Let It Burn

A Chapter by Alli Chaos

This chapter-part introduces Ali, the main character who goes back home for the first time in 10 years. Being home brings up a lot of memories for Ali to wrestle with.

We were sitting around the dinner table on the same corduroy benches my dad made from pulling scraps out of the local Food Mart’s dumpster back when my family first moved to Fort, White, Florida in November of 1991. Being back in the same double wide, with the same cigarette stained walls brought back a lot of memories, so of which I wasn’t quite ready to face. Yelling over the sound of box fans turned on high in every single window didn’t seem quite as overwhelming, as it did growing up. Mark and I sat together, holding hands, while listening diligently to my mom tell stories about her bathroom habits and my sisters drug addiction. My father clunked around the house humming the tune of "Ma-mas Don't Let Your Ba-bies Grow Up to Be Cowboys" while snatching our full dinner plates from right under our noses. After getting just a tiny dose of my not so normal parents in the run down town I grew up in, I was sure Mark’s ‘judgment’ was forthcoming. but when I glanced in his direction to measure his disapproval, I noticed he was completely zeroed in; content. He loved me anyway. I breathed a long, deep breath of gratitude. Not only for the fact that someone saw through what I always thought of as an abnormal amount of baggage, but also for how completely easy it was for him. I wished for a brief moment that I could be more like him and less like myself.

I had three siblings. Michael, the oldest, was a charming smooth talker who loved a good time. He never missed an opportunity to try something new. While he meant well, Michael always seemed to do more harm than good. Two years younger was my older sister, Jean. Jean was a saucy pistol that was not to be told what to do, or what not to do for that matter. She had the mouth of a drunken sailor and functioned on her terms both at school and at home. Tommy, my youngest brother was the baby. Everyone loved him, no matter what mischief he was into at the time. Then there was me. The outcast. The ‘black sheep’ of the family, according to my parents. The other three didn’t like me very much but I never seemed to mind. I was more concerned with what contraption I was going to use to go snake hunting with. Barefooted and pig-tailed, I lived for my own adventures, outside, where I felt the safest, climbing in the tallest trees in the middle of the darkest woods.

“Why are you looking at me like that Ali?” Mark asked. I shook my head and came back to the room. “Oh, sorry. I was just thinking about the day we got this house. Do you remember, mom?” She paused and lowered her brow “I remember,” she said in a confident tone. “You were three years old and we just moved to Florida from Texas, where Ali was born.” She was looking at Mark now. “We left Texas with the clothes on our backs and $100 in our name.” Mark looked at me, confused “Wait, you were born in Texas? How did you guys end up in Florida?” “My mom, Ali's grandma Susan burned our house down so we moved” Mark blinked, waiting for my mom to say “got ya!”, My mother continued “Yea, she didn't like Mike very much, and when I wouldn’t leave him, one day she emptied a gas tank on the front porch and dropped a match. She burned our entire house down with everything but us inside” Mark turned his head from me to my mom in complete shock. “That makes sense” was all he could muster up. My mom and I broke out into hysterical laughter while Mark tried desperately to mask the look of horror on his face. “I had forgotten that story” I pressed through breathless laughter. “Speaking of grandma, what time is she getting here tomorrow?”