Alcohol, Dishes, and Fire

Starting is actually not the hard part.  Starting is easy.  It doesn’t take much to start.  It’s finishing…finishing is the hard part.  At least that’s how it works for me.  My experience interacting with other human beings over the years has proven to me that most people have the opposite issue; for most, I believe, starting is, indeed, the hard part.  I used to think not being able to finish was worse.  Now, I recognize it’s just a matter of perspective…like all things.  After all, our problems are the biggest problems in the world because they are closest to us, no?  That’s another rant, though.

It is easy to ignite a fire.  Trust me.  I have experience with starting fires, lots of experience.  Just ask Sergio.  He’ll tell you.  The number of times that the two of us avoided serious injury…I can’t count.  Like the time we were in…I can’t believe I’m typing this…a closet, pouring alcohol into a dish and lighting it in the dark.  Yes, we were in a storage closet under the stairs in his parents house.  Naturally, it’s the closet where his parents stored ALL THEIR OLD NEWSPAPERS.  Those are the best closets in which to start fires.  We controlled those fires, of course.  Since we were…oh, I don’t know…TWELVE…we knew everything there was to know about controlling fire.  We did a pretty good job of it, too, for a while.  Everything was going well until one of us boneheads decided to pour more alcohol into the dish…in the dark…while the dish was ON FIRE.  Yeah, that pretty much was a bad idea.  Something in Sergio’s gut probably screamed out to him because he said, “Uh…maybe we shouldn’t…”  His words were drowned out by our physics lesson.

We both watched in bewilderment as the fire sort of trotted up the flowing alcohol and right into the bottle.  Did you know that apart from being flammable, rubbing alcohol is explosive?  Luckily for me, the alcohol was still flowing, so it exploded outward, through the mouth of the bottle.  If you’ve ever abruptly squeezed a plastic juice bottle, you get the gist of how the liquid shot out.  Unluckily for Sergio, he was sitting pretty much sitting in front of the stack of newspapers, holding the bottle of alcohol.  His eyes were as big as saucers.  I suspect mine were, too.  At that point it occurred to me that I could actually see Sergio’s face in what should have otherwise been pitch black darkness.  Then I noticed that every stack of newspaper was alight with the bluish glow of burning alcohol.

Sergio and I both screamed.  I don’t know what we said.  Maybe we didn’t say anything coherent, instead reverting to some sort of prehistoric, early human howls of terrors.  Sergio managed to open the door and disappeared into the laundry room.  I ran into his bathroom and grabbed a glass of water.  I ran back into the closet and poured the water into the dish.  Hooray.  One fire out.  Meanwhile, the alcohol burned off the newspapers, and some of them started to actually catch.  His father’s work boots were aflame, as were other assorted pieces of footwear.  I recall thinking something along the lines of, “HOLYFUCKINGSHITWE’REFUCKINGSCREWED” when Sergio returned…with a bucket.

He doused the flames.  He turned and looked at me, triumphant.

“Uh…Serge…?”  I said.  “Your hand is on fire.”

A hand soaked in alcohol can burn for quite some time.  If you’re lucky, enough alcohol means you won’t char your skin.  The way I remember it, Sergio’s hands were tender and smooth for a few days after that, but nothing worse.

There was also the time we were on balcony off Sergio’s brother’s room one night with yet ANOTHER dish of alcohol, burning things.  We sat outside, happy as two arsonists with flamethrowers, when Sergio said, “Oh shit, Ric!  I just knocked over the bottle of alcohol!”  It was as if Mother Nature herself heard us for not a moment later, the wind shifted in impossible ways and sent one lone flame dancing off the dish.  She merely caressed the spreading pool of alcohol.

“FFFWWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSSSHHH!!!”

That’s the sound of a wall of fire appearing out of nowhere.  I think that time it was my turn to get the water.  I can’t recall.  I lost count.

I don’t have a problem starting things.  Starting is like igniting a fire.  Finishing…different story for me.  Finishing is like finding the right amount of water to douse the flames.  OK, bad analogy.  Finishing is finishing.  It’s very final.  It’s very scary.  It’s very dangerous.  As long as you are in the middle of it, you can’t be judged.  You can’t be blamed for not meeting expectations if you haven’t even put on the finishing touches.  Surely, it’s unfair to look at an unfinished anything and judge it, right?  So, as long as I haven’t finished, you can’t judge.  Not that you’d judge me nearly as harshly as I would.  That’s another rant, though.

Finishing is about letting go, about walking away, about starting the next thing.  It’s about busting open another bottle of alcohol and finding a box of matches.  What do I burn next?