The restaurant was nice. First time eating there, nothing spectacular, but nor was it disgusting. The movie was funny. I’ll watch it again. The night went well except I felt alone. My wife wasn’t talking much. She never initiated any conversation. Only responded ‘yes’ or ‘no’ and sometimes ‘maybe.’ Nothing much beyond that.
“Are you alright?”
“Yes.”
“You sure?”
“Yep.”
On the drive home the acid in my stomach began to boil up into my throat.
“I’m going to stop at the store and get me some antacid.”
No answer.
Walking up to the store I looked back at my wife. She looked somber, inert, elderly, a statue gazing out into nowhere. The grey in her hair was accentuated by the red neon sign hanging in the store window.
I went inside and found some antacid and a lemon-lime soda. I swiped my card, not noticing the clerk. I was focused on my wife. She had been unhappy for a while now.
“Need a receipt? Hey! Do you want a receipt?”
“No.” I hesitated, thinking that I never asked if she wanted anything.
I exited the store and stepped over the concrete parking block. A skinny, tall man, wearing a grey hooded vinyl jacket was standing next to the car talking to my wife. I couldn’t see his face. His head was down and he had the hood pulled down over his eyes. I could hear his deep voice and my wife’s jovial laughter. I grabbed the door latch in anger and jerked it upward. My hand slipped off and I tumbled backward.
“I’m sorry. I locked the door,” my wife called out. Her voice was distant and muffled. She leaned over, unlocked the door, and pushed it open. The man dashed away.
“Who the fuck was that?”
“Nobody. Calm down. He was trying to borrow some money.” She was smiling, a far different person than before I went into the store. She radiated happiness, a certain kind of bliss I had never seen in her face. “Did you get me anything?”
“No, sorry. What do you want? I’ll go back in and get it.”
“No, I’m fine. I just want to go home.”
“No. I mean it. What do you want?”
“Nothing. I just want to go home. Please. Stan, it’s all good. I’m sorry I’ve been so gloomy tonight. I’m just tired.”
We passed under the last traffic light before our subdivision.
“You just ran a red light.”
“What was you laughing at, with that guy?”
She laughed. “He was just….” She paused, “silly.”
“Silly? Well, I’m glad someone could make you happy tonight.”
There was not much more conversation that night. There was an unstated anger between us, a silent understanding that only married couples understand. We got undressed, laid in bed far away from one another, watched a little television, and fell asleep.
In the middle of the night, my throat started burning. I was regurgitating fire and sulfur. I went downstairs to the kitchen. Antacid was going to quell this madness. I needed something stronger. I filled my glass with some tap water, shoveled out two spoonful of baking soda, stirred, and drink the vile concoction down as fast as I could. My stomach seized up in agony. I was in so much pain that I couldn’t move. All I could do was stand there bent over. Any attempt to stand up straight would cause more cramping and excruciating muscle spasms. There was intense pain for more than a minute, and then a swell of instant relief as I belched out the pressure that was roiling about my abdomen.
There is nothing more soothing than the juxtaposition of immediate relief that comes after prolonged acute pain.
I slumbered back upstairs, feeling relaxed, my stomach warm and calm. As I pulled the covers up to get back in bed, I happen to glance out the bedroom window. There in the backyard it looked as if a hole had been dug out. I couldn’t make out the length or width. I just saw an amorphous black void, a space where nothing existed.
My wife was snoring, bellowing out long drawls of incoherent dream-talk. “Middle of the night is always right…. he loves me.”
I got dressed, went to the basement, grabbed a flashlight and a tire iron. It was a frigid night, my hand was shaking, casting the stream of light about in an erratic motion, never catching upon the object of my concern, the hole. When I finally got to the hole, I could see that it was rectangular in shape, the length of a full-grown man, and about six feet deep. Someone had dug a grave in my backyard.
Behind me I heard a shuffling. I turned, but before I could put my arms up in defense, something steely pounded me across the forehead. I lost my balance and fell into the grave, my flashlight and tire iron still in hand. A ray of light flashed across the silhouette of my assailant. It was the man in the grey hooded jacket.
Blood was streaming down my temples and into my ears. It was a steady warm flow. My head was throbbing, my sight blurred. I tried to roll over to my side, but my body was constricted by the narrow walls of my earthen abode. My arms were weak and frail. Every move I made took an immense amount of energy.
Dirt was slung onto my face. I could hear a shovel pitching into a loose mound of dirt. I was being buried alive. I screamed out for help. I saw a flash of light from up above. My wife had heard me. She had turned on the bedroom light. The shoveling stopped. I heard the man scamper to the back door.
“Stan? Are you out there?”
“Yes. Help me,” I uttered in despair, not thinking of the danger I was casting upon my wife.
“Hold up. I’ll be right down.”
“No, call the police.”
I heard the back door open, but I didn’t hear the expected shriek of fear and the maidenly cry for help.
“Well, now we can be together,” I heard her say.
“Do you want me to kill him first?”
“In a minute darling, but first I need you to come inside.”
I felt my heart implode. I was desolate and ready to die. A light misty rain began to fall. It was soft and soothing, a dangerous lull. Time and misery had allowed the mist to turn the dirt into inescapable mud. When I finally found my resolve to try and climb out of the grave it was no use. With every grasp of earth came the tumbling down of more fill for my burial.
I felt around for anything, a root, or a rock, something I could firmly clutch in my hands, but there was nothing. I could yell, but it would do no good. We lived in a rural area, miles away from civilization. Our nearest neighbor was a mile away on either side. I collapsed down onto the ground and waited. My only chance was to hurl my tire iron at the man, hoping like hell I hit him square in the head. If so, then maybe he would fall into the grave. I would beat him to death and use his body as a ladder, and then, I would find my wife. Oh, I would find my wife. The thoughts I had are too terrible even to write down.
The rain became a deluge. Tiny muddy waterfalls came cascading down the sides. I was being buried in a froth of penitential misery. Man had dug the grave, but God was burying me.
I heard a scream, a high pitch shrill. I rejoiced. Her plan had gone awry. She was getting what she deserved. He may get away, but at least she wouldn’t. I heard the back door open. The rain ceased. The last act was upon me, the curtain was being drawn. Something was being dragged across the ground. There was a grunt and then a body slung into the hole. The dead weight fell stiff against my outstretched legs. Its right arm forced across its naked back by the side-wall of the grave and its head buried in the water. I pointed my flashlight at the body. At that point a grey hooded vinyl jacket was also tossed into the grave. I rolled the body over. It was the man with a cavity in his chest where his heart should have been.
I heard some clanging. A ladder was lowered down into the grave.
“Come on out of there honey.”
I pointed my flashlight upward. My wife was standing next to the ladder. She looked younger, just as beautiful as the day I had met her in high school. The grey in her hair was gone. She smiled. Her teeth were stained with blood.
“Don’t worry about him. I’ll finish up here.”
I climbed up the ladder, uncertain of my fate. When I got to the top, she came to me and put her arms around my waist and pulled me into a forceful embrace.
“I love you so much. I hope this doesn’t change anything between us. I’ll explain in time. It’s only every twenty years.”
Later that night she came to bed and snuggled up beside me. She dozed off and began talking in her sleep. Before, I had never paid any attention to what she said, but now I hear everything. I hear the cruelty and malevolence with which she has existed. She confesses to me her sins, and I absolve her of any wrongdoing, partly out of pity, but mostly out of fear, especially the fear of what may happen in twenty years.