After one joint, she was already beat, pleading grass on top of three beers and lack of sleep. I ferried her upstairs and helped her onto the bed. She asked to borrow a T-shirt. No sooner had I handed it to her than she’d stripped to her panties, pulled on the T-shirt, and stretched flat out. By the time I got around to asking if she was going to be warm enough, she had already snoozed off. I went downstairs, shaking my head.

Back in the living room, her guy was busy rolling another joint. Plays hard, this dude. Me, I would have just as soon snuggled into bed next to her and conked right out. Fat chance. We settled down to smoke the second joint, Strauss still waltzing away. Somehow, I was reminded of an elementary-school play. I had the part of the old glove maker. A fox cub comes with money to buy gloves, but the glove maker says it’s not enough for a pair.

“’Tain’t gonna buy no gloves,” I say. Guess I’m something of a villain.

“But Mother’s so very c-c-cold. She’ll get chapped p-p-paws. P-p-please,” says the fox cub.

“Uh-uh, nothing doing. Save your money and come back. Otherwise—”

“Sometimes I burn barns,” the guy was saying.

“Excuse me?” I asked. Had I misheard him?

“Sometimes I burn barns,” the guy repeated.

I looked at him. His fingertips traced the pattern on his lighter. Then he took a deep draw on the joint and held it in for a good ten seconds before slowly exhaling. The smoke came streaming out of his mouth and into the air like ectoplasm. He passed me the roach.

“Quality product, eh?” he said.

I nodded.

“I brought it from India. Top of the line, the best I could find. Smoke this and, it’s strange, I recall all kinds of things. Lights and smells and like that. The quality of memory …” He paused and snapped his fingers a few times, as if searching for the right words. “… completely changes. Don’t you think?”

That it did, I concurred. I really was back in the school play, reexperiencing the commotion on stage, the smell of the paint on the cardboard backdrop.

“I’d like to hear about this barn thing,” I said.

He looked at me. His face wore no more expression than ever.

“May I talk about it?” he asked.

“Why not?” I said.

“Pretty simple, really. I pour gasoline and throw a lighted match. Flick, and that’s it. Doesn’t take fifteen minutes for the whole thing to burn to the ground.”

“So tell me,” I began, then fell silent. I was having trouble finding the right words, too. “Why is it you burn barns?”

“Is it so strange?”