You Kill Strays

1.

In 1987 we had stolen a gas can from Corey's Dad and we always had a lighter. The plan was to go to the old boxcar, covered in overgrowth and rust, and splash the gas all around it and watch it all burn and we would walk into the woods and watch the trees burn and maybe we'd never come back.

The roads to the tracks were cracked and faded and barely a single lane. Lined by tall old trees bending and reaching over us and sometimes a house and sometimes people lived in them. The sky was overcast. On a good day the sun would chip through the spaces between the branches and needles and leaves and splay out across the pavement in shards and islands and glow bright against the shadows. Not today. The road was a darkened corridor and the air was cool. Corey hummed to himself and I could hear the gas in the can splash back and forth with his pace. We passed a joint back and forth.

“You think it'll go up fast?” he asked.

“Probably. It's gas.”

“I mean the trees.”

“I don't know.”

“I bet they do.” He went on humming and he was moving a little faster than me and soon he was some distance ahead and he didn't seem to notice. I kept the joint and finished it and tossed the roach thinking maybe a plant would grow there.

I began to fantasize about the woods. The flames and they were fifty feet high and burst from the boxcar high and out and swallowed the grass in a blackening circle. It passed through me and to the trees and Corey sat in the boxcar and laughed and the flames climbed the trees and danced and ate the sky and the world and I was alone.

I watched Corey and his Iron Maiden t-shirt disappear around a bend in the road. I didn't think he'd live to see twenty.

I got to the trail head and kicked leaves and sticks as I walked. After a little while with the sounds and smell of the forest I came to the tracks and Corey was bent down in the middle of them. I got closer and I could see he was petting a stray dog. It should have been a large dog but it was thin and there was a torn open bag of garbage near by and I assumed that had been dinner. The dog was gray and brown and filthy and I had no idea what breed it was, but it was a poor example of whichever. The dog rolled onto it's back and seemed happy. Corey was talking to it.

“Who's a good boy? Who loves belly rubs?” he asked.

The dog got up and barked softly and nuzzled Corey until he fell backwards on his ass. “You want to be my dog, boy? You want to be my dog?”

“Where'd he come from?” I asked.

“Woods, I guess,” Corey said as he wrestled the dog a bit and got to his feet. “He's friendly. A good dog.”

“Yeah. Are you keeping it?”

“Until I can't, I guess, if it follows me. What should I name it?” He looked at the dog and scratched behind his filthy ear. “What's your name boy? Huh? Are you a Bruce? No, you aren't a Bruce. How about Ronnie? Are you a Ronnie?”

“Maybe he's a Randy.”

“Is that it boy? Are you a Randy?”

The dog circled us and smelled us and barked softly again.

“Randy it is! Let's go Randy!” Corey began to jog down the tracks and without hesitation Randy followed. I watched and trudged along behind again.

2.

At some point the pot had caught up to me and the contrast of the forest was nearly overpowering. Greens and blacks and even under the gray sky the world was far brighter than I was comfortable with. I couldn't see Corey, but I could hear him talking to Randy somewhere ahead.

The tracks climbed a small hill and then diverted further away from town and after climbing the hill and some distance into the forest a clearing opened up around the tracks and I could see the boxcar ahead, and I could see Randy pacing back and forth and I thought it was a beautiful dog. Corey came around the other side of the boxcar and saw me.

“Hey, where've you been? You finish the joint?”

“Yeah.”

“Want to smoke another one?”

“Sure.”

I walked with Corey to the side of the boxcar. When it was left here the door had been left open or someone had opened it at some point. The inside was wood and held together with steel beams. The wood was starting to smell and bend, but I imagined it could still pull its weight if it had to. I pulled myself up onto its floor and lied back on it with my legs dangling from it. The ceiling seemed so high and the entire boxcar was a cavern. I couldn't quite see into the corners and there was graffiti and garbage in it. I wondered how many people had fought here or fucked here or slept here when there was nowhere else and I tried to see them all but they were only shadows and Corey tapped my chest.

“Take it man,” he said. He handed the new joint to me.

“Thanks.” I stayed on my back and pulled off of it and I felt Corey get up and heard him talk to Randy again and heard their feet banging around on the grass and sticks and leaves around us.

It was cooler in the boxcar and even now the smell of it has never left me. Mold and rot and forest and love. Maybe in that order.

3.

Corey never came back for the joint and I finished it and stared upward and counted to myself and sang songs to myself and dreamed of getting the fuck out of Ohio. I closed my eyes and heard nothing. I heard nothing and smelled gas.

When I opened my eyes I couldn't focus and I sat up and leaned against the boxcar. Corey was far from me. Corey and Randy. I couldn't see them and I could smell the gas. I looked around and there was a puddle near me and I thought that maybe he had left a trail to the boxcar to set me on fire and I was too tired to move.

Randy howled and I looked up and he was bright now and then Corey was screaming at Randy.

“Burn! Burn you mangy fuck! Burn you mangy fucking waste!” He started circling the dog and the dog was yelping and screaming and rolling in the dirt and trying to run but I don't think it knew where it was going and it ran in circles and screamed and screamed and screamed and I realized Corey had set it on fire. I couldn't imagine why. Corey seemed to like the dog. He seemed to want to keep it. Maybe it was a game or a trick and the dog wasn't on fire but they were so far away that it just seemed like it and I was so tired. I wondered what it would be like to be a dog on fire. If my eyes would melt or my wet nose or if my fur would burn and maybe my skin would bubble and pop and char and how long I would yelp and scream.

Corey danced around it and howled at the dog howling back. He kicked dirt at the dog and then he kicked the dog and the dog collapsed onto the ground and Corey kicked it again and again and called it a mangy fucking waste again and I got out of the boxcar.

“What are you doing?” I said.

“Fucking waste!”

I walked up to Corey and the smell was awful in the air and it didn't smell like gasoline anymore but the ground had caught fire and was spreading from the dead dog to the dead grass and I knew it would climb.

“Why'd you kill the dog?”

“I'm bored.”

I stared at the dog. It's fur was short and burnt and black and its eyes had melted and it's skin was black where it showed and it smelled awful. The grass was on fire and spreading.

“Me too.”