ReTOOLing

I had been writing ahead so I wouldn't get caught in the jam I'm in now, of falling behind. Chapter 4 was a good ways in when I realized I hated where I'd taken it. I think the better option will be to skip what I would have talked about in Chapter 4, save a brief mention or two in new Chapter 4. The problem is, when I think about what I was doing, it was quite tedious, and really didn't need a full chapter to describe how they got to the hospital. The few key revelations that would have resulted can be taken care of in new Chapter 4 through the brief mentions. Updates will continue next week, and we'll address outlining, finals and bar exam review as they come. If you're still checking, thanks for your patience.

Act 1, Chapter 3, Part 18: At the End of the Day

Recapitulation: Barry has played on the fears of an old man to help him fill up a grave. Jenna is meanwhile incapacitated with a concussion.

***

They scooped the hole closed just as the sun resembled an inverted fish bowl, bottom seventh still obscured by the gentle horizon. Barry moved the grass divots by hand into place, fitting them with the care and precision of a Mayan wallbuilder. He could not have slipped a knife between the divots. Not that he ever carried a knife.

Barry and the old man sank to the floor. Jenna wandered over. She held her hand to her head, as if she could push out the swirling sensation. “Now that you guys are done, I have to ask, what happened, and why is he clutching his chest?”

Barry looked up from his cross-legged rest. He’d noticed somehow the old man’s grunting had taken on a more anxious tone, yet chalked it up to the hopes he wouldn’t die. Now, his left arm stuck out straight, his fingernails drawing blood from his palm. His right arm clawed at the source of the pain, as if ready to rip through the outer layers of clothing and skin to get to the rib cage, and then the heart, ready to rip it out and perhaps even eat it.

As it stood, Jenna couldn’t remember more than ten seconds into the immediate past. The old man’s body rebelled against his will to live. He had on him a modern treasure map in the form of a hidden will and the old man’s wallet, which he might have stolen. The old man still feared that Barry would kill him. He was covered in filth, as was Jenna, whose head ceased its constant outpouring of blood. The sunrise exposed them for all their illegal glory, casting a bold honey glow across their tired faces. Soon the workers would return and discover them. He needed a nap or fifteen, as the past twenty-four hours presented little more than hard labor and harder stress on him. And, he still couldn’t drive a stick shift, their sole means of transportation and getaway.

The Volvo could fit two of them, and the shovels, or all three of them, and they’d have to leave the shovels behind. Or, Barry could attempt to drive away by himself and crash. Then it became a matter of what to take, among the shovels, Jenna, and the old man.

He groaned. She held her hand to her head, as if she could push out the swirling sensation. “What happened? Why are you just sitting there? Answer me.” Her insistence speared through him like bolt lightning. They really were running out of time.

The shovels treated him well, like old dogs unable to hunt, but still able to rush to him when he came home. He’d purchased them after his first day of work at Millken Park. Though one saw more use than the other, they remained his most stolid compatriots. Yes, the conversation lacked, and sometimes they were cold to the touch, but they’d never treated him wrong.

The old man, he didn’t deserve this gripping fate. This morning, probably just like every other morning, he’d trundle down to the graveyard, visit his wife, or his child, or a friend, maybe even his own grave. He just experienced the bad fortune to meet Barry and Jenna, and be placed in mortal fear for his own life. Without Barry, the old man would never have suffered this heart attack, or suffered him. He had to help.

Jenna, his would-be wife, his true annoyance, and he’d pulled her into a grave and given her a concussion. Then again, she’d made him accessory to grave robbery. Hell, he was an accomplice. If there was another person, and now there was, he might even be a conspirator. Oh god, she’d made him a conspirator for grave robbery. How bad would that sentencing be, would he even make it out of prison alive? Better to leave her here, she’d recover eventually. Might not even remember the promises he made to let her live in his apartment, promises now erased by the constant static rushing her head.

How hard would it be to drive away? Then it hit him. He needed her to tell him how to drive, unless.

“Can you drive a manual transmission?”

“I’m dying, get me help, please.”

Barry could carry two out of the three at any one time, and it was probably for the best that he didn’t leave the shovels where they would be linked back to him. Why did Jenna have to packrat her car and keep it chock full of useless crap? Damn.

He looked at Jenna. “I’m going to take a real quick nap. Wake me up in five minutes.”

“Arrgh,” stated the old man.

“Shut up or I’m leaving you here.” He passed out on the cool grass, oblivious to the truth that Jenna would forget to wake him in thirty seconds.

Act 1, Chapter 3, Part 17: Concussion.

