The night we burned a million dollars in the backyard

I can remember the taste of the lighter fluid. Once, when you’d shut your eyes, you could feel it coated in the back of your throat. It still lives there. I still taste it on August 12th of that year (maybe 2004) when the cicadas were screaming so loud you had to shout to be heard.

I have no idea what the cicadas sound like, but I’d imagine they were pretty obnoxious. I've only had this memory out of the closet twice since that night. It weighs on me. When I think of it, there is a stone inside of my chest, weighing perhaps 100 pounds.

My father was a genius, or maybe not. I have no idea anymore. In my eyes, he is a giant. He is an artist, a painter, who lived in a shed for more than twenty years. He made beautiful landscapes and portraits of people. The paintings of landscapes would have looked as though they were alive, while the portraits followed you with eyes filled with secrets.

People all over town thought he was going to be the next greatest artist to ever live. "A million dollars just sitting back there," Mr. Henderson said with the whistle of his teeth when he saw my father's paintings.

That night, the air was thick like soup. You could wear it. I was sitting on the back steps, scratching a mosquito bite on my ankle until it started bleeding. The sliding glass door was broken (again). My mother told me she would fix it, but she never did.

My father came out of the shed. He was not wearing the artist's smock he usually wore while painting; he was wearing a white t-shirt with yellow stains in the armpits and his boxer shorts. When I saw him, he looked very small and deflated. He did not say a word to me; he simply started taking the paintings out of the shed.

He started taking them one by one: The Lady in the Blue Rain; The Storm Over Kansas; The self-portrait with the jagged edges (where he looked like he was looking at himself in a broken mirror). He stacked them into a pile in the fire ring outside. They were a pillow of dreams. "Dad?" I whispered, and my voice was cracking. "Dad, Mr. Henderson said..."

My father never stopped. He was on a mission with a purpose. He went inside, got more paintings, and continued until the pile was over his waist. I stood up and could feel the weight of my legs. "Dad, what are you doing? Mr. Henderson said those are going to be..."

"Mr. Henderson is an idiot, Leo." He spoke calmly, without a hint of anger. That makes it worse for me. If he had screamed or thrown brushes, it would have been easier to accept. I understand rage. Rage is easy.

His voice was calm, but his movements were precise, like a surgeon performing surgery. He picked up a red container of lighter fluid off the ground next to the picnic table and emptied it onto the pile of canvases. Paint queued to the top of the canvas and soaked through the fibers before the fire ever touched them, and they were ruined.

The smell of lighter fluid was so sharp it made me want to heave. "Why are you doing this?" I wanted to shout, but I had no voice left. All I could do was sweat as my tears mixed with the salty sweat coming off my body.

He stopped moving, turned to look at me, and looked deep into my eyes (for the first time in months). The look that came from his eyes was not tired from lack of sleep, but worn out by life. His eyes were tired, and he resembled a major appliance you forgot to turn off. "Because they own me, kid," he replied softly. "I can no longer let them own me."

He pulled out the Zippo lighter. *Click.* The flame was minuscule—a small flame dancing on the wick—but it looked so pure, innocent, and harmless. *Freeze.* That is where time stopped for me at that moment. I watched the flame dancing on the wick, listened to the sound of cicadas, felt the weight of the air on my back, and the steady hand of an artist hovering over more than twenty years of his hard work. He released the lighter into the pile.

*Whoosh*. As it flew, the lid opened; the lighter opened its lid quickly. Fire erupted in a mass of orange-red flames, attacking the sky. The heat radiated through my skin, roasted my eyebrows, and melted paint into one big blob that turned to ash. I watched *The Lady in the Blue Rain* melt away silently.

I wanted to turn and run inside and grab those paintings, but I couldn't move; all I could do was stand frozen where I was. My father and I stared at the flames. What I had seen was a fire worth a million dollars that burned before my eyes—or could it have been only one thousand dollars—or perhaps nothing at all?

And then I got the surprise—the surprise I never expected to see: After watching the paintings devour themselves in flames, I looked at my father waiting for him to express pain over the loss of a legacy, as any other father would do. Instead, his face broke into a smile.

He took in the humid air of the summer night like it was the finest, most delicious wine he had ever tasted. Stress left him. The expression of pure joy overcame him. He let out a soft, "Ahhh..." as he emitted a sigh.

He didn’t destroy his life; instead, he was saving it.

He sat on a rusty lawn chair, cracked a warm beer, and gazed up at the embers as they floated away into the leaves of the oak tree.

“Get some sleep, Leo,” he said.

Instead of going to bed, I stayed inside and watched the dying fire until it was nothing but a dim, glowing red eye in the midnight darkness.

I can still smell that smoke. Was it from my neighbor’s barbecue? No, it was 2:00 am, just my mind’s imagination.

My father stopped painting and got a new job at a local hardware store. He now laughed more and finally fixed the sliding glass door.

But there are still moments when I hold this lighter (found it in his drawer after the funeral) and I wonder if he burned them because of how free he felt, or if it was because he realized how chains were the only things that could limit him.

I click the wheel.

Click.

There’s no flame, only sparks.

I think I’ll keep it this way.