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something wrong. Then he went to the back of the shed, found a place where the boards were loose, and stuffed in the soaked rags. A minute later he looked behind him, reassured himself there was no one around, and threw the rest of the gasoline over the area.
    He tossed in a lighted match and was just able to get back fast enough to see it go up in a whoosh without singeing his hands and face. The colors were interesting enough, but the heat was more than he bargained for. He watched for a moment, then moved on as if nothing had happened.
    By the time he reached the corner of his block, he heard the sirens. He waited for the fire trucks to pass, then went home as usual. His mother didn’t ask why he was late. Most of the time she wasn’t even there, preferring to spend her afternoons drinking late lunches with the girls, going to the hairdresser or shopping for the latest fashions. He didn’t even look for news of the fire in the local papers the next day. In fact, for a few days afterward, he nearly forgot about it altogether. That was before the supermarket.
    “You’re going to have a great time at the Congress this weekend,” Melinda was saying. “I hear they have a new teen room filled with all sorts of pinball machines, ping-pong tables and …”
    “Ginger peachy.”
    “Well, Christ,” she said, taking her eyes off the road. “If you don’t give anything a chance, what the hell do you expect?” She had to swerve back as the car behind began to pass and the driver honked his horn. “Drop dead!” she screamed. “Son of a bitch has to ride right on top of you. Look at all those idiots crowding up.”
    “You did cut him off, mom.”
    “That’s right, Grant. Be critical. Ever since the last visit to that father of yours, you’ve been critical of everything I do. Look,” she added. “any other fifteen-year-old would be jumping for joy about going to a resort hotel for the July Fourth weekend.”
    He started to jump up and down on the seat.
    “Cut it out. I said, CUT IT OUT! I’m warning you, Grant, if you ruin this holiday for me. …”
    He stopped jumping for joy on the front seat and looked out the window at the monotonous scenery off Route 17. The speed of the car tended to liquefy it and make it all a blur.
    His thoughts began to wander. The supermarket. He remembered it with unabashed glee. Now that was a blaze! He had noticed the loading door in the back was opened one evening and thought … It was easy enough to pull off and the idea seemed amusing at the time, although the next day he was disillusioned with the dirty remains, the charred frame, the debris. He had started the incandescence at night, which was at least visually exciting. What made it most interesting was the incredible number of people the fire attracted. All those men, women and children out there, watching, talking, their eyes widened with amazement and all because of him, Grant because of what he had done. And to think the dean of students thought he lacked imagination!
    “We’re getting close,” his mother announced, suddenly excited at the thought of all the sexual possibilities the next four days held in store. There was a lightness in her voice, a happy note Grant vaguely recalled from days of pre-adolescence when they were all together, when the world had a semblance, a logic, a pattern. “See that sign.”
    He gazed at the billboard that read,
    THE CONGRESS HOTEL ONLY THE BEST FOR OUR GUESTS FIVE MILES TO YOUR LEFT
    “I can hardly wait.”
    She looked at him crossly, then stopped for a light.
    The Congress hotel, Grant thought. The first time he had been there, right after the divorce, he had hated it: all those organized teen activities, the dumb children’s dining room with murals of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs on the walls, and going to sleep alone in the room every night because his mother was down at the bar planning to do who knew what with who knew whom. Everyone always on his back to participate, join