Twenty-One Years Before Andrew Jenkins, Aged 15
When I was younger I would burn butterflies.
Holding Dad’s magnifying glass at arm’s length on a summer’s day. The scent of cut grass and wild mint in the warm, unmoving air. It was important to catch the sunbeam just right.
My parents should have known.
It took me several minutes to rinse out the peanut butter jar. I wanted it real clean.
I told them I’d do it.
They should have listened.
I hid the jar under their bed early this morning. I placed their room key inside the jar. Screwed the lid tight.
Maybe they will find it in time.
These past months Dad has treated me like a fungus growing inside the walls of his house. One punishment after another. Mom hasn’t put a stop to it. If anything, she’s encouraged him.
Not my fault.
I can hear him snoring in their bedroom. It is a familiar sound. Mom never complains. I open their door quietly as I can. Striped sheets from Macy’s. Matching drapes covering the locked window. Dad’s jeans and thick leather belt over the chair in the corner. I am all too familiar with that belt.
Mom stirs.
I watch her.
They had every chance.
I stare at their bodies in the bed. The sheets rising and falling. Their breathing seems synchronized, as if they are one.
They can still save themselves.
The key’s right there. It wouldn’t take much.
I don’t say goodbye or anything like that. Dad would think that soft. I close the door gently and leave them to their slumber.
I use the spare key to lock them in.
Click.
The gasoline can is green. Dark green. Dad keeps it in the garage with the lawn mower, his chain saws, and hammers. Wrenches. Just like his dad before him, he looks after his tools. Won’t let me touch them.
But I do touch them.
I touch them all the time.
I study them and sometimes I write about them.
More snoring from their room. I work carefully.
Don’t want to wake them. Splash the carpet, the drapes, the walls.
The smell is pleasing. Sweet and electric.
I breathe in the fumes and then I soak the upholstered chair—a sibling to the one his jeans and belt hang on in the master bedroom—and wedge the chair under their door handle because Grandpa taught me you can never be too careful.
Retreating down the passage, I remove my rubber boots and raincoat and place them on the saturated carpet.
Almost ready.
I hesitate, lifting my chin, breathing it all in, taking note.
I can’t fail now. This is my one chance to change my destiny, or at least nudge it in a good direction. There are certain decisions in life that determine which route you’ll take at an intersection. I guess this is one of them.
The Slazenger tennis ball is one from a tube of four I found in the garage with his tools.
I push it into the wet fibers of the carpet, careful not to dampen my pajamas, and then I walk down a few stairs and turn to face their door.
I can only see the top half and it is as if the chair isn’t there jammed under the handle.
I set fire to the tennis ball with Dad’s Zippo lighter and then I throw it, gently, underarm, toward the door.
I turn around.
Heat at my back.
Light.
They expected certain things of me. It was baked into the cake I’d turn out like they did. But now I have changed that.
Relief, and a sense of overwhelming calm.
Revisiting summers past. The magnifying glass and the butterflies.
Peace, descending like a heavy blanket. I wait downstairs, their screams muffled, their banging short-lived.
I had planned to go back to bed for a while, I’m not sure why.
I had imagined it, I suppose: the scene, the poetry of that action, but there is too much smoke.
I take my jacket from the hook.
And then I walk outside to watch it burn.