Recapitulation: Barry has knocked Jenna unconscious by pulling her headfirst into Gertrude Wilborough’s grave. In the process of getting them out, an old man sees them. Barry attempts to force the man’s will to his own, not realizing that this particular man was little better than a sick child.

***

The well-worn wallet demonstrated deep depressions outlining a series of credit cards cascading downward. Barry imagined the old man’s face felt just like this dead cow skin. Brown as the dirt below. He slid this into his back pocket, along with the papers already stuffed in there. Lowered himself into the coffin, threw the shovel out, and hefted it back out. They continued their grimy work. The caked dirt on Barry’s face developed shiny ruts as sweat droplets gathered up the soil on its way down his face.

Around this time, Jenna woke up and stumbled over to their anti-archaeological dig. Her drunken weaving made Barry dizzy.

“What happened?” She held her hand to her head, as if she could push out the swirling sensation.

The old man took a step back, then dropped his shovel on the firm ground. “You’re not dead.”

“Neither are you, maybe we should wait a little longer. What happened?” She held her hand to her head, as if she could push out the swirling sensation.

“You fell on your head pretty bad. Go sit down. And you, pick that shovel up and keep shoveling.” Barry’s arms scorched from within. The shovel handle pricked at his fingers. They threatened to straighten out with each passing second. Holding the shovel got almost as bad as filling the hole.

“Hey, what happened?” She held her hand to her head, as if she could push out the swirling sensation.

Barry looked at her. “You didn’t hear me just now?”

“I heard you just now.” Jenna looked around, processing the graveyard. “Who’s he?”

“One question at a time. You fell down, hit your head. Go sit down over there.” He brandished the shovel towards a solid gravestone.

“Ok.” She held her hand to her head, as if she could push out the swirling sensation. Jenna weaved through to the gravestone, spun in a tight circle as if caught in a stirred drink, then slumped to the ground. A few seconds later, she wobbled back to Barry on her hands and knees. “I might have already asked this, but what happened?”

“You hit your head. I think you might have a concussion.”

She held her hand to her head, as if she could push out the swirling sensation. “Please, I didn’t hit my head, what are you talking about. What happened? Who’s he?”

This day just kept getting better and better.

Barry set the shovel down as he would a child, then walked over to Jenna. He wrapped an arm around her shoulder and walked her back to the grave. “Listen, you fell on your head when we were trying to finish the job, alright? I’ll take you to the hospital, but first me and him have to fill the hole back up. So, can you wait here and just sit here for another half hour or so? Remember that one thing, just wait right here.”

She nodded back at him, staring hard at him, her eyes slitted. Her mind was coated in teflon at this point, nothing he said would stick. “Who’s he?”

“Just a helper. Now, please, just wait here, and don’t do anything, don’t wander away, just sit her quietly, alright?”

“Will you tell me what happened?”

“I will tell you what happened later, alright? I’ve got to finish this.”

“Alright.” She sat down, her back to the gravestone, staring up at the sky. Barry walked back to Ms. Wilborough’s resting place and started shoveling. A few seconds later, Jenna popped up behind him. Barry turned around. She held her hand to her head, as if she could push out the swirling sensation. “What happened?”

Act 1, Chapter 3, Part 16: It Pours

Recapitulation: Barry and Jenna managed to steal their prizes from Gertrude Wilborough’s dead body, but in the process Barry managed to knock out Jenna. While extricating the two of them from the grave, an elderly man has come upon them, and is willing to do whatever it takes to leave under his own power.

***

He didn’t want to do this, but there wasn’t much he could do. Jenna might have had some brain damage in addition to whatever residual injury made her act the way she did. Barry knew exhaustion as he would a lover, panting and wheezing, arms wrapped around it, needing to lie down and go to sleep. He wouldn’t be able to shovel the dirt in by himself in an hour or two, not by himself.

“Come here.” He tried to speak the words with malice, but came off sounding weak. The old man still approached, his Hush Puppies scraping on the grass. Barry wiped the sweat and dirt from his face, then stopped, his forearm still pressed against his nose. That grime might be the only thing keeping the old man from a positive identification. Barry smeared his hand on his coveralls, then rewiped with his left hand, obscuring his true self even more.

“Pick up the shovel.” Barry’s voice wept into the high register, more suited to a castrati in one of Mr. Waller’s older records. The old man trudged to the shovel, still planted in the mound, picked it up.

