The Man Who Caught Fire

Our large South Carolina backyard was the neighborhood ballfield. Kids from all over came almost every day to play. There were the Ellis boys, the Stenhouses, we Brownings, and many more, including the two younger Davis boys whose fenced-in backyard adjoined the field. The third older son, Bill Davis, never joined in with us, but he sure did provide some entertainment from his curious habit of catching himself on fire.

One day, while I was playing outfield, I noticed Bill filling a large metal trash can with cardboard and paper, and while I kept one eye on the batter swinging away, I watched Bill liberally douse the contents with gasoline, splashing it all around with abandon. (The fact that almost every character in a movie for decades has been doing the same sloppy application of this explosive liquid only testifies to just how lazy and dim-witted script writers really are, and I assume Bill had seen his share of Hollywood arsons.)

So, Bill took out a lighter and flicked it. In that very moment, it was not the trash that caught fire, no, it was Bill’s gasoline-soaked clothes, who immediately took on the appearance of the flame on a Bunsen burner except it was nearly six feet tall. The flame first raced in a couple of circles, but then hit the ground and started rolling. We in the field could only watch helplessly from the other side of the fence until the flames went out, leaving Bill panting in the red earth in which he had rolled. He escaped with some burns and that was that.

A few months later, the Davis boys’ clubhouse, next to their garage, caught fire. We all ran over to watch with glee, and Bill ran up to one of the firemen, grabbed his hose and heroically climbed to the roof and promptly fell through into the burning building. One second later he ran out the front door covered in flames. This time the firemen threw him down and rolled him around to put him out. We ballplayers could only look at each other with raised eyebrows.