Dig Ten Graves (2 page)

     “Police responded to a complaint early this morning about loud music at 211 Blackmoor Street, a housing development for low-income families, and discovered a young woman who had apparently overdosed on heroin.  She was rushed to the hospital, where she is currently listed as being in stable condition.

     The woman, Charon Whitfield, age 22, is not a resident of the housing development, but was a ‘squatter’ who had reportedly been there for some weeks.”

     Another night, maybe a week, maybe a month, later.  We’re sprawled out on her bedroom floor, naked and exhausted, sharing a joint, drinking beer.  I think I’ve finally asked her about all the… stuff.

     “It’s just my stuff,” she says, sounding maybe a little defensive.  It’s the first time I’ve heard any sort of emotion in her voice.

     1996, a headline: WOMAN CONFINED TO PSYCHIATRIC INSTITUTION AFTER DEATH THREATS TO NEIGHBOR.

     1997: FORMER MENTAL PATIENT RE-COMMITED AFTER ROBBERY.

     1998: SUICIDE ATTEMPT LEADS WOMAN BACK TO MENTAL INSTITUTION.

     A notice from 2001 announced her marriage, and a small black and white photo showed her, dark-haired, smiling what seemed like a real smile, and her face looked radiant and happier than I would have ever thought possible.  The man at her side was tall and handsome and somewhat sly-looking.

     2002, a child born.

     Later that same year, a vaguely-worded piece in the police blotter about a domestic disturbance.

     And in 2003, the death of her daughter from brain cancer.  “Funeral services to be held Friday, August 8.  At the request of the bereaved parents, no flowers please.  Instead, donations to the Cancer Research Society.”

     I couldn’t find anything about her divorce.  The next bit of information I could find about her, aside from that awful post from 2004, is the article about her death.

     Every time I close my eyes now, I see it.  All day today, since I learned about her death.  I close my eyes and I see her naked, tied to a post, and the shoppers are ignoring her cries, ignoring her struggles, loading their carts.

     The second-to-last time I ever saw her, she finally told me about her recurring nightmare.

     “I keep having this dream,” she says, and her lips feel warm against my neck.  We’re under a thick quilt on the ragged sofa, and she’s fondling me almost absently while she talks.  “This nightmare.  About my stuff.  There’s a store, see, a shop.  And it’s selling all these things and I look and see that it’s all mine.  It’s all of my things that I’ve collected.  And there’s all these people and they have shopping carts and bags and stuff and they’re loading up with these things that belong to me.”

     Her fingers had been having an effect on me, but there’s something so dreamy and disconnected about her voice now that I lose whatever I’d been building toward.  She doesn’t seem to notice.

     “And I start yelling.  Telling them to stop, to leave my stuff alone, it’s mine, it’s not for sale.  And there’s a line at the cash register and some fat bitch is ringing them up and they’re leaving the store with my things.  And suddenly I’m naked, and I’m tied up.  Tied to a post with this thick black cord.  And I start screaming, leave it alone, leave my stuff alone, it’s mine, it’s mine, you can’t have it!”

     For a second her hand tightens on me and I wince.  But then she lets go and her fingers rest on my stomach.  I feel her eyelashes flutter against my jaw and I’m not sure but I think I feel something hot and wet running down my neck.

     “And I’m screaming, it’s mine, please, it’s all I have, please don’t take it.  Begging, right.  And I’m struggling to get free from this stupid post.  And this man, he stops and looks at me.  He’s looking at my body, ‘cuz I’m naked.  He’s leering.  And he says to me, he says nothing belongs to you, girl.  You have nothing.  It will all be carried away.  So I start crying and pleading, and he laughs and I realize that I recognize him.”

     Charon is talking rapidly now, still in her bland monotone, and it dawns on me finally that she’s revealing something, she’s opening up, and I’m not sure if I want her to open up, I’m not sure if I want her fears to rub up next to mine like this.  I’ve been able, so far, to keep myself emotionally removed from her, or so I think.  The truth is, I’m already caught up in her, I’m just too self-centered to realize it at the time.

     She says, “I recognize him.  He’s you.”

     The post from 2004.  I found it at one of those poetry websites, where anyone can show their work and have it critiqued by fellow poets.  I don’t know if it was good or bad, and I don’t care.  By the time I finished it, just a few brief lines, the computer had gone blurry and I couldn’t see.

