At the End of the Day I Burst into Flames

These are his final moments. In the little city of Wood River, Illinois, a man nicknamed Firecracker knows the end is near. The fire is coming, just like it came for his father, his grandfather, and who knows how many men. After all, folks in those parts have a short-term memory when it comes to history, and lots of stories have a tendency to go to the grave. Maybe the fire was always there. Maybe it came along when the oil refinery went up in 1907. Who can say? Sometimes, a yarn like this is as close to a history book as a Midwest community and its people are apt to get. When it happened to his father, the doctors only called it an accident. But Firecracker's mother had a name for it: spontaneous combustion. Firecracker knows there is no way to escape this Act of God, so he retreats into his memories. Past and present become one and the same. The veil of reality pulls away and Death arrives in time for one last conversation, where Firecracker comes to terms with the mysteries...