Chapter 2

My roommate, Steve, was on the couch, in his underwear, holding a beer. A local brew, but still very untypical and non-stereotypical for a gay man. Whereas I…except I’m not bitchy. Okay, I’m tired and probably dehydrated, and at least he wasn’t in the shower, so who cares how typical a gay man I am. I did have great hair, bronze—well, brown with a touch of L’Oréal—and great eyes, dark and mysterious, and, uh, usually great skin but filthy now.

“Ew, go wash that crap off! You look like you rolled in ash!”

Good old Steve.

“Dinner’s ready when you are, Buddy.”

Good old Steve, for reals. I realized I was starving.

As I thought about the man later, the whole scene burned into my mind. I sat, full of dinner, leaning back with a cold beer in my hand, on the floor, my back against the couch. Steve was playing some computer game with gun sounds, and he whooped and yelled. I thought of the thousand pots of fire I had seen, and the black trees burning, their tops naked, already gone. I thought of a lone man, leading a dog to safety, while Hell broke loose from the ground behind him and a two-hundred-foot-tall wall of fire spewed burning rocks and hatred from a deep, deep rift in the ground. I thought of my house, just beyond a stand of trees, and wondered how long it would last.

I wanted to know that man and why he was there. I wondered if I’d ever find out and if it even mattered.

* * * *

I was surprised I slept well. The last few days I’d been doing not just the one or two tours we usually did, but as many as reporters and media personnel requested, and a few for county and state officials as well. I had to be careful not to get dehydrated, and to have masks for everyone on board. The wind could shift at any time, although you could almost see it coming, but sometimes some VIA (very important asshole) needed to fly over a risky area. Then I made them wear the masks, as I did, too, but they didn’t like being ordered to do so. It was one of the perks of the job. Plus, I was doing what I loved and getting paid for it.

M (just saying that makes me feel like James Bond) said a new mandatory evacuation had been ordered. I’d already heard that over breakfast. Once again, Steve had cooked. I’m sure he wanted me to sleep with him, too. He was a great guy in all other ways; I just felt no chemistry that way. Besides, I was too busy and too tired. I had to keep my focus on my work.

So up we went, national media people today. Below, I saw green, forests, solar power on roofs, the black of fields ready to be planted, a marijuana farm…more fields, woods, houses, and the highway. Then it appeared through the smoke and haze: black, black, black; Amish black my mother used to call it when she needed black for a quilt. Piles of lava, twenty feet high, and ahead and to the side, flames two hundred feet high, coming out of vents and rifts and splits in the ground who knows how deep. There were the little progressive school, a church, an old abandoned church from the 1800s, a crossroad.

It started to smell; I tightened my mask. I made the others put theirs on before taking off. I saw a truck by a house, loading up and getting ready to leave, I hoped, because up ahead, the lava has almost reached the highway. Yellow trees, green trees, palm trees, now blackened and burned trees, rising out of lava. Why doesn’t the whole tree burn up? Some telephone poles on their sides, smoking, some on the highway, lines down everywhere. Looks like a war zone, and it is, really, only the people are all on the same side. Well, except for last night when that one guy shot at someone who pulled up in a truck to offer help.

Today’s passengers made me appreciate the guy I had yesterday. These are entitled, self-important, used to getting their way. They wanted me to set down in front of the flows or fountains so they could shoot with gorgeous (and dangerous) backgrounds. I can’t believe how stupid people are. And, no, I wouldn’t do it; I usually say I’m not allowed to do it or I can’t and still have the ability to get back to base. My boss can deal with it; he’s probably the schmuck who said I would do whatever they wanted, in the first place. There goes any tip, but I don’t care. If I wanted a job where I made great money, I’d have worked in journalism or television news. Little sarcasm there; did you notice it?

I wondered how close the flow was to my home now and flew over that way. There he was, the man below, standing on the roof of a house three doors away, waving. I heard the newscaster say, “Shoot him,” but luckily, he was only talking to the photographer.