Famous Writers I Have Known by James Magnuson

Author:James Magnuson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2013-10-17T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

I’d never dug a grave before. It’s more work than you think. Rex had picked out the spot, under the magnolia tree in the far corner of the backyard. It took Ramona and me a good half hour, taking turns with a shovel and a pickax.

It hadn’t rained for a couple of months and the ground was hard, but what made it really tough was the limestone that seemed to be everywhere, just a few inches below the surface.

We hacked and chipped away, digging down a couple of feet, but the question was, how deep was deep enough? The last thing you wanted was some raccoon coming along and clawing everything up.

Rex, a St. Louis Cardinals cap shading his eyes, stood watching as I got down on my knees to pull out some of the snaky tree roots. I yanked and tugged, the roots making little popping sounds as they gave. As dry as it was, once you got down far enough, the earth still had that musky rotten-leaf smell to it. I tossed three or four broken limestone slabs onto the lawn and sat back on my haunches to rest.

“How does that look?” I said.

“That should be fine,” Rex said.

I pushed to my feet, wet shirt clinging to my back. Rex nodded to Ramona, who put down the pickax, crossed the yard, head bowed, and ducked into the half basement under the house.

I patted Rex on the elbow. “You doing all right?” I said.

“I’m doing okay.”

On the far side of the fence a mockingbird, wings flailing, attacked the side mirror of the neighbor’s car. I pinched the corners of my eyes. I was tired, and not exactly in a sweetheart of a mood. I’d been awake half the night, thinking about how Rex had shafted that poor kid. And now we were supposed to feel sorry for him because his dog died, a nasty little mutt that was nothing but trouble? Give me a break.

As Ramona emerged from the basement, Rex raised a hand to his mouth and then let it drop. She had Mingo in her arms, wrapped in a white towel. It was not the moment to ask, but it made me wonder if they’d been keeping him in the freezer. She moved slowly across the lawn, like a bride coming down the aisle. I leaned over to roll the wheelbarrow out of the way.

She stopped in front of Rex and pulled back the towel so he could have a look. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of Rex running a hand over the dog’s curly coat, scratching him gently behind the ears.

The body was still stiff with rigor mortis, legs sticking out like the legs of a Thanksgiving turkey. I don’t know if it was Ramona or not, but someone had cleaned him up pretty good. The head was turned away from me, so I really couldn’t see, but it didn’t look mashed, so much as weirdly twisted, jaws frozen open, teeth bared.

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