     These few possessions

     These skins I put on

     Are meaningless save for the fact that they are mine

     This tender thing I will define as belonging to me

     And no one else

     But the man who sees me naked

     And tied to the post

     Will leer and tell me the truth, the ugly truth

     That all of this will be carried away

     And that in the end, nothing belongs to me

     I didn’t look at the comments and critiques from the other poets.  I don’t think I could have stood it if someone tore it apart, critiqued her form or content, reduced it to an exercise. 

     I see her at the club, about three weeks after she’s told me about the dream.  She’s dyed her hair black.  It looks good on her.  She doesn’t even mention the horrible thing I did, and it dawns on me that she’s hopped up on heroin.  We find our way to a table far in the back, away from the lights, and make out for awhile and I ask her how she’s doing.

     She nods and says, “Good, I’m doing good.”  She smiles and it looks real.  She says, “I’m thinking about going to California.  I have a friend out there who maybe can get me a job.”

     I tell her that’s great and I wish her luck.  I go to get a drink, run into an old girlfriend at the bar, and never go back to Charon’s table. 

     That’s the last time I see her.

     So now I shut off my computer again and stand up.  My back aches and my eyes hurt.  I go to the bathroom and look in the mirror and see a man who doesn’t really look familiar.  He’s got lines around his eyes and his Sunday stubble is graying and scraggly.  He’s got a receding hairline and the beginnings of a double-chin.

     I push Charon off me and she almost falls off the sofa and I nearly laugh, she looks so surprised.  I pull on my pants and head for the door.  Charon, cool collected Charon, never any emotion, has a stunned stupid look on her face.  I storm out of the house and to my car, parked in the street.  I pop the trunk and find the black extension cord I remembered was there, about fifteen feet of it.

     Back in the house.  She starts to say, “What are you doing?” but only gets the first word out before I grab her by her thin, frail arm and drag her into the bedroom.  She sees the cord and her wide eyes get even wider and she starts shaking her head and saying, “No, no, no,” but I don’t listen, I drag her into the bedroom and throw her down on the floor.  I look down at her and all I want, all I want to see, is her broken.

     I force her against the wooden post of her bed and tie her securely and she’s weak, she doesn’t fight much at all.  But she cries the entire time.

     I take the Darth Vader figure and the Christopher Lee lobby card and the Mr. Spock plate.  I take the Papa Smurf and the Elvis album cover and even the stupid little mouse.  I take as much as I can carry. 

     There is no why.  I just do it, because her dream has sparked something in me, something cold and nasty, and I want to.  I take it all, carry it all away, and leave her crying and struggling to get free.

     And now the old man I see in the mirror clenches his eyes shut and shakes his head, sharply.  He forces it down, forces it back into the cage, back to the place where it never happened.

     And he gets to work fixing that clog in the sink.

    
Bleed Out

     From my blind up in the tree, I see Buck and Doe come into the clearing, hard to miss because of their bright orange vests. They are talking, which is no good for hunters to do, but good for me because I wouldn’t have heard them coming other-ways.

     Buck says to Doe, “I’m proud of you, Margaret, I really am. After all this time, so many times I’ve asked--”

     Doe cuts him off, laughing-like. “I always wanted to go hunting with you, you know that. It’s just time, you know, finding the time. And I’ll be honest with you, I’m scared to death.”    

     Buck is laughing-like too, now. He says, “Scared of what? A deer can’t hurt you, I promise.”

     “No, it’s not that. It’s just… I’m not sure I can do it. I mean, even assuming we SEE a deer out here, I just don’t know if…”

     They have guns, Buck and Doe. Me, no gun. I use bow. Bow takes real skill, real hunter-skill. I frown down at them, but they don’t look up and they don’t see me. I don’t wear orange vest, see.

     They settle down right under me, Doe sitting down at the trunk of the tree, and Buck on his haunches, like. My bow is in my hand, but I don’t move. If I move now, they would hear me. I am perfectly still, just like Daddy taught, I am part of the tree, I am the tree, I am invisible.

     Buck says, “That’s only natural, to feel that way. My first time, I was scared too, I really was. Did I ever tell you about it?”

     Doe shakes her head.

     Buck says, “Well, it was… it was kind of a mess, really.” He laughs. “It was me and my pop. We were trekking through the woods, early fall, you know, dead leaves everywhere made it hard to stay quiet. We must have wandered around for hours, just looking for a sign of deer anywhere, and me getting more and more nervous. I was, what, sixteen or so? Finally, after what seemed like hours, we came into this clearing and lo-and-behold, on the other side was this beautiful buck, five feet at the shoulders if he was an inch, with antlers out to here.”

