide the underwear that have skid-marks in them because you were too busy playing outside to come home and shit. No, when you’re seven…when I was seven…everyone would live forever because death wasn’t on the radar.
Our fascination with fire stems back millennia, right? Back to the days of living in a cave and hunting mammoths and fighting each other with clubs crafted from fallen trees. Fire meant life, it meant warmth, it meant security. That’s why people are so mesmerized by it; even in a world of virtual reality and cryptocurrency and self-driving cars and AI, there is an innate sense of comfort in a fire that evolution hasn’t bothered to remove from our hard drives.
“Ed, how many times have I told you to leave my lighter alone?” my mother said. “You’re gonna start a fire, you little shit.” She snatched the lighter from my hand, angrily stubbing out what was left of her cig in a filthy ashtray at the same time.
I skulked away to my room, which also served as a storage closet of sorts “until we found a bigger place,” I had been told. I stepped past a stack of boxes that were in various states of disrepair and, after shoving clothes on the floor, flopped onto the sagging bed. The Spiderman sheets from last Christmas had a noticeable yellow stain in the area where the midsection of a child would be positioned overnight. I remember these details vividly because they were both formative and traumatic, according to my counselor. Head lying on a pillow that provided little support, I stared out the barred, dirty window of my room at the equally dirty barred windows of the unit next door. We lived in a dismal row of section 8 housing, where at all hours of the day and night you could hear arguments and trains and dogs. The idea of greenspace was laughable. There was a small square of lawn in front of each building, probably 10 feet wide by 8 feet deep, but there was nothing green about it. Bikes with flat tires. Empty soda bottles. Cars that had settled into their final resting place.
A narrow alleyway ran between each of the two-unit buildings, just wide enough to walk single-file or ride a bike if you were really balanced (I wasn’t), that invariably contained some combination of broken bottles, used needles, fast-food wrappers, and old newspapers. It led to a walkway that stretched in both directions behind the units, with a chain-link fence forming the boundary between residential and industrial. It was here that I spent a lot of time, prospecting for treasures and rummaging for things to burn.
Countless times, I’d seen my mother light a cigarette, and the pageantry of it infatuated me. The crunchy sound of the cellophane wrapper being removed from the pack, which she would then knock against her hand a few times. I didn’t understand why she did that part, but now I know she was packing the tobacco tighter. The way she’d flip the pack open with her thumb and neatly flick her wrist to partially eject a cigarette so she could grasp it with her lips. The clever wind-block she’d form with her left hand to make lighting easier (even inside with no wind, she’d do this). And damn, the sounds. The scratch of flint…ffffpt…followed by the flame bursting to life. The almost-inaudible crackle of the paper and tobacco as they caught fire. The deep inhale of that first drag, held for a few beats, before a prolonged exhale. What really got me, though, was that lighter. What a little piece of magic it was! Bright red with a black button and cool ridged wheel on top, just an easy roll of your thumb away from creating fire. Seven-year-old me couldn’t possibly have been more enthralled.
I found ways to get my hands on that lighter, typically when my mother was asleep on the couch in the afternoon. I’d quietly snatch it off the coffee table, navigate the wasteland of the alleyway, and head behind our building where I’d surreptitiously char parts of a pizza box or the sports page from last summer that was pinned against the chain-link. I was constantly on high alert for anyone who would interrupt my fun—neighbors, other kids, my mother. Above all else, my mother. She busted me once when I had a Happy Meal box fully engulfed in between our unit and the next one over, and swiftly doused it with rainwater that had collected in a discarded bucket before dragging me inside by my ear. After that, I shifted my activities to the slightly less conspicuous location out back. I got away with it far more times than I was caught.
It was July, and we were squarely in the middle of an oppressive heatwave that had lasted for a few weeks. There were worthless fans running throughout our apartment, doing nothing but transferring stale, humid air from one side of the room to another. It reeked of sweat and garbage and cat piss. People around the neighborhood went outside to escape the heat, then went inside to escape, then went back outside again with the optimistic but foolhardy hope that something had changed. In the distance you could hear the death-throes of an AC unit that couldn’t keep up anymore. Yards were parched, looking brown and crusty like the top of a crumb cake. The skeletal remains of crabgrass and ragweed slumped against the fence-line behind the unit, long ago having given up hope. The place was a tinderbox, and it was not a time to play with fire. But the caveman in all of us, right?
