I don’t remember exactly why I had chosen to travel at night. It’s not like I was busy during the day, doing something that could have delayed my departure; so it probably had to do with laziness, putting off the start of the job until the last possible moment.
My mom didn’t want me to drive when it was dark, so for her sake I had left the house early and spent the rest of the day in the arcade, texting them about the progress of my ‘trip’. To my parents, I had arrived in San Felipe around six in the afternoon. Jacobo’s family had received a different message that morning, letting them know I would arrive at night.
What a fool I had been.
If I had been honest and just left earlier, the accident could have been avoided. Or maybe not. Maybe I would have hit a man, or another animal.
I thought about this as I drove the last few kilometers before entering San Felipe. The car, my body and the night felt heavy. My stomach felt queasy when my mind went back to the feeling of the dead animal in my hands. I had to decide what to do with the body.
Dumping it somewhere would have probably been the most reasonable thing to do, but it was not a convenient choice once inside San Felipe; it would be the same as having left it on the highway, at the mercy of cars, scavengers and the elements. Plus, if I had the bad luck of being found out by a cop car, things could get dicey.
Then it hit me.
The vision of the Sierra-Echeverria’s garden appeared to me a few blocks before I reached their home. That was my answer.
It was midnight when I arrived at the house. It had been years since I had last been there, childhood memories rushing over me while I pulled up in front of the tall walls of the garage. I got out of the car, pulled out my phone to hastily re-read Jacobo’s instructions in my e-mail, and found the door key under a rock in front of the house.
My shaky hand opened the door into the garage, a wide piece of land that was divided between a gravel path for the cars and a large patch of grass with a variety of trees and plants around and in it; between the gravel driveway and the garden there was a paved road that led to the staircase, which in turn led to the house. Next to the door I had come through were the brown electric garage doors. Taped on them, as the e-mail said, was the remote to open them.
The doors opened with an ominous creaking. I went back in the Chevy and pulled into the garage, closing the doors right away. San Felipe was still a quiet town in an increasingly tumultuous country, but I was not about to risk some stranger coming in after me. That would be one too many mishaps, and I hadn’t even officially started the job yet.
First things first. I went up the staircase, jumping the steps two by two, and under the doormat I found the other key. I opened the door and found myself in the kitchen. The alarm system started beeping as soon as I stepped in, and I ran to deactivate it with the code provided to me in the e-mail.
The alarm system said in a human-like voice “System deactivated”, and I let out a huge sigh of relief. Then I wondered whether the storage room would be unlocked. The house plan I had been sent was divided into three levels. The lowermost represented the garden and garage, with a tiny half bathroom in one corner. There were also instructions there on how to turn the garden lanterns on, as well as the pump that fed the hose. The middle one was the level I was on, and it was where the kitchen, storage and guest room were, as well as the dining room, living room and a little nook with a bookshelf that was labeled ‘library’. There was also a patio accessible from the same staircase that led to this floor, and the washing and drying machine were in a room adjacent to it. The huge window in the dining room provided a view of the garden/garage, but the panorama was limited by the thirteen feet high walls that surrounded the property, covered in ivy and other crawling plants. On this level was also the foyer, with a door that provided direct access from the street into the house. The uppermost level was where the family bedrooms were located, one for Mr. Sierra and Mrs. Echeverria and one for Jacobo, and each of them had its own bathroom and closets.
Luckily the storage room was unlocked. The light came on with the flick of a switch. Everything was put on shelves and arranged carefully, which made the task at hand easier.
As I carried the tools down to the garden, it occurred to me how silly it had been of them to send me a house plan. After all, I had been there numerous times; though, granted, the last time had been over ten years before, so I appreciated the reminder. Part of me, however, wondered how much of it was well meant niceness, and how much of it was because of fear I was a fuck-up. I shook my head.
I stood at the bottom of the stairs and looked at the garden, shrouded in darkness. My heart was racing hard, both because of the running and carrying and because of what I was about to do. Now I only had to pick a spot. I turned the lanterns on and reviewed my options.
