Page 3 of Burning for Alexander
I rolled my eyes and grinned at him. “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course you can. Come on.”
I turned to head toward the old wooden stairs leading up to the place I called home over the restaurant. Unlike my friend Maddox, who lived over his family’s hardware store in town in a residence resembling an actual apartment, I lived in more of a rabbit warren.
The building was an old timber roadhouse that had been around for almost a hundred years. Over time, it had been added onto like a LEGO house with rooms originally built to expand the kitchen, store beer kegs, bulk food supplies, pool tables, and various other things as the mood had struck various owners over the years.
My place was a motley collection of little rooms forming the interconnected and finished attic spaces of the add-ons. Thankfully, it meant Tavo had a tiny room to himself—one just large enough to fit a simple twin bed and small wooden dresser.
Unfortunately, the rooms were connected by narrow passageways that made sharing the living space a challenge at times. Once we made our way upstairs, Tavo ducked into his room and waited for me to do my nightly bathroom routine before taking his turn. Imoved into my bedroom to throw both dormer windows wide open and let out the stuffy heat of the day.
I flicked on the large box fan and set it in one window to create some airflow, and then moved back out of my room to the small kitchen in search of a glass of ice water. The stress of the day began to melt away as I moved through my nightly routine.
It wasn’t until I was setting tomorrow morning’s alarm on my phone after slipping into bed that I saw the email notification from the Legacy Fire Department. I clicked it open to see the “Official Notice of Permit Suspension.”
As my eyes scanned down the page, my anger began to simmer and then boil over.
Incident involved ignition of alcohol-based sanitizer aerosol in proximity to open flame being used for bar drink presentation. Resulting fire involved napkin holder and was extinguished with in-house Class K extinguisher. Preliminary cause determined to be procedural negligence and failure to adhere to fire safety protocols. Referred for code compliance review.
I was going to kill that overreacting motherfucker. Before taking a moment of maturity to catch my breath and calm down, maybe even sleep on it the way a professional adult would have, I hit the Reply button and gave Legacy’s new fire chief a piece of my fucking mind.
2
KINCAID
IndexEcho:Now that you’ve passed your ICS-100, what else should we talk about?
DrunkenPoet:You told me identifying details were off-limits, so I’ll have to get creative. What’s your favorite wine and why is it Sauvignon Blanc?
IndexEcho:Sorry, more of a beer guy. Wine’s too rich for my blood. Fave beer is Summer Song made near where I grew up. You?
_____________________
Subject: Re: Official Notice of Permit Suspension
Dear Fire Dom Kincaid,
Thank you for your prompt and wildly proportionate response to the recent incident.
While I appreciate your detailed retelling ofhow a flaming orange peel met a rogue spritz of sanitizer and briefly terrorized a napkin holder, I feel compelled to point out a few things:
The “procedural negligence” was, in fact, me attempting to provide an entertaining, Instagram-worthy drink presentation to paying customers—something you might know about if your job involved serving people instead of scowling at them.
The fire was extinguished immediately using equipment I purchased, installed, and trained my staff to use.
No injuries occurred, unless you count my emotional trauma from watching you drench my walnut bar in potassium salt foam like it was a county fair pie-eating contest.
So while I admire your commitment to the “kill a mosquito with a sledgehammer” approach, I respectfully request you un-suspend my permit before I decide to bill the Legacy Fire Department for damage to my bar’s finish.
Warmest regards (pun very much intended),
Alexander Marian
Owner, Timber
I staredat the email on the monitor in front of me while my coffee cooled on the desk. “What the actual fuck,” I grumbled under my breath. “Is he insane?”
A voice shouted through my doorway from somewhere in the hall. “Chances are yes, if you’re talking about McMasters, Chief.”
Cody McMasters fired back. “Fuck you, Javi!”