Late afternoon, sweat dripping into my eyes. I was crouched behind the last unit on our side of the street, where the chain-link connected to the building and created an L-shape that was the perfect catch-all for trash that skidded around. More newspaper, coffee cups, half of a sign advertising a garage sale that took place on Memorial Day four streets over. I had been getting more adventurous with my fires, even starting to ball up the paper and add whatever sticks I could find.
Ffffpt. Ffffpt.
It took a few attempts--my small hands weren’t the best at generating enough force to really snap that flint--but finally the lighter came to life and the pile caught. I knew almost immediately that it was bigger than I intended. In seconds orange and red and yellow flames licked the air at head-height, while tendrils of acrid smoke formed and drifted east on the stiff afternoon breeze. The twigs I had gathered snapped and popped in the heat, while sparks spread to the desiccated weeds that stood sentry along the rear of the building and caused them to light up as well. The lid of a convenience store slushy cup melted into a black tar. Above me, I noticed a ground floor window was open, and the wind had sucked the curtains out, so they were draped over the sill and twisted around the metal bars. As the flames grew, I watched in terror as the curtains smoked, peeled, and burst to light.
Panicked, I sprinted back home, set the lighter on the table, and darted into my room. 10 minutes later, I heard the sirens.
The building was old and undoubtedly built before fire codes were up to snuff. Neighbors gathered on the street and held each other, tears in their eyes, as fireman did everything they could to prevent the conflagration (I didn’t know that word when I was seven, but I do now) from spreading. The unit where the fire started was a complete loss. And she was inside. Elizabeth. And she was just 2 years old.
As I stood outside in the street with everyone else, holding my mother’s left hand while she smoked with her right, I watched in silence as again and again the police had to restrain Elizabeth’s wailing parents from entering the inferno. “MY BABY IS IN THERE!” they sobbed. “PLEASE, SOMEBODY DO SOMETHING!” they cried.
I glanced up and met my mother’s eyes. She knew. She knew it was me, but she never said a word. We went to the funeral the following weekend and she forced me to stand in line and offer my condolences to Elizabeth’s parents. I don’t remember what I said, but they told me Elizabeth always got so excited when she saw me outside playing and begged to come join me. I cried the entire walk home. Mom didn’t hold my hand that time, but she didn’t smoke either. I never saw her smoke again.
Our fascination with fire stems back millennia, right? Back to the days of living in a cave and hunting mammoths and fighting each other with clubs crafted from fallen trees. Fire meant life, it meant warmth, it meant security. That’s why people are so mesmerized by it; even in a world of virtual reality and cryptocurrency and self-driving cars and AI, there is an innate sense of comfort in a fire that evolution hasn’t bothered to remove from our hard drives.
“Ed, how many times have I told you to leave my lighter alone?” my mother said. “You’re gonna start a fire, you little shit.” She snatched the lighter from my hand, angrily stubbing out what was left of her cig in a filthy ashtray at the same time.
I skulked away to my room, which also served as a storage closet of sorts “until we found a bigger place,” I had been told. I stepped past a stack of boxes that were in various states of disrepair and, after shoving clothes on the floor, flopped onto the sagging bed. The Spiderman sheets from last Christmas had a noticeable yellow stain in the area where the midsection of a child would be positioned overnight. I remember these details vividly because they were both formative and traumatic, according to my counselor. Head lying on a pillow that provided little support, I stared out the barred, dirty window of my room at the equally dirty barred windows of the unit next door. We lived in a dismal row of section 8 housing, where at all hours of the day and night you could hear arguments and trains and dogs. The idea of greenspace was laughable. There was a small square of lawn in front of each building, probably 10 feet wide by 8 feet deep, but there was nothing green about it. Bikes with flat tires. Empty soda bottles. Cars that had settled into their final resting place.
A narrow alleyway ran between each of the two-unit buildings, just wide enough to walk single-file or ride a bike if you were really balanced (I wasn’t), that invariably contained some combination of broken bottles, used needles, fast-food wrappers, and old newspapers. It led to a walkway that stretched in both directions behind the units, with a chain-link fence forming the boundary between residential and industrial. It was here that I spent a lot of time, prospecting for treasures and rummaging for things to burn.
Countless times, I’d seen my mother light a cigarette, and the pageantry of it infatuated me. The crunchy sound of the cellophane wrapper being removed from the pack, which she would then knock against her hand a few times. I didn’t understand why she did that part, but now I know she was packing the tobacco tighter. The way she’d flip the pack open with her thumb and neatly flick her wrist to partially eject a cigarette so she could grasp it with her lips. The clever wind-block she’d form with her left hand to make lighting easier (even inside with no wind, she’d do this). And damn, the sounds. The scratch of flint…ffffpt…followed by the flame bursting to life. The almost-inaudible crackle of the paper and tobacco as they caught fire. The deep inhale of that first drag, held for a few beats, before a prolonged exhale. What really got me, though, was that lighter. What a little piece of magic it was! Bright red with a black button and cool ridged wheel on top, just an easy roll of your thumb away from creating fire. Seven-year-old me couldn’t possibly have been more enthralled.
