AS IS by Will Boast
Sarah’s putting up the garage sale on the drive when her son, his face all sideways and red, crashes out to the porch and hollers, “Ma, Barry’s on fire!”
They run inside to the kitchen and find Barry, the two-year-old German shepherd, writhing on the linoleum below the stove. There’s grease spilled all over and blue flames spreading across stove, linoleum, and dog.
“What’d we do?” her son bawls at the same time yanking the spray hose from the sink and futilely spraying everything beginning to burn. He gives up quickly with the hose and thrusts dishrags hung from the fridge door into the sink full of dishwater. He throws the wet rags at Barry, and they hit the dog square, slap onto the floor, and start burning themselves. Sudden as bad breath, Barry rolls up to his feet and bolts for the living room. Where his feet have touched it, little circles like smoke rings appear on the charred linoleum.
They chase after, but the carpet is igniting and the fake leather couch heaving itself into a funny droop. A toxic, bleach-smelling haze covers the room, and flame climbs the paneled walls like rabid ivy. The heat begins to push a bubble out of the glass coffee table.
Sarah’s son is no longer behind her. She turns back to the fire, and Barry has disappeared. Then she hears running water in the bathroom: her son down the hall – trying – filling a bucket in the tub.
With a yelp, Barry darts from underneath the recliner and makes for the space behind the china hutch. As he runs he tries shaking the flames from his back as if they were lakewater. Sparks fly. Long sparks like a saw cutting stone.
Her son comes charging from the bathroom and heaves the bucket at hutch and fire and dog. He’s still small, and the bucket’s heavy; his arms tremble as he brings it forward and water arcs across the room. For a moment, it seems they’ve –
A short, irritated hiss. As if fire were displeased by insolence. A waft of smoke, and it blazes up again. A real bastard now.
It wasn’t so silly, Sarah. Last week, your friends dragging you to their psychic. Their psychic who wore a tailored suit. Who said he used to be a lawyer. Who used to practice downstate until he got “visited.” He made you hold what you thought might’ve been a squirrel tail. You and your friends stood in a circle around him. When he came to you for his prediction, his face got trouble. But he said something nice: Your star was in the ascendancy. The squirrel tail felt like a wire brush in your hand. He smiled.
Barry springs for the front door and pushes through the dog flap. Outside, he barrels through the garden beds withering the hyacinths, the melon vines, the snapdragons. He runs panic among the boxes and furniture piled in the drive. Torches the dusty lawn furniture that spent all summer in the basement. Burns up the box of spy novels. A big brown microwave tagged “as is.” Sorry. Life. Checkers. A game about running a farm. Two ten-speeds and a banana seat. A milk crate stuffed with albums: The Singing Zither, Tijuana Brass Christmas, Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians. The dining table priced way too high.
The fire goes ambitious and heads for the open garage. Cans of spray paint pop like party favors. The station wagon rumbles once, twice. A boom – low, profound, stomach audible – and the car hops an inch off the ground. Then the big one. Spare tire, hoses, transmission filter, windshield in nickel-size chunks, Kleenex box late of the back window: all jumping for air like it’s heard some word too holy. Pummeling the garage ceiling. Crashing earthbound seconds later. Windshield skittering like hail.
Give up and run, Sarah. Get to the neighbors’. Watch from someone else’s sod-healthy lawn. Your psychic was right, though he couldn’t say it. He quit the law, not believing justice.
Justice of towns, cities, counties, states. Of stars.
I am that next town, Sarah, and I beckon. Take the first three rights off the interstate. Keep going north. Rent the third floor from an old man who smells of vinegar and pipe tobacco. Get a Savers Card at the grocery on 2nd. Start a new checking account. Take the tote bag (or the cooler). The Village Library has LPs, video cassettes, most of the books you’ve been wanting to read. Call back that architect’s office. Ask for an interview. The bones in your back twitch and leap at the thought, Sarah; you can’t wait to reach me. Come on, lease that new station wagon, put it on the county highway, and burn ass.
No one would’ve bought that junk anyway.
Will Boast is a native of Southampton, England. “As Is” is his first published work of fiction in a national literary magazine.