BooksBarbecue
Back Lomita For Ever
Chapters (42)
  1. Cover
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. Chapter One
  7. Chapter Two
  8. Chapter Three
  9. Chapter Four
  10. Chapter Five
  11. Chapter Six
  12. Chapter Seven
  13. Chapter Eight
  14. Chapter Nine
  15. Chapter Ten
  16. Chapter Eleven
  17. Chapter Twelve
  18. Chapter Thirteen
  19. Chapter Fourteen
  20. Chapter Fifteen
  21. Chapter Sixteen
  22. Chapter Seventeen
  23. Chapter Eighteen
  24. Chapter Nineteen
  25. Chapter Twenty
  26. Chapter Twenty-one
  27. Chapter Twenty-two
  28. Chapter Twenty-three
  29. Chapter Twenty-four
  30. Chapter Twenty-five
  31. Chapter Twenty-six
  32. Chapter Twenty-seven
  33. Chapter Twenty-eight
  34. Chapter Twenty-nine
  35. Chapter Thirty
  36. Chapter Thirty-one
  37. Chapter Thirty-two
  38. Chapter Thirty-three
  39. Chapter Thirty-four
  40. Chapter Thirty-five
  41. Chapter Thirty-six
  42. 1

He drank the water and took off his socks. He opened the trunk of the car and pulled out the can of petrol. And poured it on the seats and floor of the car, then onto a sock and into the water bottle. The seats were vinyl and wouldn’t absorb so he opened the petrol cap and poured some petrol all around the opening, and with shaking hands opened the matchbox, most of the matches fell out; he rammed the end of the soaked sock into the bottle and lit it. And then, when convinced it wasn’t going to go out, threw it into the open back door of the car.

And ran.

Waiting for the boom.

He thought, there would be a boom, wouldn’t there? He turned, hearing no boom. Twenty feet away and nobody around, nobody carrying their washing, he could see the haze of heat as the inside of the car was on fire, the petrol cap was open and the fire was grasping at the fumes outside on the paint work. Then came the boom. The petrol tank released its pressure, like the sparklet, the car became a burning furnace; he was running like a madman for the alley exit.

He stopped and turned for one last look, his Honda EX V6 sedan in dull red was being destroyed before his eyes. A magnificent sight. Fuzzy with the shimmering, adding to the heat of the day. The squealing noise as the metal contorted in pain, the plastic loving and lapping up the flames with a fizz. Burning in a frenzy. It was going to be a shell and become even less memorable than it was before.

He could have cooked some potatoes there.

It was sad that it was burning on gravel and caked mud.

Nothing to spread the fire.

Lomita – ten maybe fifteen minutes must have gone.

What had Lomita done? He had made her, hadn’t he?

It was his fault again. He imagined himself sitting in the front of the burning Honda with the flames caressing him, paining and searing at his flesh. Would he burn in an explosive way or just cook slowly like a piece of pork? Nearest thing to human flesh isn’t? He should have done that, he should have sat in the front seat of the car while it was burning and joined it in the smoke.

The meat and no potato.

He ran back the long way around, looking to see if anyone was paying any attention to him, or following him.

*

The Isis Adelphia’s beads rippled again and he didn’t wait for the Chinese lady.