The Slab

by Michael R Collings

  Sams stared at his sister, then his tears joined hers, even though he had no idea what was happening.

  Will, Jr., took a moment, then said, “We’ll have to have a funeral. Right away.”

  Willard looked up at Catherine, who started to shrug, then her head moved up and down so slightly that none of the kids would have noticed even if they had seen it. They hadn’t. Their attention was fixed on Yip.

  Willard felt again that momentary stab of irritation grate through him. All right for her to say it was okay, but he was the one who was going to have to trudge out into the rain, or at least into the rain-soaked yard, to officiate at the obsequies.

  “Can we, Daddy?” Burt asked.

  “I guess so.”

  “When?” Suze said. “Right now.” For her, there never seemed to be a future, just the now.

  Willard sighed, “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “We’ll need a box or something first,” Catherine said. Suze scuttled away down the hall. A moment later, they all heard a drawer close, rather more loudly than necessary, and she reappeared in the doorway, cradling a small wooden box.

  “Oh, Suze,” Catherine said, “That’s the redwood box Grandma and Grandpa gave you when they went to Monterrey. You don’t want to…”

  “Yes, I do. Yip was my friend. I loved him.” The boys nodded their approval at her sacrifice.

  Catherine went to her knitting and rummaged around in the bottom of the bag she used. Finally she stood up and carried a small irregular ball of dark purple yarn. She placed it on the fragrant cedar lining of the small box and tugged at the yarn until it made a kind of nest.

  “Is that all right?”

  All four children nodded this time.

  “Willard?”

  He opened his hand to set the tiny body in the makeshift casket. As he did so, he really noticed Yip for the first time. Something seemed odd. The hamster’s head looks strange, as if it were slightly flattened on one side, as if someone had…

  He stared at the four children. Will, Jr., with his red-rimmed eyes and carefully stoic expression. Burt, his eyes full of hurt and loss. Suze and Sams, their tears still streaking their cheeks even though they were no longer crying.

  No. Impossible. None of them would have…

  He began to lower the hamster into the box. Yip’s body hung limply from his fingers. Too limply, it seemed. On an impulse Willard felt along the hamsters back with his index finger.

  Nothing. No stiffness where the backbone should be. Not exactly mushy, but…giving, resilient.

  He almost withdrew his hand, almost decided to question the kids to see if any of them had accidently hurt Yip, then didn’t. They loved the hamster. They would have told him if anything had happened.

  He laid Yip in the center of the tumble of yarn, then pulled a few strands over the body.

  “All right?”

  Again the children nodded in unison.

  He closed the box and turned the tiny clasp.

  10

  It really was too wet to be out, even if the rain had stopped. Willard stepped out of the side kitchen door, boots on his feet, jacket zipped close against the damp air, casket in his hands, rain hat on his head just in case, and a small shovel propped over his shoulder. Three similarly clad figures-minus the shovel-followed. Catherine had remained in the family room with Sams, who seemed exhausted by the whole thing and was nodding off. When they left she was cradling him in her arms and rocking him as if he were an infant again.

  The small procession rounded the corner of the house.

  “What the…?” Willard caught himself just in time. Little pitchers.

  The entire back yard looked as if it were a lake. He had expected most of the rain to drain off along the sides of the house, down the front lawn and driveway, and into the overfilled gutters on Oleander. That what would have made sense for a house situated at the top of a rise.

  No, that hadn’t happened. Instead, water had pooled everywhere, shallowly in some spots, so that the tips of winter-dead grass emerged like miniature reeds in an oversized black swamp, so deep in others that the faint breeze that had followed the storm created rows of ripples on the surface.

  Water had puddle against the back of the house as well, flooding most of the concrete patio, up to perhaps six feet from the sliding doors. It wouldn’t have taken much more for it to flow on into the living room. At the back of the yard, the fence seemed almost to lean into the pools, as if the posts were stark trees torn away at their roots, rotting but not yet willing to die.

  “I’m sorry, kids,” he said without looking down at them. “There’s no place dry enough to…for a funeral.”

  “Will we have to wait until the water goes away?” Burt asked. “How long will that take?”

  Too long, Willard said to himself. Too long unless Catherine is willing to store the Yipper here in the freezer.

  “I’m afraid it would take way too long. We should just…”

  “Throw Yip away?” Will, Jr., spoke as if accusing his father of murder. “Toss him in the garbage?”

  “No!”

  “No!”

  Burt and Suze began screaming their sorrow.

  Willard could have killed Will for piping up like that. He threw his eldest son a withering glance that made Will, Jr., stumble back a step.

  “Stop that!”

  The younger two suddenly stifled their sobs.

  Willard sighed. “Maybe there’s someplace dryer along the far side of the house.”

  The procession recommenced, punctuated by the slap of boots against water and an occasional sniffle.

  They rounded the side of the house. It was almost as bad here. The six-foot-wide stretch between house and fence was spotted by standing pools, but up against the house, beneath the protection of the eaves on one side and the neighboring row of yews on the other, the ground, while still sodden, was at least visible.

