Conflagration!
The soldiers are beating a warning on drums that can be heard throughout the streets. Soon troops are running through town with buckets, ladders, shovels. The town crier can be heard in the distance. He says only one word, over and over and over.
Fire.
My boots are on, and I am heading out the door. It is the law. All able-bodied men must report to the scene of the conflagration to assist. I take a cloth to wrap around my mouth. The smoke is starting to fill the streets, and it will be intense the closer I get to the blaze.
I turn to kiss Madeleine goodbye. She has a shawl on. “Where are you going?”
“With you.”
“Absolutely not. You can’t fight a fire.”
“But I can help those in distress.” With that my wife and my unborn child are out the door and heading down rue Saint-Antoine. I look at her retreating back, proud and perturbed.
We follow the crowd, the drums, and the voice of the town crier to rue Saint-Paul. The street is in flames. The de Béréy house is consumed. It was only yesterday I stood inside that home, admired its design and its furniture, spoke with its owner.
We form a brigade; bucket after bucket after bucket of water is passed and poured on houses that line both sides of the street. To no avail.
In less than three hours it is over. The fire has won. More than forty homes are gone. Gone. Reduced to black ash, burnt stubs of wood, and tar, from the water that was tossed everywhere in a futile attempt to squelch the flames.
Hung Out to Die
That tidbit remains until the last mouthful of dessert, a vegan apple crisp that surely comes second only to particle board. I reach for my exquisite organic Ethiopian yirgacheffe coffee when Raynes leans in. I brace.
“Not to cut this delightful dinner short, but I have a favor to ask.” I relax a tinchlet, as the Nova Scotians say to describe something very small. “Faye Bedwell has agreed to talk to me this evening about her son being bullied. Riel, she’d like you to be there.”
The use of my first name takes me aback, but not nearly as much as the request itself. I barely know this woman.
Raynes adroitly answers my unasked questions. “I think she would feel more comfortable if someone she knew was present, and she said you have been there for the family since her husband died.”
I attempt not to gape. I look at Tiffany, who stares at her coffee cup. Ahh, so my wife has been reaching out. God bless her. I nod my acceptance. “Anything I can do.”
“I suggest we get going,” says Raynes. “I told Mrs. Bedwell we’d be there by 8:30.”
Of course, he did.
The Thong Principle: Saying What You Mean and Meaning What You Say
As you sit under a dried palm umbrella, icy marguerita within easy reach, and a best-selling mystery novel in hand, there is little to do but enjoy life, fill your lungs with gratitude, and look up every once in a while to soak in the atmosphere. As I looked up, and walked the beach, it occurred to me that many vacationers were wearing thongs. Yep, the swimsuit with a single string in the rear.
Admittedly, many of them looked good, very good. Of course, when you see enough people opting to wear an outfit with less material than my cat’s harness, it raises a very personal question: Should I wear a thong?
After of week of looking and lounging, I had my answer. No.
Whatever carefree attitude, chutzpah, confidence, or complacency it took to walk up and down a public beach with your ass hanging out, I didn’t have it. (Still don’t.) Initially, that realization surprised me and disappointed me. I wanted to be the lighthearted beach walker who meandered blithely up and down the sand without a care in the world about my bare ass, who was looking, or how I ranked on the thong-wearing scale.
I came to realize, however, that my reluctance to wear a thong was just that. Mine. It’s about comfort, physically and emotionally. I am not a thong wearer. I’ve learned to live with that.
I’ve also come to realize this reality is the foundation of effective communication.
