Anonymous

Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Debra leafed through a variety pack of legal forms, quarterly statements to the State of Ohio and the IRS, unemployment, worker's comp, city and school. All this to keep a business going. They couldn't afford to hire a hand, much less a crew. So Greg worked on his own from the first thing in the morning to just before dark. And that was fine because they were trying to get ahead. At least he was home at night.

Debra had the radio on, not that she could hear it. The water pump kicked on loud, straining to bleed water from the shallow well. Greg had diverted all the gutters to it, but it hadn't rained for such a long time. A forty-dollar check in hand, she was waiting for a truckload of city water, something she'd taken for granted before she'd come here. The pump straining loud in the background, would burn up if it didn't stop soon and it was getting on her nerves. Debra fed an unemployment form into the typewriter and lined it up just right, trying to ignore the noise. Aggravated, Debra stood straight up. "Fine!" she said to no one. She would shut down the straining pump by pulling the fuse, which would be a trial because she didn't know which one it was.

On her way to the basement, the pump kicked off. She unclenched her hands, loosened her shoulders, and stretched her back. There was water for now, at least enough to wet her flowerpot garden. Then the truck would come and she could wash clothes and give all her plants a proper drink.

When she stepped outside she saw two groundhogs on the deck who were chewing up the yellow beans and lettuce. She'd given up on a sprawling garden for this very reason. All those weeks of digging the dirt on her hands and knees, pulling weeds, fertilizing, hoeing, plucking slugs and inch worms, and spraying for white flies - just to feed wild rabbits and groundhogs.

"Get out of there!" she yelled. The small one took off. The big one stayed. It was surprising how it seemed to be sizing her up. Prompted to look for something, a broom, a stick, she took hold of an old shovel just within reach which was odd because she didn't know where it had come from. Its aged varnish sloughed off in her hands in a déjà vu moment of when the swing set flaked yellows and reds. "Go on, get out!" She poked it with the rusty shovel, its teeth clanking the metal blade. It stood up on its hind legs completely out of character in some declaration of dominance. She took a step back thinking to just leave it alone; and she would have, if it hadn't dropped on all fours, bared its teeth, arched its back, and growled.

"No you're not," she said, fed up. "You're not going to chase me inside. I won't have it." She jabbed at it with the shovel. "Get out of here . . ."

The groundhog went wild in a violent fit, biting the shovel between her and itself. The shovel smacking it - the groundhog biting, snarling, foaming. The shovel fended it off as though her hands were a conduit for some other force. Blocking. Hitting. Blocking. Hitting. The groundhog bit her shoe, her waiting to feel the pain. She smacked it full force. The animal backed off. He stood up just like he had. She could see blood. Was it her blood or its? Was her foot numbing the pain where it had bitten her? It dropped on all fours and arched its back in what she saw as round two. Then it came at her. She hit him and hit him and hit him, blood splattering all the while until he didn't move anymore. Her insides shaking she flipped her tennis shoe off to see where he had bitten her. Rabies, she thought, what if he has rabies? Feeling like she would be sick, she saw where he had bitten the tip of her toenail, no blood, no broken skin. That's why it didn't hurt.

The groundhog gurgled amid its pooling blood. Time rewound to her stepfather's own pool of blood. When would murder be justified? Surely if a creature was suffering. She would get the rifle and would do what had to be done. The groundhog lifted his head and dragged its broken body down a deck stair. Now that she knew it could move, she knew it would be gone by the time she got back with the rifle. It would hide and suffer terribly before it would die. Debra raised the shovel, getting strength behind it; feeling justified somehow, and sliced its head half off with the sharp edge. This was too much.

She gagged over the edge of the porch. Already a turkey buzzard was circling overhead. A hot gamey scent would be an unbearable stench by noon. She had to bury it. She brushed her hair away from her face, her hands shaking, and dragged him to the field in the bloodstained shovel. Here she looked for a spot to dig a grave.

Two dragonflies spun overhead. Turkey buzzards dipped uncomfortably close as they circled. In the distance that dumb cow was grazing this whole time, swishing flies with his tail.

That night, Greg came home just before dark like he'd done all summer. Debra had been waiting for him to come home and as soon as he did, she told him, "You won't believe what happened. One of those groundhogs threw a fit today and went after me. Right on the deck." She told him about it biting her shoe, about her killing it. "I just hope it didn't have rabies."

"It didn't hurt you. Did it?"

"I don't think so. It didn't draw any blood." She stopped herself from saying too much. His face and arms were dirt crusted in dried sweat. He'd worn a hole in his jeans at his knee in the course of the day. She'd taken care of the problem. Now it was time to take care of him. That's what a good wife would do.

"What did you kill it with? The rifle?" He started walking to the house, her next to him.

"I didn't get the chance. All I could find was that old shovel. Where did you get that?"

"Do you mean the hoe? We don't have a shovel."

"Yes we do. It's on the deck." She guided him through the garage, through the utility room, to the deck where groundhogs had chomped lettuce and yellow beans.

No shovel. No blood stains. Only the tennis shoes she'd washed and left to dry.

"It's here somewhere," she said. "I left it right there. I hosed it off when I cleaned the deck, and put it back where I found it. Right there."

She'd seen that look before. It was the look she'd seen on a mental ward aid where her mother was. Debra concentrated on the empty space. "Maybe I . . . ." She walked slowly toward the field, "It's here somewhere. I'll find it."

Greg walked with her. "Are you sure you're alright?"

"I'm fine." Her words floated out in a hush. She was the right age for Schizophrenia to manifest, early twenties, the same age her mother was. That's what the doctor had said. Greg knew it. She knew it. What would life be like if she couldn't find that shovel, if she couldn't find that grave? She walked deeper into the field, trying to retrace her steps, thinking about which direction she'd gone earlier. It seemed so long ago, and now there wasn't any trace of it in the overgrown weeds. The neon glow of lightning bugs dotted the darkness. They tromped in circles, slapping mosquitoes, looking for anything to prove it happened. "I believe you. Let's go back," Greg said.

"Wait. I know where it is."

He followed her to the broken mound of soil, proof of the burial. Yet there was no trace of a usable shovel, just an antiqued bug-riddled shovel handle, unfit to wield the weight of the rusty metal tool lying next to it - milkweed and thistle sprouting through its holes. The same aged varnish had sloughed off in her hands.

A cold chill mocked the humid summer night.

". . . I made some brownies today."