One time, when Jacobo and I were kids, Mr. Sierra asked us to go with him to the garden center and help him pick some new plants for his garden. Jacobo and I ran through the place, playing between the plants, until we came across a small palm tree. When we got back to the house we helped Mr. Sierra plant it. It became our little pet project; for a few months after that I came over once a week with Jacobo, after school, to water it. Then we’d have dinner and play games—until eventually my interest waned, and the watering duty fell on Jacobo, and then on Mr. Sierra. Now, the palm tree was taller even than the garden walls, and it felt symbolically adequate for the grave I was about to dig.
With the shovel leaning against the palm tree, I took a deep breath and raised the pickaxe, cursing my weak arms and slight frame, and started hitting the ground, breaking its superficial layer to make an easier way for the shovel. I had to take frequent breaks, but as Dr. Magaña often repeated, purposeful actions helped take my mind off my anxiety. And boy, were there reasons to be anxious tonight.
By the time I thought I had dug deep enough, I was out of breath, and my body was so hot I could not feel the cold night air anymore. Aching, I stumbled back to the car, out of which a funny smell was seeping already, and I popped the trunk open. The moon was right above me, and I could see my victim more clearly than I had before, on the highway.
What a large dog, I thought, and I figured that if I was already burying it, I might as well try and find out what kind of dog it was. Morbid as it may seem, I snapped a picture of it with my phone. Hopefully the grave would be big enough.
When I lifted it, its lightness surprised me again. It was beyond me how something so big could weigh so little, or how it could have left such a big dent in my car. As I walked away with the body in my arms, I tried not to think of the blood drying up in the trunk, of what it would be like to clean it up later. Most of it had been absorbed by the newspapers, though.
I had been doing so well, given the circumstances, until I tripped when I walked towards the hole, and I face-planted against the ground, getting some dirt and grass in my mouth. When I looked up, I was staring squarely into the dog’s eyes, and this close to it the sight made me gag.
I backed up, and when I did the corpse and the grave fully occupied my field of vision. Behind them, the palm tree, my only surviving link with this house and my childhood. I couldn’t breathe, and I rose up gasping for air. I walked around until my lungs agreed to take on more oxygen.
How could I have tripped. What a useless fucking failure, look at this mess, the thoughts and the walls and the night loomed over me, caging me. Tears streamed down my face, and as much as I struggled, I could not remember the technique Dr. Magaña had taught me to prevent the panic attacks from getting worse, because of COURSE I fucking couldn’t, I was better off dead. But no, that was not really what I thought—but yes, it was. How could anyone really trust me, hadn’t even started and what a disaster. What a walking shame I was—reasoning was out of the question.
I cried and wailed and shut up because what if the neighbors. Then I held my knees against my chest and cried silently, lying next to the dog’s corpse. The attack had to pass at some point.
Eventually it did. I refused to look at the time, but I was sure it had been at least an hour, an hour of being submerged in self-hatred and self-pity, one upstaging the other in an endless fight, tearing me apart. My throat, my head, everything was sore or aching; intensive digging exercise followed by fetal position on the ground didn’t do my muscles any good. But at least the attack had passed. So, I got up, my face covered in snot, dried tears and dirt, and I pushed the dog’s body into the hole. As I had feared, the dog was a little too big for the hole’s length, but it was deep enough that it could be completely covered.
Exhausted and sore, I picked up the shovel and started filling the grave back up. The dog’s shape disappeared under the dirt, its glossy, sightless eyes staring towards the morning sky. I wondered if death was a sightless limbo and vomited right where I stood.
I went back upstairs, locked the door and set the alarm. Once in the guest room I took off all my clothes and threw them in the corner. I would deal with that heap of stinky, bloody fabric the next day, I thought, and I let myself fall on the bed, too tired to think. So tired that I couldn’t fall asleep. My mind kept going back to the accident, jolting my body awake every time it drifted off. However, the drive to the house was a blur.
What was I thinking before the – oh, right. About my dad and his stories. About the static in the radio. About remembering not to doze off or space out while driving at night.
Remembering not to———
Heavy eyelids. There’s a haze around my brain, around my eyes, but I can see. I need to. I can’t, can’t move. I know my arms are there. I feel them, but they feel disjointed and foreign. Whose arms are these? The sound of a ringing phone seems close and far at the same time. I need to get up. So thirsty. Maybe I can shake myself awake. Maybe. Maybe the man over there can help. The man. No, stop. Don’t. Don’t come closer. Stop.
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