Prick of the Spindle: Fiction: Gager: Bonfire

Bonfire
By Timothy Gager

When the women discussed music they’d lost it to, none of it seemed romantic. Elaine-Pink Floyd, Lisa-38 Special, but my Golden Earring, Twilight Zone, “when the bullet hit the bone” lyric produced laughter louder than when Sharon said she'd given it up to Sister Christian.

Then we moved to car accidents because losing virginity was similar and I said Instant Karma was on when I totaled my car and saw God. With Aimee, she was on the phone yelling, “Where are you? Where are you? Where are you?” to her boyfriend at 1 am. She continued the chant while the firefighters looked for Tony for another thirty minutes. He wasn’t ejected, he was home.

Tammy told us that her ex-boyfriend went psycho and tried to kill everyone, including her, by driving 80 into a tree, but only he died. To this day, she cannot listen to Dave Matthews. We’d told her a few minutes ago that Crash Into Me had been a bad choice for her on the other thing we were talking about. "Oh, the smoke," she said and couldn't stop coughing.

Timothy Gager is the author of eight books of short fiction and poetry. He's had over 250 works published since 2007 and of those eight have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He hosts the Dire Literary Series in Cambridge, Massachusetts every month and is the co-founder of Somerville News Writers Festival. He lives at http://www.timothygager.com.