Puff by Bob Flaherty

Author:Bob Flaherty
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins

And his eyes were in their element in the boiler room; his ears atwitter, his mouth agape. He found that by tugging on certain chains overhead he could open valves and close them again, greatly affecting the arrows on the dials. “I have found my life’s work,” he said, as steam whistled over his head. “I must take a civil service exam at the next earliest time.”

“What you need to do in the next earliest second is find a hiding place!” I yelled from behind a wheelbarrel, “The cops are gonna be here any minute!”

Ignoring me, he climbed metal steps to a platform, hoping it’d allow him a peek inside one of the boilers. Instead, something else came into view. An answer to all prayers. A means to get to Braintree. Gully’s flashlight followed the chain-made tracks and snowy-edged puddles to the ramp at the far end of the noise-filled room, and the bolted bulkhead door above it. He then turned off the light, bolted down the stairs and said, “Everybody out! We got ourselves a tractor! Look!” Dally and I met him by the tractor and looked at it.

“I’m looking at a tractor,” I said.

“Does it come with chickens and cows?” said Dally.

Gully stared at us in disbelief. “The fucking thing comes with a plow, okay? It has chains, seats, windshield, the whole works, and a ramp to drive it out! It has a fucking plow, for Chrissakes!”

“So you are suggesting,” I said, “that we steal this tractor, which does what—nine miles an hour, while all the cops in the world are after us?”

“Unless you have a better suggestion, John-John, then that’s what I’m suggesting. Now let’s fan out and find the all-important keys to the fucking thing.”

While Dally and Gully tore the room apart searching, I decided that one of us should climb back up the steps to stand watch, and I nominated me. I opened the door a crack and peered down the corridor. I saw the flashlights drawing closer, heard the shouts, might have heard: “THERE THEY ARE!” as the door closed behind me.

“Here they come, boys and girls!” I said, and leaped down the steps. “We gotta get outta here now!”

Out meant the ramp and we bounded up it together. As soon as the deadbolts were released top and bottom, the wind did the rest, one side of the thin metal door threatening to break out of its hinges as it violently flapped against the snowy brick outside. Gully grabbed something in one hand as we stormed back into the chill. I didn’t know what it was until we were halfway round the block.

“You think of everything, dontcha?” I said, the cold air piercing my lungs as I ran.

“Thinking’s too much work,” panted my brother, as the gasoline inside the bright red can sloshed up and down with the same volatile uncertainty as our future.

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