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in which case he would know the alarm had gone off. I told him the truth, in general terms. “I’ve decided against a rematch. I’ll mail you your camera.”
    â€œHold on.”
    â€œAnd your money,” I said, and hung up. The bank was open till noon on Saturday, as was the post office. I bought a blank videotape, went home, wrote Rose a check for his five thousand dollars, packed the camera in its bag in a box some books had come in, stuffed the empty spaces with crumpled newspaper and the spare tapes, and walked the whole thing down to the post office, where I mailed it and insured it for five hundred bucks. Then I went home and cleaned my grill and my long-handled tongs and spatula, and took them to the lawn behind Town Hall.
    They’d wheeled out the fire engines for the kids to climb on and hung a banner that read NEWBURY ENGINE COMPANY NO. 1, FOUNDED 1879 . Doug Schmidle, the Town Hall custodian, was hammering together a viewing stand. Gary Nello was setting up a soda machine lent by the Yankee Drover. Mildred Gill had rigged a forty-gallon corn boiler, and the ladies of the Newbury Engine Auxiliary were spreading paper plates, ketchup, relish, and mustard on folding tables.
    We arranged the cooking grills in order of splendor. First was Rick Bowland’s gas-fired volcano-stone, hooded monster that had enough instrument dials and gauges to monitor a public utility. We put him downwind, because he didn’t know any better. In the middle was Scooter MacKay at his thirty-six-inch charcoal-burning Weber. Last, and upwind, was mine. I stuck in the extra legs, which raised it to waist height. Rick Bowland nudged Scooter. “What in hell is that thing Ben’s got?”
    Scooter was not about to take guff from anyone who cooked on bottled gas. He had a big voice. “You know what gets me?” he boomed. “Used to be a man would apologize for buying a gas grill; now the sorry ’suckers don’t even understand they weenied out.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œYou’re a lost generation,” said Scooter. “Benighted mall babies.”
    Rick tried to weasel out of it by ragging me. “Yeah, okay, but what is that you got there, Ben?”
    â€œThis is a triple-length charcoal grill for cooking meat, chicken, and vegetables out of doors. It’s based on a hibachi design. I bought it on sale at Caldor’s down in Danbury for nine dollars, and I fully expect old friends to toast marshmallows on it beside my grave.”
    â€œNine dollars?”
    I said, “We need a plan. Rick, I’ll bet you’ve got real control of your heat with that baby.”
    â€œBelieve it.”
    â€œWhy don’t you toast rolls and cook the dogs. Scooter and me’ll do the burgers.”
    â€œHey, this thing’s great on burgers.”
    â€œWe’ll do the burgers,” said Scooter. He’s an excellent newspaper publisher, but too free with the Weber’s dome, so I said, “I’ll do rare, you do medium and well.”
    At noon Vicky mounted the new pumper to give her speech. Quite a crowd had gathered by then, and the first selectman didn’t disappoint. She lionized our brave volunteer firefighters and suggested that when we make our contribution we compare the ease of check writing to the discomforts of waking up in the middle of the night to fight a neighbor’s fire. She got a beautiful swipe in at her Republican opposition, likening their control of the state budget to the rabies epidemic, and wound up with a fierce call to every school-girl on the lawn that one of them had darned well better become president of the United States.
    She ended it on “Let’s eat,” which swelled the drift toward the grills to a floodtide.
    The next hour was a blur of hands thrusting open buns in my direction. I was just holding my own, rare but not raw, with the lines in order. Beside me, Scooter was smoking them medium, raising his dome