“Start filling that hole.” The man moved without using his joints, every gesture straight armed, straight legged, straight torsoed. Scoop, turn, empty, turn, scoop, turn, empty. Barry nodded. He walked over and knelt down before Jenna before raising her up in his arms. She slumped through the gaps like a sleeping cat, but remained borne. The old man gasped, but said nothing. Barry took her a bit removed from Ms. Wilborough’s grave, off to Larry Javaad (1958-1994). Laid her down so that she at least wouldn’t have to endure a pelting from random dirt. Stumbled back to the grave and started helping. The old man held Barry’s shovel, Ol’ Rusty. This reserve felt foreign in his hands, too smooth and too clean, too cold. Still, what choice did he have?

Now they raced their exhaustion. Barry should have taken a nap. The old man should have not thought fond thoughts of whomever he was here to visit. The only situation they would have wheezed harder in would be a near vacuum, trying to extract the last particles of breathable air.

“What, what are you going to do to me?”

The only response Barry gave was the continued huffing and shoveling.

“I won’t tell anyone about this, really. I’m old, I don’t have much time. Please, please just let me have what little time I have left.” At this, he dropped the shovel, fell to his knees crying. “Please have mercy on me, please.” The shovel teetered on the edge of the grave before spilling inward.

Damn. “All you had to do was keep on digging and you were going to be fine. Now look at what you’ve done.” Barry threw down the shovel. “Look at what you’re going to have to make me do.”

“No, please.”

“Go get it.”

“What?”

“Get the shovel. I’ll wait right here.”

The old man, his eyes redder than the sunrise stared into the pit. “How do I know you won’t bury me down there? You dropped that shovel in there on purpose.”

“You dropped it, you get it.”

“No, no. Please.” He fell on his face, mumbling incoherent supplications to Barry.

“Fine. I’m going to go down there to get that shovel. When I come back up, if you’re not here, I’m going to hunt you down and slit your throat.” Then he thought for a second. “Give me your wallet.”

“What?”

“Call it insurance.”

Act 1, Chapter 3, Part 15: When It Rains

Recapitulation: Slapstick abounds with exhaustion. After exhuming Gertrude Wilborough’s grave, they’ve unearthed several treasures, including a possible last will which may change Ms. Wilborough’s estate distribution. In the process, Barry has gotten trapped in the hole, and after making a compromise to get out, Jenna has fallen in with him after he pulled on her hand far too hard.

***

For as long as they’d known each other, all these long hours, it seemed like they’d been pulling each other down, scrabbling over each other to get to the top of their two-person heap. Once again, the subtle tracings sketching out their life stories laid some subtle irony at their feet. Barry rubbed his lower back, now aflame with pain, and looked over to a quiet-for-once Jenna, blood oozing from her temple. Somewhere within, he wondered if this all happened quite different in another universe.

Even knocked out, her hair exuded signs of a life independent of the body they became attached to. It may have been more an effect of the scattered dirt bed she’d come to rest on, it might have been how, despite the shadows filling the hole, each strand delineated itself. The bright blood, seeping forward, colored everything in its path a duller hue of the incipient sunrise above them.

Always forgetful of just how light she was, Barry scooped her into his arms, then pressed her body above his head, tipping her forward onto the ground above. A simple euphoria flooded his body, much as harsh exhaustion threaded his musculature. Stepping to the other side of the grave, Barry traded up, passing through the air in order to get himself to a more tenable position. He rolled onto his back, right arm draped over his chest, left arm still dangling into the pit. Wheezed, wheezed, wheezed. What a race.

His vision gained an unfocused quality. The golden-red sun bled indistinct, its edges blurring into a vague arc, the blue-black sky beyond finishing the cold irradiated burst. a few clouds stranded through this smooth color schema, little more than what might have been early-onset cataracts cottoning his eyeballs. His head lolled, and broad basic colors gave way to cold slate and granite slabs peppering the faded piney green grass. An inch from his face, sharper grass extruded from the ground, and Barry counted the uniform veins striping the length of each blade. Somewhere in the distance, a large blob, white and tan and brown and large and filled with so many color gradations it stood out for its uniqueness, looked very out of place. It took Barry a few efforts to focus in on the elderly man holding a flower bouquet, and an additional try to recognize the utter lack of movement at all, signifying what?

He turned his head the other way, saw the pile of dirt, the fresh grave, the unconscious woman bleeding out from her heard. Turned back to the old man. Turned back to Jenna. Even if she was in any shape to explain this, she wouldn’t have explained this. No, it fell to him to assuage this man’s fears, explain that he wasn’t a murderer. He loved mornings.

Barry edged into a semi-sitting position much more appropriate for a chaise lounge than an exposition. He turned to the old man, still frozen in a temporal amber, preserved in the scene that he drew his own conclusion for. “Everything’s okay, there’s a perfect explanation for all this.” He beckoned across the field, across the dirt heap and the half-dead woman and the open grave. “There’s no perfect explanation for all this. But I have an explanation for you, if you’ll just give me a chance.” In the old man’s shoes, Barry would have worn off the soles gunning for the nearest constable.

