“I’ve already killed too many things tonight . . . “
THE PORTALS OF TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES
by Jenny Maloney
There are no streetlights in the new development just outside of town, only the dark outlines of modern square homes silhouetted in the half-moon light. Eerie shadows give the xeriscaped lawns a strange texture. If the boxy houses gentrifying this borderland between Elephant Butte and Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, aren’t enough to make the landscape otherworldly, then the square craters of the dug-out would-be basements certainly make the place feel like Mars. The price tag of these Tesla-looking homes, too, feel alien to me.
But those square crater basements? Those I have a use for.
I turn on Road Runner Road on the downslope, hoping my tires don’t sink too far into the gravel and sand. Tendrils of still-hot desert air leak through the gaps of my truck cab. I’m out of the main drag, but I can still see the overly white glare of the Wal-Mart and McDonald’s in the distance. I’d passed a state police officer on the way here. Nothing to see here, officer. Just another night in the T or C.
A quail darts out in front of me and I hit the brakes. I’ve already killed too many things tonight. No need for an innocent bird to suffer too. The quail disappears into the sagebrush. The creature’s safe for now.
I pull up to one of the basement holes, gaging the world by shadow shapes. My headlights are off. The last thing I need is one of these new gentry neighbors to look out their floor-to-ceiling window and see me skulking around down their hill. Off to the south, the homes surrounding the golf course glow with orange warmth. That neighborhood was the first round of new people moving into our little burg.
Who the hell would want to pay a million dollars for a house in the middle of the desert was a mystery to me. But they’re coming. Can’t stop them. And, for tonight, I’m grateful to use their basement.
Sweat trickles down my spine as I park the truck, debating whether to leave the engine idling. Easier to get out if I need to leave in a rush, but awful loud—my muffler’s on the fritz—and might draw attention. Don’t need anyone saying, “Yeah, I saw Mona’s truck out with the new properties around midnight.”
No headlights. No sound.
I stand at the edge of the dug-out basement. According to my buddy Marcus, who works on this subdivision crew, the plan is to pour the foundation tomorrow, so there’s only dirt there at the bottom. The dirt looks packed, and I worry for a second that I won’t be able to get my hole squared up the way I need to. As I drop myself into the crater though, I realize the dirt isn’t that firm. There’s some give. Everything’s already been leveled and signed off on. I just gotta pick a spot.
The weight of what I’m doing is equal to or greater than the weight of Raymond’s dead two-hundred-pound corpse. My shoulders bow beneath both as I roll him out of the ‘75 Ford bed. The chassis pop up in relief. Their burden is now mine.
Dirt clings to the tarp I’ve wrapped Raymond in. I’m wearing gloves but the grit seems to sink down to my skin. I wasn’t wearing gloves when I shot him. There’s probably gunpowder tattooed on my skin.
At least he’s colder now. I can imagine something other than a body beneath the tarp. A log or something. Earlier, the blood leaking out of his chest had been amazingly hot, reminding me too much of the hot springs around here. It’d been a year since I’d soaked and now I imagine it’ll be another year before the strange comparison fades and allows me to relax in those warm waters. Now that he’s colder, he feels less human. Not that he ever was very human.
I roll Raymond over the edge. He lands with a thud.
“You deserve that,” I tell him, lowering myself behind.
People don’t pay attention like they should. No one came at the sound of my shotgun earlier this evening. There I was, in the living room of my mobile home, staring at Raymond’s blood leeching out of his chest, and worried that someone was going to come knocking on my door. I stood there, like an idiot, staring down at what I’d done, with the barrel smoking. The desert carries sound in strange ways out here—some nights you can hear conversations from Broadway, the central downtown street, clear up here, but no one seems to hear what happens in the trailer park. My windows were open. I heard sprinklers going off down at the school. No one even looked up.
Digging graves isn’t easy work, but I don’t have to go down far. The concrete foundation will cover up what I’m working on and keep the critters from eating Raymond’s dead face. If my plan doesn’t pan out—well, I’ll worry about that later. My sense, from Marcus, is that this crew is just onsite for work, not for love and barely for money. They’re not going to look too close. Tomorrow morning, the cement truck’ll roll up the same way I came and dump its load. The crew will level and grade and no one will be the wiser. Justice will be served under the Milky Way spinning above me and about a ton of concrete.
When I saw Ellie, the twelve-year-old who lived down the street, coming out of Raymond’s trailer that afternoon, I knew he had to go. I asked her what happened, but she only shook her head, sending her tangles of dark hair waving. Ellie is one of those whose tears dried up a long time ago. Her parents are trash. She’s constantly on the hunt for food or friendship. I often offer her both.
“I came looking for you,” she tells me.
She came looking for me and found Raymond instead.
I watched her move down the road, not quite limping, but hurting just the same. Then I stood in my mobile home’s kitchen, observing the linoleum peel up at the corners in realtime. The swamp cooler leaked drip-drop into a bucket, but it still did its job and I shivered. Through my window, I had a view of those million-dollar houses rising up on the hill. I doubt they’d hear their neighbors through the walls. They probably wouldn’t know the difference between a little girl’s cry and a coyote yelp.
Then I knocked on Raymond’s door and asked if he wanted to come over for coffee.
My shovel strikes a rock, maybe, or just hard desert clay. But I push through. When I don’t see any more tarp, I stop. Then I smooth out the rough edges, erasing my boot prints as I awkwardly climb up. Somewhere in the distance, a coyote howls and I hope the creatures can stay away for a few hours. Every muscle aches, including my heart, which has beat too fast and too rapid all day. Perhaps I should do a soak after all. Let the “healing waters” seep under my skin, like the tourists do.
I toss my shovel into the truck bed. The metallic rattle makes me jump. I freeze for a moment, waiting to see if the sound has woken anyone. Only the wind moves.
Jenny Maloney writes dark fiction her mother hates. She holds a BA in Creative Writing from CSU-Pueblo. Her short stories and essays have been published internationally and appear in Dissections, All Worlds Wayfarer, NewSapiens, Across the Margins, Shimmer, and others. When she’s not writing fiction, essays, or poetry, she’s creating theater as a writer and performer in Colorado Springs. You can see what she’s up to (or pondering) at seejennywrite.com
