“Not exactly. It’s an act by which to maintain those morals. But maybe we better just forget the morality. It’s not essential. What I want to say is, the world is full of these barns. Me, I got my barns, and you got your barns. It’s the truth. I’ve been almost everywhere in the world. Experienced everything. Came close to dying more than once. Not that I’m proud of it or anything. But okay, let’s drop it. My fault for being the quiet type all the time. I talk too much when I do grass.”

We fell silent, burned out. I had no idea what to say or how. I was sitting tight in my mental passenger seat, just watching one weird scene after the next slip past the car window. My body was so loose I couldn’t get a good grasp on what the different parts were doing. Yet I was still in touch with the idea of my bodily existence. Simultaneity, if ever there was such a thing: Here I had me thinking, and here I had me observing myself think. Time ticked on in impossibly minute polyrhythms.

“Care for a beer?” I asked a little later.

“Thank you. I would.”

I went to the kitchen, brought out four cans and some Camembert, and we helped ourselves.

“When was the last time you burned a barn?” I had to ask.

“Let’s see, now.” He strained to remember, beer can in hand. “Summer, the end of August.”

“And the next time, when’ll that be?”

“Don’t know. It’s not like I work out a schedule or mark dates in my calendar. When I get the urge, I go burn one.”

“But, say. When you get this urge, some likely barn doesn’t just happen to be lying around, does it?”

“Of course not,” he said quietly. “That’s why I scout out ones ripe for burning in advance.”

“To lay in stock.”

“Exactly.”

“Can I ask you one more question?”

“Sure.”

“Have you already decided on the next barn to burn?”

This caused him to furrow up wrinkles between his eyes; then he inhaled audibly through his nose. “Well, yes. As a matter of fact, I have.”

I sipped the last of my beer and said nothing.

“A great barn. The first barn really worth burning in ages. Fact is, I went and checked it out only today.”

“Which means, it must be nearby.”

“Very near,” he confirmed.

So ended our barn talk.

At five o’clock, he roused his girlfriend, and then apologized to me again for the sudden visit. He was completely sober, despite the quantities of beer I’d seen him drink. Then he fetched the sports car from around back.

“I’ll keep an eye out for that barn,” I told him.

“You do that,” he answered. “Like I said, it’s right near here.”

“What’s this about a barn?” she broke in.