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Where Is the Gasoline?

A Short Story

By Jay TildenPublished 6 years ago 11 min read
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Image credit: Don O’Brien, "Burning Barn in Worthington, Ohio," Nov. 16, 2013

I push through the doors. They squeal, then die. Overhead the rafters groan, heaving sighs. The cows are asleep, the horses are asleep, the crows in the rafters are asleep. In the corner, there is a fat coil of rope. Taking it up in my arms, it is heavier than bricks. I cross the hay carpet. My feet are noiseless, but the animals sense me nonetheless. The cows murmur, the horses scratch the wood halfheartedly, the crows ruffle their wings, then settle again.

There is a ladder at the end opposite the door. Draping the coil over my shoulder, I climb the ladder to the loft, where hay bails rise in precarious towers. In the heart of the bails, he has fashioned a bed for himself, and he lays upon it with a wool blanket. Beneath the blanket, he is naked.

I drop the coil. Thud, and the crows stir again. A horse whinnies somewhere. Within the darkness, he slowly raises his head and gazes past me. Then he looks down, where the coil has already begun gathering dust. He picks up a frayed end, examines it, and shivers. He shivers often.

It’s time, I say.

He lifts himself, stretches, rubs his bleary eyes, then throws off the blanket. He is taller and thinner than me, and his skin is dark and gleaming in the pencils of moonlight. The barn sways and breathes. I wait near the ladder while he dresses—scratchy pants, a stained baggy shirt, leather boots with scuffed toes. Not a fashionable man—boy—young man. Whatever he is, the outfit of poverty and exile has made him scrappy, has made his hair plume out in a bouncing ball, has made his face darker with grime. Blood is beneath his fingernails. The cuticles are stained.

Come, now, I say. Do not dilly.

He lifts the rope, wincing. He is feebler than he appears. It has been seven days since he ate any food. It has been seven weeks since he’s seen home. (I will take him home.) His knees buckle beneath the coil’s weight. He straightens, steadies, eases his breath. The slightest effort is colossal work. He will not be able to run for very long.

Come, I repeat. Hurry. They will be here soon.

Maybe he understands, because he descends the ladder with the coil around his shoulder, one end dangling like a broken shoelace. I am with him on the ground floor, and he takes his time saying goodbye to the animals. He strokes the horse’s muzzle and its lips ripple. He strokes the cow’s forehead and its doleful eyes blink once. He strokes the central beam and whistles up to the rafters. A lone, bleary crow squawks back.

Come, I repeat. We haven’t the time. Where is the gasoline?

“Where is the gasoline?” he says. For a time he searches in the dark. He picks through the rusty tools in the corner. This place has already begun to decay.

It will be like straw. It will be like the inevitable conclusion of drought.

It is not here, I say. I push open the barn door, widening the cold black gap. He steps through the gap and is enveloped. I follow. (I am always following.) We walk in the damp grass. His boots go whoosh-shish, whoosh-shish, whoosh-shish in the grass. Across the pasture is a line of trees. I witness it barely, a black smudge far away.

How fast can you run?

He doesn’t say anything.

We go toward the house, where the farmer and his wife sleep, where the farmer’s children and their dog Baloney sleep. Baloney is a foolish dog who barks for no reason. Baloney will run into the barn at the conclusion of the drought, and he will try to save the horses, and he will try to save the cows, and he may even try to save the crows.

We ascend the front porch. I glance at him. He is frozen at the edge, staring through the door that squeals when it opens.

It will be fine, I say. I step through the door, entering the dark, warm house. The lingering scent of pork and potatoes passes through me. Come, I say, opening the door. It squeals. He steps through the doorway, still holding the rope.

Leave that out there, I say.

He looks down at it, then decides to toss it on the porch. There is a soft thud.

You are a fool like Baloney.

He makes his way through the den, through the dining room, past the bedrooms. I wait by the door. If I enter further, Baloney will bark. I would like to strangle Baloney. I would like to string him up from the old oak in the field behind the house, and I would like to watch the blood dry on his tendons in the unforgiving sun.

He returns momentarily with the book of matches. He glares about the den as if searching for something else. I am impatient.

The knife, I say. Hurry.

After a moment of thought, he remembers and returns to the kitchen. Then he is back with the carving knife, which the farmer uses to cut the Christmas turkey while Baloney drools at his feet.

He goes out to the porch and picks up the rope. He slides the carving knife into the back of his waistband, and he stuffs the matches in his pocket.

The gasoline, I say. Where is the gasoline?

“Where is the gasoline?” he wonders. He peers about the barren porch. I look back at the barn, looming tall and ancient.

Have I ever told you about the farmer who built that barn? He used to have many more cows than this farmer, and a separate one for the horses. One day, a bandit took shelter in the horse barn. Horses are not like cows; they are neither docile nor stupid. They cry, they raise a fit at unwelcome visitors. The farmer heard them braying in the middle of the night. Silently he found his musket, and bare-naked, he went over the dewey grasses and eased open the door. That door would not squeal, you know. He knew the bandit to be hiding in the loft, which was larger than the one in the cow barn. He ascended the ladder, ignoring the whinnies, and he fired into the hay. It exploded and it was red. It is funny, because if the bandit had taken to the cow barn, he might have resided there for weeks. Cows are stupid.

