You can only take what you can carry
Slouched against the front fender of the Falcon, Marty stared into the air, not seeing the faded windows of the house before him. His left hand, loaded as ever with a Camel cigarette, hovered between raised and lowered, lightly paused but vibrating, a hummingbird before flight. From the line of his short cropped hair ran streaks of salt, sweat blown dry by through open car windows. Flecks of gravel marked his left hand.
This house with the boarded windows was nothing, no special destination. It might not have even been the correct house. But Marty had driven for four hours through a Texas summer afternoon and this street, with its parched lawns and overgrown, underwatered trees, houses and pavement the same non-color of dust, looked right enough.
His left hand moved up, his lips kissed the filter end of the Camel, and Marty closed his eyes, no longer looking. In his right hand, he clutched a letter, pages creased from pocket carrying and stained from opening and closing. His left hand floated away, then, empty. The Camel between his lips, Marty raised the greasy folds of the letter to the Camel and held it, waiting for the orange glow to spread, the edges of the paper to crawl away in that black retreat. He walked forward then, and the pool of gasoline at the edge of the front walk mirrored him dark and broken as he dropped the burning letter, his left hand unloading the Camel at the same time.
Marty didn’t move at the small explosion at his feet but turned away as the fire moved toward the house. He put the gasoline can in the trunk of the Falcon and folded himself in the front seat. The tires churned quiet dust as the first curtained window blinked open.