  It would have to be here.

  He paced a dozen steps or so until he stood toward the end of the long wall-right outside the windowless wall of the master bedroom. Where he could slip out some dark night after the kids were asleep and play grave-digger to the Yipper’s final resting place. By then the thing would probably be little more than a repulsive mass of goo inside a stained and worm-eaten box. Then he could throw the whole thing away and the kids would never know. That way if he ever decided to cultivate a small garden in the bare stretch, he wouldn’t unearth a nasty surprise.

  “This all right?”

  “Okay, Dad.”

  Again, the nods from the others.

  He handed the box to Burt and began digging. The soil was marginally dryer closest to the house, so that’s where he began. Shovel in. Shovel out. Shovel in. Shovel out.

  Until…

  “Those bas…!”

  “What’s wrong, Dad?” Will, Jr., looked thoroughly scared of something. Burt and Suze weren’t far behind.

  “Shut up,” Willard snapped.

  They shut.

  He removed another shovelful of dirt from the edge of the concrete foundation.

  About five inches beneath the top of the soil, a half-inch-wide crack snaked parallel to the ground.

  “I don’t bel…”

  This time none of the children spoke. Willard had almost forgotten they were standing there, a couple of feet behind him, halfway to the fence, ankle deep in mud and water.

  He scraped the shovel along the side of the house, revealing more of the wall between where he had begun and the front corner. The crack continued. If anything it grew wider, blacker, deeper. Ominous. Threatening, at least to Willard.

  He reached the corner. There, the lower portion of the foundation had separated by nearly an inch from the upper, a couple of inches below where the stucco started. The bottom of the stucco-painted an ugly shade of yellow instead of the neutral brown of the rest of the house-was beneath the level of the soil.

  He stood back, winded although he didn’t notice that, and leaned agains
t the shovel handle, forcing it gradually deeper into the muck. His shoulders and back throbbed, and his fingers ached.

  He already knew that the back wall had separated from the foundation. Now this.

  The whole damned house must be simply sitting on top of the slab-or next to it-with nothing pinning the two together!

  He looked up under the eaves.

  Those shitty builders!

  He groaned.

  “Dad,” Will, Jr., whispered.

  “Get into the house. Now. All of you!”

  They got.

  Willard scraped more dirt away from the stucco, this time retracing his steps toward the back corner. The crack followed his digging.

  After about six feet he stopped and just stood there staring…and getting more furious by the moment.

  Everything they owned invested in this place, everything they had hoped for, even their very lives maybe…and now this.

  Finally he trudged his way back to the kitchen door and stalked in. Catherine stood there. The kids were gone. He couldn’t hear them anywhere.

  “Take off your boots, please.”

  “Huh?” He looked down as if surprised to see that he had feet.

  “Your boots. You’re muddying up the floor.”

  He toed the boots off, then in a moment of rage, kicked them out the open door. They splashed into a puddle about where he had planned to plant a peach tree come spring.

  “What’s wrong.”

  He didn’t answer. He didn’t trust himself to answer. He took several deep breaths. Then several more.

  “The kids came back into the house. They were frightened. terrified. Of you, I think. They said that something happened back there. Burt still had the box clutched in his hand. What was it?”

  Willard ran his fingers through his hair and slumped onto a chair.

  “A crack. A huge, gaping, monster of a f… of a crack.”

  “Where?”

  “Along the whole bedroom side of the house, I think. A big one. A couple of inches below the stucco line.” His mind hadn’t registered the full meaning of the different colors down there, not yet, so he didn’t mention that.

  Catherine’s eyes widened in shock.

  “And another one under the eaves where the wall joins the roof. There’s some uneven patching that no one would notice on a quick glance…maybe not even on a careful glance. We didn’t walk along that part of the wall before we bought the place. Maxwell stood with us at the corner and talked but didn’t go any further. We…I just assumed…

  “Anyway, it looks like the entire wall slumps from corner to corner. I think its separated from the roof by an inch or two in the middle, just above Suze’s window.”

  He laughed bitterly.

  “I’m surprised the window hasn’t cracked. Yet.”

  Catherine remained silent. For a long time.

  Then she touched Willard’s hand. He didn’t move.

  “Is there anything we can do about it right now?”

  He shook his head. “We’ll have to call the city engineer’s office to have them send someone out, but that can’t happen until the soil is a lot dryer than it is. Without more rain, or at least nothing like the last four days, maybe three weeks, a month.”

  “Is there any danger?”

  “I suppose not. Like Maxwell said, the place has lasted nearly thirty years. The roof isn’t bowing anywhere, so it’s supported all right. I think. We’ll just have to see what the city inspector says when he comes.”

  She nodded.

  Outside, the clouds began to break up, signaling the official end of the worst storm in a decade. If they had looked carefully, the might even have seen some blue sky peeking through.

  They didn’t look.

