Blaze

we were riding out to an abandoned farmhouse on his pearl black Triumph deaf to the sound of bleating sheep that was when he told me it was the same model James Dean had swapped for three days after they’d finished filming East of Eden I tried to tell him that was cool but he didn’t act like he’d heard me so I hugged him tight and set my head on his shoulder and watched how the yellow moon was shifting behind the pines like the face of a jailbird he’d told me before that his wife knew he didn’t swing her way but she was keeping quiet about it for their kid’s sake we rumbled into the dry grass and started cutting through the cornstalks into a big clearing where he kicked the bike stand and told me to get off he tossed his chrome aviators and then we started our hike to the farmhouse which was sagging in the field opposite of us we were quiet on the way like a couple of thieves about to rob someone blind I stood back as he tore a warped door off the barn and flung it into the gravel inside the air was dusty and thick and the moon was still with us cocked behind a streaked window like we’d traded places and now we were the jailbirds serving a lifetime sentence without parole John pulled off his steel-toe boots and told me to wait for him up in the hayloft I left my loafers there and climbed a wood ladder until I was looking into the eyes of a great horned owl he kept shaking his head like he couldn’t believe what was about to happen I was going to be John’s first but while I was gathering the wet straw I smelled smoke and slid back down the ladder that was when I saw the fire licking the crossbeams and ran outside John was passing through the wheat like a final judgment his figure was muscled with flame and I kept silent as he reached for a head of grain and burned it to the ground