He is ignoring me. He is going back to the barn, the only barn, the one that used to be grandfather’s cow barn.

That horse barn was destroyed a few years later. There was a great storm, and when the lightning struck, it erupted into flames and killed all the horses. The cows were unharmed, though: there was not a weathervane atop their stupid barn. I would that there had been.

He goes back into the cow barn and looks around in the dark. Then he stoops in the corner to the right and lifts up the smelly can. “I knew it.” It sheds a few droplets onto his boots.

Good. It is time. We must hurry.

I can hear them, far away. My hearing used to be better. I am cloudy these days. But I smell their torches, I hear the rattle of their rifles, I see the stamping of their boots—of finer leather than his or mine have ever been.

He goes to work. First, he douses the main floor. Then he douses the ladder and the hayloft. His arms, flimsy from starvation, must strain to lift the heavy can and spread it about. I want to seize it from him and do this myself. Let us be rid of this place.

He is nearly done now. He trails the gasoline out onto the dirt, stopping only where the grass begins. He sets the can down, and as he searches his pocket for the matches, his eyes widen.

“What?” he says. “What? What?”

Move, I say. He does not move, and the rifle explodes. The shot misses him narrowly. He spins, he ducks, he sees the farmer looming lanky and ancient, garbed in a one-piece with the buttock-flap flying free. “You cocky son of a bitch,” he growls. “I ought’ve known so much.”

Terrified, he cannot respond, even when the farmer lifts up the matchbook, which has a few blades of wet grass stuck to it.

“I’m gonna fix you,” the farmer promises. He aims again.

Do something! I scream.

He rushes forward, summoning mysterious strength, and charges into the old man before he can get his shot off. They tumble together through the dewy grass, wrestling for control of the rifle. I can hear the men’s voices far away. They are coming, I say. Make quick work of him.

He gains the upper hand. He pulls the rifle from the farmer and whacks him with the butt. The farmer goes limp, wheezing, and says, “I gave you work. I gave you food.”

He bares his white teeth. “You gave me fear. You tried to give me death. But your gifts are done.” He adjusts the rifle and fires. The farmer’s chest explodes and the other is drenched in his blood. He stands, with the rifle and the coil and the knife. He looks past me at the road and the village and the growing orange light.

They are coming, I repeat. He turns and retrieves the matchbook from the farmer’s pale hand, which almost glows in the moonlight. He strides to the place where he has left the gas can at the edge of the green. He does not step onto the dirt. He strikes a match, then drops it upon the gasoline trail. A snake surges forward and swallows the open doorway and light bursts to life. He lights another match. This time he uses it to light the entire book, which he hurls toward the barn. The comet lands, sparks, and then the entire barn is aflame. The drought concludes. A great yapping erupts from the house and a blur surges through the open doorway while the riot lights travel down the front drive. They are hollering.

They’re here. We must go.

He gathers up the coil and starts in the opposite direction. Baloney flies past, howling, and enters the barn. Flames devour it from the inside out.

Across the field, through the dark, over the ridges of manure and clumps of wet grass. The moon is a distant, useless candle in the periphery. He reaches the edge of the field and turns back, chest heaving, gleaming with sweat. The men have discovered the farmer. Some linger over his body, but the rest are crossing the field. They carry seven torches that silhouette their snarls. Angry shouts drift across the wind. There are other dogs barking. They have brought dogs because they have expected him to flee. They have expected him to flee because they have expected him to kill.

The woods, I say. The river.

He turns and breaks through the trees. I follow as if attached to his waist, but I am dwindling. My vision flickers. At once he is both far away and near. I see him at the river, where the bridge was torn away in the flood long ago. I was gone by then. I returned once to witness the river as I had so long ago, before the changing times. But they had taken the bridge, and all that remained was a shattered post on the opposite side. Crossing that river, one could have passed over the border and into the north, like a ghost. Time had taken the bridge and widened the waters’ girth, though, just as it had (and would again) take everything else.

I catch up, but I am tired.

He is looping the rope, he is throwing the rope. The hounds break through the bramble, calling and calling. The men are dragged along through the dying leaves, howling and howling.

I am hot, I tell him. I am hot.

He isn’t listening. He’s never listening. He has formed a tight loop. Now he hurls the rope. It disappears in the dark, then draws taut. I am amazed, even in my agony. He bends, triple-knots the other end about a strong stump. He considers the rifle in his hands, then hurls it into the waters.

I am coming with you, I tell him. I am escaping, too.

But he is wrapping his arms and legs around the rope. He turns upside-down, and then he is crawling across, inching in moments.

But you need me, I tell him. I brought you the rope. I gave you the tools.

I am hot. Oh, I am hot.

The hounds break through the trees. The leader’s leash has snapped, and the others drag their men like rocks. The leader bounds over the bank as I erupt in flame. Halfway across, the runaway twists his head around, sees the beast midair. He draws the carving knife and drives it upward. The hound falls into it, into him, and the rope snaps. The coil around the stump flies loose and the two disappear into the waters as the men halt along the bank and hurl curses after them into the raging depths.

Across the trees and fields and the stark night, the barn’s rafters collapse, and the crows alight from atop the quiet house to seek a softer resting place.

fiction
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About the Creator

Jay Tilden

Jay Tilden is a fiction writer and student of history, originally from Vermont. He does not like people, which is probably why most of them die in his stories.

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