The Best of Youth

by Michael Dahlie

  Without thinking much more about it, Henry left the goats with the promise, “I’ll be right back!” and then headed out to the large snowy lot and then across to the machine shed.

  13

  HENRY ACTUALLY FELT quite happy as he opened the door to the machine shed and turned on one of his flashlights. There was still dim light coming through the windows, but using a flashlight seemed exciting to Henry, since he was doing something that might fall under the category of farm work. Moreover, it was, in fact, innovative and resourceful farmwork, farmwork to protect the farm’s most unique feature, which he decided was mainly why he was now feeling something of a thrill. And when he spotted the generator near the door, and then the two space heaters, he decided he was very much looking forward to telling Abby what he had come up with when she arrived the following day.

  Moving the heaters and the generator would take two trips, and he decided to carry over the space heaters first. They were small, although heavy under each of his arms. He managed well enough, though, and by the time he was back and pushing the generator out of one of the large vehicle-sized shed doors, he was happy with how simple all this was, and even happier with the prospect that he’d soon be back in front of the fire with his glass of Armagnac and the knowledge that the goats were secure.

  Because of the generator’s wheels, which were inflatable and good-quality, it was fairly easy to push, although Henry could tell how heavy it was because of how hard it was to steer. It had quite a bit of momentum after it got going, and there were several moments when the generator seemed to strike out on its own course. But Henry eventually arrived at the goat barn and parked the generator beneath a large overhanging roof. He had found extension cords in the machine shed as well, which were long enough to make it into the barn, although as he pulled the cords over a railing and in through the barn’s front door, he had another idea. Henry had begun to think that maybe the two space heaters ought to be supplemented somehow, and, not having seen any other heaters in the machine shed, and deciding that the goats ought to be warmed up as quickly as possible, he arrived at a new method of adding to the goats’ heating system. He ran back outside and started pushing the generator to a small gate in the outdoor corral, and then toward the so-called barn door, which opened between the corral and the actual goat barn. The engine itself would also generate heat, Henry concluded, and why not use that heat as well to warm the barn?

  He passed through the corral’s gate, flipped the latch of the barn door, and was soon pushing the generator into the barn. The goats were still huddled at the far corner and now, Henry decided, looking just a little more concerned about the threatening weather. Henry quickly looked around and estimated their enclosure was about fifteen hundred square feet—not that large—and he figured with confidence that with the added heat of the hot engine, the goats might start to feel a bit better in only ten minutes or so.

  There were two cement sections of the floor—they surrounded drains that Henry assumed were used for quick cleanings with a hose. He positioned the generator over one of these, thinking that he didn’t want to risk any sort of fire starting. Next, he checked the enormous, emergency-sized gas tank—it was full—and then he turned a small black key that was already in the ignition. The engine turned over immediately, and after popping a few times, it smoothed out and began to hum like the engine of a car, the exhaust hitting Henry in the legs and heating up his shins. Everything was in working order, although the goats suddenly seemed to be a little more nervous with all the noise. Still, it couldn’t be helped. Surely it was better for them to be nervous than to freeze to death.

  Henry then plugged in the space heaters to the generator’s panel of outlets and turned them up to high. Their coils took less than twenty seconds to start glowing, and with the space heaters’ fans behind the coils, warm air was soon blowing into the freezing barn. It was really all very satisfying for Henry, and, what’s more, within five minutes the barn started feeling a tiny bit warmer. Henry remained with the goats for another ten minutes, monitoring the progress of his plan, and soon the goats seemed to be huddling just a bit less tightly. One even drifted away from the pack. It seemed perhaps that it was even possible that Henry could now return to the fire and his Armagnac, knowing he’d really done something very useful. He’d check on things in another hour, but for now everything seemed to be going smoothly.

  And Henry did return in about an hour—now definitely a little drunk—and the flock of heirloom Libyan goats seemed to be in very high spirits. They weren’t huddled together anymore and several were at their feeding trough, happily munching on their strange granular feed in their now-warmer barn. Again, Henry felt a very deep kind of satisfaction, looking over all this—aided, of course, by his intoxication—and he couldn’t help but anticipate, once again, the pleasure he’d feel the following day when he showed all this to Abby. With that, he turned and headed back to the house, thinking that it was finally time to eat his dinner.

  14

  HENRY’S DINNER WAS simple—a cold plate of cheese and cured meats, and the end of a whole-grain bâtard that had been wrapped in paper above the refrigerator. And pickles of various sorts—Hannah was clearly an enthusiastic vegetable pickler, and Henry could hardly help but conclude that she was very, very good at this particular craft. The pickled turnips and pickled green beans were exceptional, and they went perfectly with the local, organically made beer Henry had also decided to open.