I found ways to get my hands on that lighter, typically when my mother was asleep on the couch in the afternoon. I’d quietly snatch it off the coffee table, navigate the wasteland of the alleyway, and head behind our building where I’d surreptitiously char parts of a pizza box or the sports page from last summer that was pinned against the chain-link. I was constantly on high alert for anyone who would interrupt my fun—neighbors, other kids, my mother. Above all else, my mother. She busted me once when I had a Happy Meal box fully engulfed in between our unit and the next one over, and swiftly doused it with rainwater that had collected in a discarded bucket before dragging me inside by my ear. After that, I shifted my activities to the slightly less conspicuous location out back. I got away with it far more times than I was caught.
It was July, and we were squarely in the middle of an oppressive heatwave that had lasted for a few weeks. There were worthless fans running throughout our apartment, doing nothing but transferring stale, humid air from one side of the room to another. It reeked of sweat and garbage and cat piss. People around the neighborhood went outside to escape the heat, then went inside to escape, then went back outside again with the optimistic but foolhardy hope that something had changed. In the distance you could hear the death-throes of an AC unit that couldn’t keep up anymore. Yards were parched, looking brown and crusty like the top of a crumb cake. The skeletal remains of crabgrass and ragweed slumped against the fence-line behind the unit, long ago having given up hope. The place was a tinderbox, and it was not a time to play with fire. But the caveman in all of us, right?
Late afternoon, sweat dripping into my eyes. I was crouched behind the last unit on our side of the street, where the chain-link connected to the building and created an L-shape that was the perfect catch-all for trash that skidded around. More newspaper, coffee cups, half of a sign advertising a garage sale that took place on Memorial Day four streets over. I had been getting more adventurous with my fires, even starting to ball up the paper and add whatever sticks I could find.
Ffffpt. Ffffpt.
It took a few attempts--my small hands weren’t the best at generating enough force to really snap that flint--but finally the lighter came to life and the pile caught. I knew almost immediately that it was bigger than I intended. In seconds orange and red and yellow flames licked the air at head-height, while tendrils of acrid smoke formed and drifted east on the stiff afternoon breeze. The twigs I had gathered snapped and popped in the heat, while sparks spread to the desiccated weeds that stood sentry along the rear of the building and caused them to light up as well. The lid of a convenience store slushy cup melted into a black tar. Above me, I noticed a ground floor window was open, and the wind had sucked the curtains out, so they were draped over the sill and twisted around the metal bars. As the flames grew, I watched in terror as the curtains smoked, peeled, and burst to light.
Panicked, I sprinted back home, set the lighter on the table, and darted into my room. 10 minutes later, I heard the sirens.
The building was old and undoubtedly built before fire codes were up to snuff. Neighbors gathered on the street and held each other, tears in their eyes, as fireman did everything they could to prevent the conflagration (I didn’t know that word when I was seven, but I do now) from spreading. The unit where the fire started was a complete loss. And she was inside. Elizabeth. And she was just 2 years old.
As I stood outside in the street with everyone else, holding my mother’s left hand while she smoked with her right, I watched in silence as again and again the police had to restrain Elizabeth’s wailing parents from entering the inferno. “MY BABY IS IN THERE!” they sobbed. “PLEASE, SOMEBODY DO SOMETHING!” they cried.
I glanced up and met my mother’s eyes. She knew. She knew it was me, but she never said a word. We went to the funeral the following weekend and she forced me to stand in line and offer my condolences to Elizabeth’s parents. I don’t remember what I said, but they told me Elizabeth always got so excited when she saw me outside playing and begged to come join me. I cried the entire walk home. Mom didn’t hold my hand that time, but she didn’t smoke either. I never saw her smoke again.
Bryan Wiler, a western New York native and Syracuse University graduate, finally escaped corporate America and returned to his true passion: creating short works of fiction that grip readers by the arm and refuse to let go. A voracious reader with a unique writing style formed by the amalgamation of his favorite authors like Chuck Palahniuk and Stephen King (atypical for an English major, perhaps?), Bryan may shock, offend, or break your heart, but he always leaves readers longing for more.