Walking away
“The trains don’t run here anymore,” the old man said as he sat down on the porch chair and lit his pipe.
“I know,” replied the young man sitting on the steps.
“Worst part is, I can’t remember when they stopped running,” The old man said, exhaling a cloud of smoke from the pipe. “It’s been a long time, though.”
“I know,” the young man replied.
The two men continued to sit in silence, both lost in their own thoughts. The old man sat in the chair, slowly rocking and smoking the pipe, staring at the back of the young man’s head.
“You need to leave,” the old man finally said.
The young man turned and looked at him, shock on his face. “You know I can’t leave!”
“Yes, you can. You have my permission.”
The young man turned back to look out over the fields he had been staring at, fields that refused to produce. “Who’ll take care of you?” he asked quietly, his eyes following the dirt drive that let out to the highway.
“Hell, son, we both know I’m not much longer for this world. And I’m not saying you have to leave right this minute. I’m just saying that once I am gone, you don’t have to stay, you don’t have to carry on this dump.”
“What am I supposed to do with it?” the young man asked, turning back to his grandfather, his only living relative.
“Sell it, burn it to the ground, drop one of them hydrogen bombs on it. What the hell do I care? I won’t be here to see it!” the grandfather replied with a laugh. But the laughing soon turned into a coughing fit that wracked the old man’s frame, almost knocking him out of the chair.
When it was over, the young man turned back to the driveway, his thoughts on where he would go once he was free to leave. But the more he thought, the more limited his thoughts became, until soon the furthest he could think of was the nearest town, just 5 miles down the road.
“The trains,” the old man said quietly, reminiscing on better times. “I should have paid more attention to the trains. I should have written down when they stopped running.”
“Why?” the young man asked, not looking at him, but instead trying to picture one of the freight trains moving along the tracks as they once had.
“Because the day the trains stopped running was the day this town started to die. And once that started… well… it’s a lot like the cancer that’s running through me. It just keeps spreading, until the host no longer exists. The town is almost dead, Pete, just like me. You need to leave it. Before the cancer spreads any further.”
Pete turned and looked at his grandfather. “But who would want to buy a dying farm in a dying town?”
The old man just looked at him, unsure of how to answer that. After several seconds, the old man slowly shook his head. “I’ve no idea. But you’ll figure out a way.”
“What if I figured out a way to save the farm?” Pete asked.
“Why would you want to?” his grandfather asked him.
“It’s been in the family for so long,” Pete replied. “I remember you telling me about your father saving it during the Depression, how he not only saved his farm, but was able to buy the neighbors, and keep them there for all those years. This is my history, Grandfather. My heritage.”
The grandfather smiled down at Pete. “You do what you want, boy, but always keep in mind that I gave you permission to walk away from it.”
The old man sat back in his chair. “I’m tired. I think I will take a short nap. And you just think about what I’ve said. This town is dying. All started when the trains stopped running.”
The old man closed his eyes, his head resting against the back of the chair.
Pete continued to sit on the steps, thinking of the future. He had a couple ideas on how to save the farm, but he they all required that he have money, and money was something no one in the whole town had right now. Even the bank had gone bankrupt and closed down.
Pete had heard about a company from out of state buying up property all over the county. But they were interested in property they could use to create housing developments. They would tear down everything on the farm, and soon it would be nothing more than the latest suburb of the nearest city.
That is, if they would even buy it. The farm was nearly 50 miles from the big city.
Pete stood and stretched his back and arms with a heavy groan. He stepped off the porch into the dusty yard and looked around the area. The barn was old and looked as if it would fall to the ground at any minute. Even a new coat of paint wouldn’t be able to hide the way it seemed to sag and lean.
Neither of them had been inside it for a couple years now, afraid it would collapse while they were standing in it.
Pete slowly walked toward it, remembering a conversation he had had with his grandfather about the barn.
“We need to tear it down,” Pete has said.
“Nope,” his grandfather replied. “Let it fall on its own. That way the insurance will take care of it.”
“Insurance?” Pete had asked. “What insurance?”
“We may be broke,” his grandfather replied, “but I have always made sure the insurance premiums have been paid. If anything happens to this place, the insurance company will take care of it.”
Pete now stopped his slow advance to the barn and looked at it. INSURANCE. The place was insured. If something were to happen, he would get the money he needed to save the farm. But how could he get something to happen that would make the barn finally collapse?
Pete looked back at the house and saw the natural gas well head, which fed the house. An explosion would do it, but there wasn’t a gas well in the barn. The nearest wellhead was 20 feet outside the barn, around the side.
Something inside his head seemed to click, as if a piece of a puzzle had suddenly fallen into place.
Pete walked over to the wellhead on the side of the barn. He looked at it for a few seconds, the put his hand onto the release valve. He turned the valve just a hair and could hear the hiss of natural gas escaping from the wellhead. He turned the valve off and looked back at the house.
He had never bothered with the wellheads before, but the more attention he paid to them, the more he saw of them. He could easily place 5 of them in his mind. Why would there need to be so many of them for one house? And did they all work?
He walked quickly, back to the front porch of the house. He had to ask his grandfather what they needed them for.
He stepped onto the porch and saw his grandfather, in the chair in the same position as he had fallen asleep. But the pipe was now lying on the floor of the porch, its tobacco spilled onto the wood surface.
Pete slowly walked up to him. The old man’s chest wasn’t moving. Pete reached out and shook the old man’s arm. It fell limply down the side of the chair.
Pete closed his eyes and bowed his head. It had come. Death had finally taken the old man, just as it had taken the town.
Forgetting his ideas about the wellheads, Pete went into the house and picked up the phone. As he placed the receiver to his ear, he remembered that the phone company had shut off their service four months earlier because they couldn’t pay the bill.
Pete stepped back out onto the porch and sat next to his grandfather’s rocker, a small tear escaping his eye. He took his grandfathers hand and slowly started to pat it.
"Everything will be okay, Grandpa," he said quietly. "I’ll make sure everything is okay."
Several minutes went by, and Pete finally stood up. He placed his grandfathers hand into the lap of the corpse and walked down the steps of the porch. He climbed into the old battered pickup and hoped that the rusty old machine would actually start.
Try as he might, pray as he would, the engine wouldn’t kick over. He stepped out and slammed the door as hard as he could, then kicked the truck.
Taking a deep breath, Pete closed his eyes and ran his hands through his hair. He would have to walk to town to let Doc Carver know that the old man had finally died.
With one last look at the porch, Pete slowly walked away.
(Author’s Note: I originally wrote this story about 8 years ago after seeing a black and white photo of several boxcars rusting away on a siding in the middle of the plains. I no longer have that photo on my computer, but I kept the story on my hard drive, transferring it with every change I made between my several computers since it was written. I had always planned to write a better ending, and tried several times. But the more I tried to change it, the worse the story became. Finally I just erased everything I had written beyond Pete walking away from the house and left it as it was. It seemed to be the best solution.)