     Doe looks interested in the story. She’s watching Buck, smiling. Slow-like, careful-like, I reach into the quiver on my back and pull out an arrow. My arrows are good. I make them myself.

     Buck says, “We were downwind, by the grace of God. My pop goes real quiet, touches my shoulder. I looked up at him and he nodded at me, kinda half-smiling. And suddenly all my fear was gone. I raised my gun, took careful aim… and shot.”

     Doe says, “A good clean shot?”

     Buck grins. “No, I’m afraid not. It was pretty poor, actually. I got him in the lower left flank. Not a kill shot at all. That deer jumped like a Mexican jumping bean and took off like a bolt into the woods.”

     Doe says, “Aww. Poor you. So it got away?”

     Silent, silent, I notch the arrow.

     “Well, not exactly. I mean, I shot him, he was going to die. It was just a matter of when and where. I thought it was a lost cause, but my pop told me not to worry and you know what he did? He followed that deer’s trail, that’s what he did. He followed the blood, me lagging just behind him, and within an hour we’d found him.”

     I pull back the bow-string, slow, so Buck and Doe can’t hear the strain of polished wood bending. I pull all the way back, deciding in my head which one goes first. If I do this right, I can bag two for one. Never did that before.

     Buck says, “We followed him into this field of tall grass, up to my torso. And just as we were approaching it, we heard the buck fall. I was getting set to run in there when Pop grabs my arm and says wait. Wait for it, son. So… we sat there at the edge of the tall grass and waited for, geez, must’ve been two hours. And finally Pop says okay, so we go in and there’s my buck, dead.”

     “Wow,” says Doe.

     “Yeah. That bastard just bled out, right there in the tall grass. And I had my very first buck.” He laughs. “Pop still has those antlers on the wall, in

 his study.”

     I settle on Doe, right beneath me. She’s just standing up, pushing herself up-like, so I am looking straight down at her back, her exposed neck, and I know that this is the right time, no other like it, and I release.

     Arrow makes that beautiful thwip sound and finds target, goes right through Doe’s neck and out the other side and blood is minimal but she’s dead right away. She drops. Good, clean kill.

     Buck is stunned, looking at Doe face down under the tree. I have only seconds. I notch the second arrow as quick-like as I can, swing bow around as I pull back bow-string, and his stunned eyes are turning away from Doe and looking up at me and stunned turns to horror and he starts to stumble backwards.

     I let the arrow go. Bad shot. Gets him in left side, just under rib-cage.

     “Fuck!” I says before I can stop myself.

     He cries out in pain, but doesn’t stop moving. He scrambles backwards, trying to turn, trying to get to his feet and run away. I quick-like grab another arrow, start to notch, but goddamn Buck is on his feet now and running-stumbling away into the woods.

     Cursing, I jump down from the tree, trip over Doe. “Fuck!” I says again, even though it’s stupid to talk and curse and like that when hunting. It’s no good. But I’m mad at myself for the bad shot. I like a clean kill. This one, not a clean kill. Fucked up.

     Buck is leaving a trail of blood. I follow.

     Follow for a long time, maybe two hours, something like that. Sun is high overhead, that’s all I know. But I follow his trail of blood and the crushed leaves and stuff on the ground. Sometimes I hear him, crying and cursing, scared-like.

     After a long time, I know we are coming to the clearing, where the tall grass grows. I know this part of the woods like my own house. I know it real good, I’m always here, I know the woods.

     The trail of blood leads right into the tall grass. I stop, listen. Can’t hear Buck anymore. He’s in there, hiding. Waiting for me, maybe thinking he can jump me or something. He’s dangerous now, because he’s wounded. I think for a minute.

     And then I sit down on the ground, legs crossed. I put my bow on the ground next to me. I sit, and I wait.

     I wait a long time. Hours. It’s getting dark. No noise from the tall grass, none at all. I stand up, leave my bow on the ground, and edge careful-like into the tall grass, following the stain of blood.

     I find Buck dead, bled-out, my arrow still in his side. I look at him for a while, mad at myself for the messy kill. But messy kill or no, it’s still a kill and still a trophy. Just not one of my better ones.

     I pull out my hunting knife and begin skinning, wondering which wall to hang the skull on and which room to put the skin in.