Fabio was a friend of ours from the Country Mart parking lot. He was the manager at a high-end furniture boutique across the lot from the Starbucks where Jack worked. In the afternoons, he’d come join us for cigarettes. Fabio was good looking, but a little overweight. He had this paunch that pressed against his black v-neck t-shirts. He wore tight jeans that always had a big carabiner full of keys hanging from a belt loop. He had a lion’s mane of hair down to his shoulders and a beard.

Nobody knew how old Fabio was.

He was very charming but a little unhinged. When my band Dicks Are For Kids played, and Fabio entered the pit, people got nervous, because he was known to sometimes start punching folks in the face. Whenever we told him, “Hey, Fabio, you gotta stop hitting people,” he’d laugh and say, “What? I didn’t do that?” But when pressed he became somber and apologetic, balled his fists, and said, “Guys, I’m really sorry, I’m working on my rage.”

One strange thing about Fabio is that when he smoked with us in the parking lot he would tell us about this demon that visited him in dreams. He was very superstitious. He said that every night, when he went to sleep, a demon came and haunted him. The demon, he said, was inside him, and for years he had been trying to get it out.

Often, Fabio would take out a little notepad from his back pocket and show us drawings of the demon. He said that he woke up every morning and drew pictures of what happened in his sleep. He hoped that by drawing the demon, he might be able to figure out its weakness and get him to leave.

That was pretty weird. What was even weirder was that Fabio was also somewhat of a ladies’ man amongst the MILFs of Brentwood, Los Angeles. He was the local shark of Cougarsville. Dunn dunn. Dunn dunn.

I can’t count home many times me and the guys lurked outside the boutique furniture store and saw Fabio charming the hell out of these pretty hot moms. He’d even walk them out of the store, his arm wrapped around their shoulders, or even sometimes he’d have one hairy paw on their ass, and then these women would walk back to their Mercedes all sweaty and bothered; and Fabio would catch us watching him; and he’d make a V with his fingers, stick his tongue out, and pretend to eat the pussy up.

It was disgusting, but also remarkable how lucky Fabio got. He would show us the photos of these naked mature women on his phone. The whole thing was enough to make you question everything you thought you knew about life and the inner workings of human beings.

But the story of Fabio did not end well.

Problem was, Fabio really liked fire. It was this strange thing. Sometimes he’d stand outside of the furniture store and flick his Zippo lighter on and off, doing tricks where he lit it with one hand, or struck the wick on his pants. When the fire was lit, he would stare at the flames for a long time, as if mesmerized.

We’d watch Fabio, mesmerized too. In these moments, we’d really believe he was possessed by some demon. After a long time, Fabio would put the lighter away and look around him. He’d see us watching him, but wouldn’t acknowledge us. It was as if we weren’t his friends anymore. He looked not at us, but somehow past us, with an infinite pit of darkness in his eyes.

Then he’d go back into the furniture store. When we saw him next, it was like the whole lighter episode had never happened and he was friendly and charming as ever.

Good old Fabio.

Then one day Fabio didn’t show up to work at the furniture store. Another day passed, and he didn’t show up either. Simultaneously, on the news, there was a big story about a huge fire that went rampant in the Santa Monica mountains, destroyed all these celebrities’ mansions, killed two people, and could have spread all over LA county if the winds hadn’t changed direction.

We didn’t put two-and-two together.

But then, three days after he went missing, Fabio showed up to work. He acted very distant, and didn’t come over to hang out with us. We watched him from across the parking lot, which these days was covered in a layer of orange smog. He dipped in-n-out of the furniture store, scratching his head, always listening and looking around as if waiting for something to happen to him. We wondered what was up.

Then it happened:

We heard the sirens from miles off. Soon, a dozen cop cars and bomb squad trucks swarmed the Country Mart parking lot. They raided the furniture store and took Fabio out in handcuffs, hands behind his back.

We all ran over, but the cops wouldn’t let us get too close. We heard Fabio pleading to the bomb squad officers who were holding his arms, leading him to a car. He wasn’t pleading his innocence. No, he was begging the officers to let him smoke one last cigarette.

He said, “There’s a pack in my pocket and a lighter too. Please just let me smoke before taking me in.”

Miraculously, they agreed. A third bomb squad officer went through Fabio’s pocket and pulled out the Zippo and cigarettes. He inspected the lighter briefly, and the cigarette, and then put the cigarette between Fabio’s lips and lit it. Fabio inhaled deeply, smiled, and said, “Thank you,” before he began to weep.

Soon, they told him it was time, took the cigarette from him, half-smoked, and shoved him into the back of a cop car. A few minutes later they were all gone and it was like nothing had ever happened, except for the fact that some MILF was standing in the doorway of the furniture store, blinking, playing with her hair, deeply confused.

Fabio pleaded guilty to starting the fire in the Santa Monica Mountains.

His story was that he and some friends had started a bonfire. Unfortunately, the fire began to spread, and they were unable to contain it, and so panicked and fled the scene.

The weird part of the story, however, was that there was no evidence of anybody else being in the mountains with him the night the fire started. When pressed for names, Fabio had none to give. When the cops tracked down everybody connected to Fabio, they all denied knowing anything about this supposed bonfire and all had rock solid alibis. The cops therefore came to the conclusion that Fabio had started the fire alone.

One day, a few months later, Brandon visited Fabio in jail.

When we pressed Brandon to tell us everything about the visit, he just shrugged and said, “Fabio just wanted me to tell you guys that he promises it was an accident. He said, ‘Please, I need them to believe me. I really need someone to believe.’”