One gray, sticky summer afternoon in 1992, the security guard was driving home from the gym and saw a two-toned green-and-turquoise sedan in the middle of the street. Its hood and all four doors were open.

This was when he was still a police officer. It was his day off, but he always carried his gun and radio. He stopped, got out and looked the car over. It looked abandoned. He called in and started running a report from the license plates.

Toward the end of the call he put his foot on the front fender, just to kind of rest it there. He took it off and WHOOOOSH

a wide huffing fire uncoiled ten feet tall.

He turned, shielding his face with his right arm, and fell on his butt. He felt so hot he thought he was on fire, and ran to a sprinkler whipping some front yard. He doused himself, took off his tank top and wrapped his right arm in it. A kid came up to him.

It turned out he hadn't actually been on fire, but the boy said

you're fucked up man

because his face, arm and the side of his torso were burned almost as bad from having been near the fire as they would've been, in it.

He drove himself to the hospital and was admitted right away. The ER nurses and his department had a good relationship because his guys also did security for their floor. His right arm was shaking but the nurses said that was normal. They gave him a shot for pain in the butt and reminded him of having seen his naked bottom for the next few weeks.

Whoever planted the explosive in the radiator did it wrong, they made the blast go upward instead of out or in. The angle of the hood rolled the flame somewhat toward him, but still that was what saved his life they said.

The way he told it, it seemed like he'd come through pretty well. I couldn't see any scars on his face or arm, and it sounded like the wind had died down.

When I knew him a little better he told me about losing his wife and children in a house fire five years later. The ways he talked about the two fires (I mean, the fire part of the fires) were very different. He barely described the one that took his family at all.