“Don’t hurt me, please. I’m not seeing anything, there is nothing to see here.” The old man raised the flowers before his face.

Barry nodded. “Well, yes, this is true, this is all completely ordinary, everyday run-of-the-mill business.” He sighed.

“I’ll do whatever you want.”

The phrase, fraught with potential, yet extended with such desperation, didn’t register in Barry’s mind for a few seconds. He’d just been in the old man’s position. Now it was time to take some advantage of the situation.

Act 1, Chapter 3, Part 14: Getting Out of a Well

April 1 fell on a Saturday this year, and I do not update during the weekendYou’ll note that “Chapter 4, Part 1” corresponds quite well to 4/1 (April 1), and “oil or flaps” is an anagram of April Fool’s. In addition, by not putting “Act 1” in the title, I hope at least some of you were tipped off as to the true nature of my post.

***

Recapitulation: The contents of Gertrude Wilborough’s grave included more than mere jewelry. Barry and Jenna also discovered a “Last Will and Testement,” perhaps her final will, which could change the entire distribution of her estate. As Barry peruses the document, Jenna sneaks out of the grave and starts throwing dirt in on Barry. Trapped, he takes a few seconds to reach out and touch the face of the woman whose funeral he first attended.

***

We learn lessons best via repetition, which is part of why life’s simple lessons are so painful to learn. Only the lucky few understand it the first time, while the mass of people are forced to make mistakes again and again until they get it right. Barry knew that with enough time and effort, he could change Jenna. It was just the process that would kill him. Another dirt clod whacked him in the face. He spit out black chunks and what was either a worm or a rootlet, thin and stringy and wriggling past his lips.

Barry shut the casket and stood up on the lower half. Jenna planted the shovel deep into the pile, ready to fling another pile into the hole. Her arms shook under the strain, her knees quivered. He looked down at his shaky hands. Like two prizefighters in the twelfth round, they both continued on, neither sure of what they were doing it for, only knowing that there were a few minutes left before they could stop.

He pushed up on the ground, hefted his body up from the edge of the grave, and met with facefull of the brown stuff. Back down he went. Jenna heaved with a master shoveler’s fury.

“You going to bury me down here? You think you can get away with it?”

Another rain of dirt. He could hear her puffing from above. She couldn’t keep this up for much longer. Barry nestled up against the side. He’d have to time this just right.

Jenna tossed another shovelful into the hole. Barry leapt up and used his momentum to carry himself up. Jenna, still at the edge of the hole, put her foot out and kicked his face, shoving him back down. The casket creaked beneath the sudden jolt, but remained intact.

He recalled an old puzzle, concerning a frog stuck in a well twenty feet deep. Every day he would climb three feet up the side, every night he would slide back down two feet. How many days would it take him to get out? The obvious answer is twenty days, one foot of progress a day. The right answer is eighteen days. Once the frog hits twenty feet, it can escape and not fall back down two feet. The lesson? Frogs can cling to walls. The important lesson? Always think through a problem, don’t assume the immediate answer is the best answer.

The sky fell some more. Barry wanted out of the hole, so he kept trying to force his way out, but Jenna kept shoving him back in. The better way to do it would be to have Jenna help him out. Jenna was pissed at him. Furious even. He had to give her something she wanted. Otherwise, they would get caught. There wasn’t much time, and they would need every harsh second to fill the grave.

“Move in with me.” Why did he say that? The words tasted sour in his mouth.

“I already live with you.”

“I mean for good. Not just for right now. You can keep running your jobs and you don’t have to live out of your car. Move your stuff into my apartment.”

He heard a faint metal sound, like a shovel blade spiked into the ground. “Not good enough.”

A start, but he needed more. What more could she want? What more would she want? And it hit him, living out of a car, moving from place to place, working alone. Always taunting him, always trying to keep him at arm distance, or trying to draw him in, he wasn’t sure. Either way, he knew what she wanted.

“I’ll be your partner, I’ll be your subordinate, I’ll help you, just please, help me out and let’s fill this hole and get home.”

Pavlovian conditioning made him close his eyes. A quiet throat clearing made him open them. Jenna crouched by the edge, her hand outstretched, the oversized emerald ring keeping her pinky and middle finger from touching her ring finger. He reached out and she yanked her head back.

“I keep the bed?”

He nodded and grabbed her hand. Barry pulled himself up, or so he thought, until he realized that her shaky hand was moving downward. With his simple tug, Barry dragged Jenna over the edge. He fell down and broke his crown, and she came tumbling after.