Rule of the Bone by Russell Banks

sight and a third fire truck pulled into place. On the far side of the street I thought I saw a bunch of people I knew, including my mom and my stepdad but I think it was an optical illusion due to fear and excitement.
    Pretty soon the firemen must’ve realized there was no way they could save the house so they started spraying water on the buildings on either side of it including the one me and Russ were in to try and keep them from going up too. I could hear the water pounding on the roof and a bunch of firemen ran past the window toward the back. The storage room was filling with smoke and we were coughing from it and our eyes stung and sparks were starting to float down from the darkness near the ceiling like fireflies.
    We better book, man, I said.
    He goes, What about my stuff? I can’t leave my stuff
    It’s not your stuff. Never was.
    Bruce and the other guys, they’re the ones who stole it!
    Yeah, and you stole it from them. Now Bruce’s dead and the other guys’re gone.
    Like it’s the first time he’s thought it Russ says, The cops’ll think I stole it too.
    Fucking duh, man. Let it burn. It’s our best chance.
    What about my car? I need my car.
    Forget it. We’re criminals, man. You’ll have another chance. Maybe we’ll get lucky and people’ll see your car and think we died in the fire too, I said and ran for the door thinking that was the way it should be, me and Russ and Bruce burned up in the fire together, our bodies turned into three piles of char surrounded by burned-up tons of stolen electronics.
    I didn’t know how Russ’s mom would take it but mine would be sad at first and then she’d get over it and my stepdad would be secretly happy especially since he could carry on like he’d lost something important to him.
    Nobody else would think much about it though. Except Black Bart maybe since he’d lost a lot of freight forwarding business with the bikers plus a homeless kid who used to sell him his daily blunt. But nobody else’d care.
    Russ was a step behind me and when I pushed open the door I freaked a pair of firemen who had their axes all ready to chop their way in.
    Jesus! What the hell are you doing in there! the lead guy hollered. Get the hell outa there! he said and I said, We’re gone, man! and we were.

CHAPTER SIX
SKULL & BONES
    We booked like mad through a bunch of backyards and cut down to the river where there’s this narrow brick walkway from the olden days when the mill was running that snakes under the Main Street Bridge. You can stand down there next to the water which in spring comes right up to your feet and smoke a J if you want or just hang out and talk without being seen or heard which is why kids have been going there for generations I think.
    Due to the fire and everybody in town wanting to watch it, us getting out of Au Sable without being seen was easier than it probably should’ve been but of course nobody was actually looking for me and Russ yet. They didn’t know yet that we were missing and presumed dead.
    It was my idea not to let anyone see us. Russ said, Maybe they’ll be so busy putting the fire out and keeping it from spreading and all that they won’t notice my stuff and we can go back later for it. Plus he was worried about his car. Russ is a very material guy.
    I said, No way, man. Firemen are really smart and they hate unanswered questions. They’re not like cops, I told him, who would’ve just grabbed up all of Russ’s stolen VCRs and computers for themselves like it was Christmas and then busted us for some other crime than stealing. Like arson, even though it was only accidental. And once they found Bruce’s body up there in the apartment which unless he was burned to a crisp they could identify easy because of all his Gulf War tattoos they’d try and nail us for murder although a lot of people’d want to give us a good citizenship medal