I didn’t write this entry. Stanton Gould did and he asked me to post it on my blog, which I gladly have done.

Why I Burned the American Flag

by Stanton Gould

I just lit a cigarette on a burning American flag. Don’t worry, it’s cool. I had to do it. I needed a light. The cigarette was already in my mouth and I was searching my pockets for my lighter. It was gone. Luckily I had just lit an American flag on fire and could use that to light my smoke. Now I’m sitting in my backyard smoking my cigarette and watching the flames spread from the stars to my favorite part, the stripes. I puff faster in the hope that I might be able to light another smoke before the fire goes out. What happened to my lighter? I had it earlier today. I’m sure I did. Fuck, I lent it to Julie. Her shoelace had fallen out of the top hole and the end was frayed. I gave her my lighter, she melted the tip of the lace, ran it through the hole, and——-She pocketed it! That bitch. That’s it. It’s over. This is the last straw. This is the first straw actually. Up until now our 5 year relationship has been pleasant. Sure, we occasionally squabble over who’s going to fetch the morning paper, but what couple doesn’t? Although, there was that one time we were playing scrabble and Brian, my best friend ever since 4-H Club, made a crack about how he might just have to steal Julie away from me. Julie laughed. I stood and threw the scrabble board across the room.

“Then do it.” I said.

“Jesus, I was just joking” said Brian.

I made a sandwich in the kitchen while Brian and Julie re-arranged the scrabble board. Brian takes a picture of the board with his cell phone after each persons turn. Usually, at least once, maybe twice a game, I’ll overturn the board and scatter the pieces. It provides a good excuse to get a sandwich. But this time it wasn’t about the sandwich. I mean, I still made a sandwich, obviously, but Brian had gone too far. Once they had re-arranged the board and I had eaten my sandwich, made a second sandwich, eaten that, and taken a brief nap, we returned to the game. It was my turn. I told them I had been thinking it through and had come up with a plan to solve our problem.

“What problem?” They said.

So I told them that the two of them had to have sex. It was the only way to resolve the sick love triangle Brian had established the previous turn. I refused to put a single letter on that board until they did it.

I won’t lie and say it didn’t hurt to watch my girlfriend and my best friend get it on in my parents bed. The very bed in which I was conceived. Especially since, at the time, it seemed such an unremarkable romp. Very mechanical and unfeeling. Still I taped it with my home video camera. It was only days later, when we watched the tape at a screening I’d organized, that I noticed through the all seeing eye of the lense that there was a real connection between the two of them. They might of had a chance together in a different world. A better world. I apologized and and admitted it deserved respect as an event in its own right.

This is different though. I really need that lighter. I had to light the flag on the stove and run outside before it burnt the house down. That was dangerous. Julie put me at risk for serious harm. I mean, what did she expect me to do? Not set an American flag on fire on our front lawn? Yeah right, fat chance Julie. I watch as the flaming remnants of the flag get caught up in a light breeze and spread out across the yard, starting small freedom fires of their own in piles of leaves and dead branches.