There certainly wouldn’t be Andrés Escobar, Ernest thought ruefully, watching three kids playing keep-away with a soccer ball. The Colombian soccer player had been gunned down at a Medellín nightclub last month for the heinous crime of accidentally scoring a goal against his own team during a World Cup match. Chicago had hosted the World Cup in June for the first time ever, painting soccer balls all over the streets downtown, and Ernest, whose interest in sports was casual, to say the least, found himself swept up in the fever. Escobar’s murder stunned him—the kid was only twenty-seven years old. Twenty-seven years old! It was 1994 and people were getting fatally shot in the back for sporting errors? The medieval violence galled him.
OK, breathe. It’s Saturday. It’s your birthday! Ernest tried to tap into the divine relaxation vibes his wife was always urging him to find. Not that she had the road map to them herself. Not that you could just strike the stream of peace and love whenever you wanted to. It was more spontaneous and lucky than that. “When grace goes by the window,” she’d say, “you have to grab it fast.” Ernest had to admit the day was doing its part to yield the right circumstances. Far away in the summer afternoon sky, Mercury glowed like a hunk of pyrite. Families, teenagers, and working people sunbathed and picnicked on the plush lawn of Aurora Park, relaxed, open, deliriously dazed by the heat.
But there was a problem. Behind him at the picnic table, his wife and their two teenage children waited for their lunch on the verge of riotous impatience. And the grill master upon whom they depended was distracted, big-time.
At a neighboring grill, another chef—a buff guy around his age—was sparing no fanciful gesture with his engorged bottle of lighter fluid, as if fire, the oldest thing ever, needed a haze of poly-whatever to nurture it into being. He doused his charcoal once, twice, three times, zigzagging at the end for a little extra flourish. Then he threw a match in and immediately flames leaped out of the stacked pyramid. His girlfriend or whoever—Ernest estimated she was a good fifteen years younger than him—clapped her hands together, which made a funny squashing noise because she was still holding her can of illicit beer.
“Ernest,” Cynthia said to her husband in a warning murmur. “Don’t.”
Ernest had a kind of environmental Tourette’s, where he was compelled to remark if something didn’t adhere to his principles. Cynthia and most people who knew him understood that he didn’t intend to offend anyone with his comments. He was just as likely to observe his own failings in the exact same tone of voice, beset with a grim acceptance of life’s inevitable compromises. For now, he pursed his lips in a grim line.
The fire at his own grill wasn’t going nearly as well. In fact, it wasn’t going at all. His son, Gabe, kept repeating, also in a low voice, “Just ask that guy for his lighter fluid, what’s the big deal?” but Ernest would never poison his charcoal (and their food) with additives. As a result, the light summer wind kept stalling his efforts at ignition. The twists of newspaper he set on fire blew out before the charcoals could catch, time after time after time.
Their neighbor had a surplus of fire, so much so that he was forced to step back for a moment as the flames roared up past his chest, threatening to take his eyebrows with them.
“That’s what I’m talking about!” the man announced smugly to his girlfriend, and pumped a fist in the air.
“You know,” Ernest called out indignantly. The man and his girlfriend looked over at them. Cynthia put her head in her hands. “You might want to consider skipping the lighter fluid next time. So many terrible chemicals, you probably don’t realize. You should let that fire burn off for a while before you throw your burgers on it so you don’t eat any of the residue.”
The girlfriend cocked an eyebrow and crossed her legs, anklet jingling. The man took a sip of his beer, and as his flexing biceps caught the sunlight, Ernest noticed then that he was muscular to the point of it being nearly a handicap. His arms did not lie smoothly against his torso; they stuck out at angles.
“I’m good,” the man said, before adding, “Hey, how long have you been trying to light that fire?”
“Forever,” Gabe piped in.
“This is how we do it,” Ernest insisted to no one in particular.
“It’s my dad’s birthday,” Alison tried explaining. “He’s stubborn but we love him.”
At fourteen years old, Alison was eighteen months younger than her brother and therefore more likely to cut her sarcasm with sweetness. The man grinned. “You’re so cute,” the girlfriend sang to Alison—though she was barely a woman herself—while her boyfriend started toward them, lighter fluid in hand.
“Tell you what: for your birthday, I can get this fire going for you in no time.”
They all laughed, except Ernest.
“No, no, thank you. I’ll taste it in everything. It’ll ruin my whole day, maybe my week.”
The man gave him some side-eye. “Seriously?”
“He’s impossible,” Gabe said. “This is what we live with.”
“You’re so nice to offer,” Cynthia finally spoke up. “Don’t worry about us.”
“Listen,” the man said, “I know you want to do it your way, but I’ll just leave this here, in case you change your mind.” He handed the lighter fluid directly to Gabe, who hissed, “Yesssss,” and clutched the prize to his chest.
As soon as the man returned to his camp, just barely out of earshot, Ernest leaned over to Gabe and scream-whispered, “You think that guy’s cool? Please.”
“Well, he can start a fire. That’s pretty cool.”
“He’s also drinking beer illegally in the park.”
“So are you!”
“It’s my birthday! And it’s in a red cup. Everyone knows to put it in a red cup. He’s being flagrant about it.”
Ernest went back to his collection of cold rocks. More determined than ever, he twisted fresh newspaper sections into potential screwdrivers of flame. For a second they burned with promise but then petered into ash, lighting not a single charcoal in their vicinity.
“Um, I’m shedding pounds waiting for this meal,” Alison said.
“Have some more baby carrots,” Cynthia said.
“Ew, no way,” Alison said, looking at her mother as if she were a festering boil.
“Fine,” Cynthia said, dragging the plate of limp sticks back over to her side of the table. The rest of what she wanted to say—“you don’t have to be such a little brat about it”—was already implied. She wanted to keep the peace, but Alison must’ve seen the look pass over her face.
“Sorry,” she halfheartedly offered. “But they always remind me of skinned fingers.”
Cynthia examined one and then popped it in her mouth. “Fingers taste good to me.”
The man and his girlfriend were now sitting down to their lunch of succulent Polish sausage slathered in mustard, relish, and hot peppers, accompanied by skewers of perfectly grilled vegetables. They pretended to chat, but Ernest felt the man’s eyes drift over, real casual-like but with a clear