  Henry ate an enormous amount, quickly working through the bread, smearing it with mustard and fresh Vermont butter and layering it with cheese and meat, and soon he began to feel very sleepy. It was always this way with him, especially after drinking hard liquor, and before long, without cleaning his dishes or even finishing his beer, Henry wandered upstairs to his bedroom—the one that had been assigned to him and was waiting with fresh sheets and towels. It was now getting very cold in the house as well, and Henry was happy to crawl beneath a thick down comforter, and also happy that an early night would mean he’d be up early in the morning, ready to manage the farm and the goats and prepare for Abby’s arrival.

  Henry slept very well, waking at seven o’clock, feeling fresh and ready for the day. He was just a bit hung-over, in that his mind seemed a little hazy. But it was somewhat pleasant, especially since he was alone on a beautiful farm, the snow was deep (and still falling rapidly), and he really had little to do besides sit by the fire, read, eat, and experiment with expensive alcohol.

  He wandered into the kitchen (it was now entirely freezing, so Henry was fully dressed) and turned on the gas stove to heat a kettle. Henry then put on his boots and hat, preparing to head out to check on the goats. He’d take a quick peek at them and then return to build a fire and make some kind of breakfast.

  Now, with a cup of tea, on the walk across the open quadrangle, Henry could hardly help but remark once again about how cold it was. But the unbelievable and almost unnatural temperatures only made Henry even happier when he walked into the barn and felt how warm it was. The generator was purring and the space heaters were glowing red, and the burst of hot air that met him at the door was very pleasant.

  The scene inside, however, was initially somewhat puzzling. The goats seemed fine at first—certainly they must be warm enough—but they were all sleeping in a state of bewildering silence. Henry had no idea what a sleeping goat was supposed to look like, but these goats looked as though they had halcyon in their feed. And they seemed to be sleeping in unexpected positions—not curled around themselves like dogs, but lying rigidly, on their sides, and one or two seemed to have legs sticking up into the air.

  Henry looked over everything for a moment, and then approached the goat that was closest to him and noticed that all four of its legs were perfectly straight and raised just slightly above the ground, unsupported by anything. He bent down to stroke it, but recoiled when he realized that the goat was astonishingly hard. He touched the goat next to it, and it was just as stiff, just as immobil
e. And when he shook it, trying to rouse it from its sleep, he found that it shifted as though it were a single, solid piece. It moved like a sack of concrete, not a living thing filled with fluids and organs. As Henry stood up and looked over the rest of the goats before him—not one of which was awake, moving, making noise, or doing anything else that might indicate it was alive—he realized that something was terribly wrong. And it didn’t take long for Henry to figure out what it was. He suddenly recalled a friend in prep school who had a brother who had died while working on his sports car one winter because he ran the engine in an enclosed garage, and he immediately turned and sprinted for the door. He glanced to his right at the generator, gently humming and powering the space heaters, and thought he ought to turn it off. But he had to get out before he was poisoned by the carbon monoxide fumes that he now understood filled the barn. And he did manage to make it through the door, although as he stepped through the outer room and then outside, he felt very far from fortunate to still be alive. Quickly, he ran outside, around to the windows, and forced them open, breaking two in the process. He waited for another few minutes, then took a deep breath and reentered the barn, dashing to the generator and turning the key. Henry could feel the wind blowing through the open windows now, so he assumed he was mostly safe. Nevertheless, he left the barn for another fifteen minutes to make sure, spending the whole time pacing in circles in the shockingly deep snow, thinking about what to do next and the fact that a million dollars’ worth of goats (irreplaceable Libyan goats) were now lying stiff and immobile before him. Henry did look several times into the open windows to see if there was any sign of life. There was none, although Henry told himself several times, in instants of wild hope, that maybe the goats could somehow be revived, that maybe they all weren’t as stiff as those few he had inspected. But after ten minutes had passed, and Henry felt it was safe to return, he did a careful inspection and concluded that it was completely unlikely that any of the goats would ever be up and walking around again.

  15

  ALL THE SAME, despite the entirely obvious scene before him, Henry still felt he had to try to do something, and after once again inspecting the warm stiff goats, he ran into the house to look for a copy of the yellow pages. He spent some time searching the obvious places, but with no luck, and, given modern technology, there was a good chance Hannah didn’t even keep a copy around. The Internet was not an option since the power was out, but finally Henry noticed a bulletin board next to the kitchen phone that had the listing he was looking for. A card read “Strafford Valley Farming and Veterinarian Services” and, more promising, said below in bold type, “7 DAYS A WEEK / 24 HOURS A DAY / ALL MAJOR HOLIDAYS.”

  Phoning was still impossible, so Henry found a map and plotted a course to the Strafford Valley Vet’s, and soon he was outside running to his car. It would be a rough trip with the snow, but Henry had good tires and all-wheel drive and by this point he was thinking that it might be more dignified for him to crash into a tree or freeze to death in a ditch than to sit around the farm in the presence of an astonishingly expensive and rare flock of dead heirloom Libyan goats.

