An Unsalted Life
There was gas coming out of the pilot. Ricky could smell it. He twisted the knob on the stove. Click, click. No light, and Ricky wanted his bacon. There were long matches in the dining room, but he didn’t want to hobble back there. His ankle was stiff from the coming rain. He’d warned his wife to leave the matches by the stove. Ricky banged the heavy pan against the burner. That’s how people think he got burned.
It wasn’t. He’d had his thick bacon and sludge coffee. He’d gone out and pulled down an old tree for winter wood. He’d had a good lunch: a juicy hunk of meatloaf and mashed potatoes. His favorite. May, the woman he should have married, fixed it special. Then, he’d slept with her on her perfumed sheets. She was a lady. He hadn’t thought highly of that when they were young. He did now. When Ricky came home, he’d had such a good day that when he grumbled about that the misplaced matches, he didn’t even raise his hand for a slap. His wife had been making a venison stew. That’s how Ricky got the burns on his hands that tattered his forearm. She’d thrown the boiling gruel, saying she’d take anything but a cheating man. Ricky had known that, and so he didn’t choke her when he could use his hands again. He put honey on his skin to heal the burns, like the shaman had showed him. It worked pretty good. Still, May cried when she looked over them, and Ricky couldn’t see her any more, not if she was going to salt his life with tears. He liked things plain.
When people asked him about the burns, Ricky would say, “There was gas coming out of the pilot …”
