After the Fire

Everything had continued pretty much as it always had until after the fire. Before that, the island’s streets had been lined with houses and summer homes, some older and more modest; newer ones, larger. SUVs came and went. Leaf-blowers broke the silence on most days, or lawnmowers, or jet-skis, pretty much anything with a small gasoline engine, revving up and crying out in the true spirit of ritual, proclaiming a belief, acted out as a necessity.

Seasons succeeded. “For Sale” signs proliferated for a while, and then withered. A few houses sold. None for the asking price. And after a while, the rest just dropped out of the market. Otherwise you might drive along the tree-lined streets and not really notice much had changed.

American flags flew over those properties with flag poles. On some lawns little novelty flags sprouted from the grass. Seasonally appropriate banners proclaimed, “I’m a proud shopper!” Their folksy sentiments and crafty appearance more often left to fade as they fell into tatters, like battle-flags in the face of grape-shot, or Tibetan prayer flags, joining all the spinning motors to send this land’s prayers endlessly skyward.

New cars still managed to appear in driveways. Driveways that, not a few, were still re-blackened each year.

Private docks lined the shore, each hosting their similar, familiar powerboats; twenty-five to thirty-foot gleaming fiberglass sport-fishing boats with center-consoles and hard-top Biminis, across their sterns an array of over-inflated outboard-motors. Each announced its power rating in large, flowing, scripted numerals; five hundred, even nine hundred horsepower per boat, once you added them all up. Their owners would take friends out for a happy day of drinking and driving, without having to worry about getting pulled over by the cops.

These boats had their names decal-ed across their flanks, or lettered on their transoms, names like Devastator, Raptor, or Dominator. As though this was the one place – other than those little brand-plates on neo-muscle-cars and gentleman’s pick-up trucks, where their master’s true sentiments could be proclaimed openly, proudly, defiantly.

Some people still commuted daily to a job somewhere, either locally or upstate. Their numbers dwindled over time, but this was veiled to a certain extent. This place had always had a disproportion of retirees who stuck to themselves, and there were many second homes that might be vacant for long stretches.

A rag-tag parade walked the streets at different times of day, even well into the evenings. Some dog-walkers, some after fitness, and every so often – for as long as they lasted – those under doctor’s orders to do something physical “before it was too late.” Often it was already too late when they started. After a few weeks, or at most a couple of months, they disappeared. Another “For Sale” sign might sprout on a ragged lawn for a while to mark their passing.

I wasn’t the most neighborly in those days, but I do claim in my defense that outside of a few cliques and unofficial drinking clubs there was little of a neighborly spirit there at any time. I had only met a handful of people in the dozen years I’d been there. I found myself on speaking terms with just a couple of nearby householders. Beyond that, there was a certain perfunctory hand-waving, clenched smiles exchanged between people who knew there should be more of a connection, but, who found that for whatever reasons, no one seemed to have the motivation to take it any further. There was a certain palpably shared relief, when the other car passed, or a fellow walker turned down a different street; and things returned to normal.

Like I said, that was all before the fire.