  Of course, what a vet could do was a mystery to Henry, but since it was clearly such a catastrophe it seemed that he had to make some kind of attempt to save the flock, that he had to turn to some sort of expert or institution or authority. Henry was already trying to figure out what he was going to say to Hannah, and at the very least he wanted to be able to tell her something like, I naturally charged off to the veterinarian’s immediately, despite the terrible and dangerous snowstorm. It seemed better than the alternative—saying that he wandered around the farm weeping, doing nothing at all to change the situation.

  Although the roads were terrible, the larger of them seemed to have been plowed within the last two or three hours, and when Henry arrived at the vet’s, he was happy to see that Christmas and the storm had not prevented Strafford Valley Veterinary Services from keeping the promises made on their business card. He dashed in, consciously trying to look as hysterical as possible to impress on everyone that a disaster had occurred, and after a brief explanation to a youngish woman about possibly having killed a hundred extremely rare ten-thousand-dollar-apiece goats, he was once again back on the snowy roads, but now followed in a pickup truck by the vet—the woman to whom he had so hastily explained himself.

  It took about twenty minutes to make it back to the farm, although during this leg of the journey Henry seemed to not have any coherent thoughts. What was going on in his brain seemed to be purely physical, his mind producing a sort of buzzing and rattling that somehow extended down his neck. And this sensation didn’t leave Henry as he and the vet left their vehicles, ran across the quadrangle, then entered the goat barn, where he was able to see, once again, just exactly what he had done.

  The vet stopped as soon as she viewed the scene, not so much out of horror but out of what Henry determined was utter hopelessness. She had told Henry that she ought to take a look at the goats before he panicked too much—maybe he was mistaken—but it was now perfectly clear by the way she walked among the goats, and the almost perfunctory way she inspected several of them, that she knew that the damage was done and there was no possibility of reversing it.

  “I’m so, so sorry,” she said at last as she stood up from a goat. “They’ve been dead for a while. You shouldn’t blame yourself. It was an honest mistake. But I’m truly sorry.”

  Henry couldn’t quite figure out if he appreciated this sympathy or if her compassion was making him feel worse, although by the time she had said she was sorry the third time, Henry was in tears, now realizing (by way of the vet’s pity) that he really had done something very horrible and that the consequences were almost too great to calculate. And this was just the beginning. Standing there, crying and shamefaced in front of the vet, surely wasn’t as bad as it would be when Abby arrived and when Hannah found out.

  “Was your phone working at your offices?” Henry finally asked, thinking that maybe he ought to make a phone call to Abby.

  “No. It’s still down,” the vet replied, adding, “I’m assuming I’m the only one you’ve told so far?”

  “Yes,” Henry said. “But I have a friend. Or a fourth cousin, really, although that’s not really a relative, and she’ll be here later today. So I’ll be telling her soon enough.”

  “I’m so, so sorry,” the vet said again.

  16

  ABBY FINALLY ARRIVED at the farm several hours after the vet had left—left after also telling Henry that veterinarians didn’t really deal with dead animals and that they’d probably have to be incinerated on the property. Henry spent the next several hours rehearsing his story, wondering over and over if there was any reasonable way to explain how he had killed a singular and hugely expensive flock of goats. And when Abby at last arrived at Highgate Meadows, and he finally told her what had happened (slowly, in the kitchen, over a carefully prepared pot of tea that Henry insisted on making for her), she just sat there, stunned and wide-eyed and staring into the space just to the right of Henry’s head. And then they walked to the barn, and together they looked over the terrible carnage that Henry had caused, and eventually, in the now, once again, freezing cold barn, she said, “Oh, Henry, what have you done?”

  But it was said sweetly. A little sweetly, Henry hoped. Henry thought he could detect just a bit of kindness. But there was also apprehension (or anger, perhaps) because Henry was her friend and, as blameless as she was, she was also somehow going to have to answer for this. And this fact Henry found almost unbearable. Of all the things Henry didn’t want to happen, he certainly didn’t want Abby to take any of the blame.

  And, in fact, Henry didn’t have to face Hannah at all. Not right away, at least. As they stood there in the goat barn, after thinking silently for a few moments, Abby told Henry that he should go back to Brooklyn. She’d get in touch with Hannah, she said. And she’d let the caretaker know when he got back the next day. She’d handle it.r />
  “Just go back to Brooklyn,” she said.

  “But this is all my fault,” he replied with more desperation than he would have liked.

  “Yeah, but I can deal better with what’s next,” she said.

  “I should be the one to tell Hannah.”

  “Henry, I think that would be a bad, bad, bad idea. You just need to go home. I know you didn’t mean for this to happen. I know it was an accident. I know you were just trying to help. But I think it’s better if I explain this to Hannah, not you. She’s going to lose it. I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like. And if you’re on the phone it’s going to be a million times worse. For me too. I don’t think I could bear that. Anyway, I’ll still have to talk to her, even if you break the news. So do this for me? Head back to Brooklyn?”