  From the Tamarind Valley Times, 30 October 1991:

  LOCAL BUSINESSMAN SOUGHT ON CHARGES OF FRAUD

  Charges of real estate fraud and criminal negligence were formally brought against Andrew “Ace” McCall, sole owner of Ace-High Construction and McCall/Sidney Realty in Tamarind Valley early this morning.

  State Real Estate Board investigators have provided evidence that McCall was personally involved in several schemes to defraud contractors, suppliers, and buyers of recently constructed homes in two subdivisions in the Valley.

  Sunset Hills, located in the far eastern end of the Valley, and Charter Oaks, the newer of the two, located just west of the 101 Freeway, have both been under investigation for several months, although no actions have been taken against McCall until today. Charges range from using substandard materials to willfully subverting the local and state building codes, potentially endangering residents in both subdivisions.

  A warrant was issued for McCall, although when contacted, the police indicated that he has not been located.

  No clues have been found in relation to a second case apparently involving McCall, the mysterious disappearance two years ago of his former senior partner in Ace-High Construction and McCall/Sidney Realty, Bryan Sidney.

  Sidney was last seen exactly two years ago today. No traces of him have been found to date. McCall was considered a subject of interest in the case but due to a lack of any substantive evidence no charges were ever filed.

  If found guilty of the fraud and negligence charges as specified, McCall could face…

  From the Cactus Spine (Newsletter of the Bureau of Land Management, Reno District), 24 December 1997:

  GOOD TO SEE YOU GO (NOT REALLY!)

  Farewell and best wishes to one of the stalwarts here at the Reno District. After forty-five years of government service, over thirty of them with the BLM, Abraham Morris-known affectionately as “Abe,” “The Old Man,” “That Old Fart,” and “Hey, You” (among other names, mostly unprintable)-has finally decided to call it quits, hang up his compass and canteen, and re-join the human race. Most people call it “retiring.” Abe calls it “recovering his lost humanity.”

  Abe first joined the BLM in 1962 after serving in the Army and later in the Forest Service. During his more than three decades with us, he has worked throughout the Western States. His retirements goals include…

  Chapter Eight

  Abraham Morris, February 1998-November 2005

  The Joys of Retirement

  1

  From the first moment he saw it outlined on the crest of the low hill, Abraham Morris knew that the house on Oleander was a perfect investment for him. He might be old, he thought ruefully as the realtor’s sleek car nosed into the driveway, they might figure him to be too decrepit to work for the federal government any longer, but he wasn’t senile. He had always had a nose for such things. He knew a good deal when he saw one.

  Nothing happened to change his mind until after he had finished a walk-through of the house and the sorely neglected backyard. On the whole, he liked what he saw, liked especially the potential in the way the place was set on the property, the sense of roominess and openness. It kind of reminded him of Nevada…only green. Yes, there was a lot a good green thumb could do in the yard, and the house was larger than he had figured on getting for his money.

  By the time he had finished with the showing, his mind was almost made up.

  The realtor had three locks to check before leaving, so while she was finishing, Abe walked a short way down the front sidewalk, primarily to get a better view of the lot as a whole.

  “That’s a death-house!”

  His head jerked around sharply at the hoarsely whispered sound. For a moment, it was as if the voice had come from thin air, a disembodied sound that echoed strangely across the open yards. Then, squinting against the bright light, he finally spotted an woman next door, huddling in the shadow of a garage bearing the number 1042 in cracked wood cutouts desperately in need of a new paint job. She was staring directly at him.

  He glanced over his shoulder. The realtor had just completed locking up and emerged from the shadow beneath the eaves of 1066 into the sunlight to join him.

  “It’s a murder house,” the woman cont
inued as if there had been no seconds-long interruption.

  Abe could make out no details of her face-it was little more than a pale oval in the shadows. She was a large woman, almost grossly large, although that sense might have been due largely to the play of light and dark across her figure. He had the sense as well that she was old, perhaps ancient. In other times she might have passed for a witch, or at least a hag, given the vehemence-and distinct if perverse pleasure-that echoed through her voice.

  She did not speak again right away but simply hunched there, seemingly oblivious to the look of pained annoyance that flitted across the realtor’s face in the split second it took for her to take in the scene, cross the remaining yards of sidewalk, slip her arm into Abraham’s and ease him back toward the car.

  “People die in that house,” the old woman called after him from the shadows. He realized with an odd pang that had never seen her face clearly. Her cracked, warbling voice was eerily strained, as if she simultaneously wanted to yell out a warning and was afraid to raise her voice above a raspy whisper.

  “They die.”

  He glanced over his shoulder once more, just in time to catch a muted shimmer of yellow polyester pants as she disappeared around the corner of her garage.

  At the car, he turned to face the realtor-a pretty young thing named Rebecca Cantwell, who was pretty enough and young enough that she should have been at home caring for her man and her little ones, not strutting around showing houses to old farts like himself. Not for the first time, Abraham Morris admitted to himself that he was indeed getting old. Everything he believed in and valued and knew to be inviolable and unalterable was shifting like sands beneath his feet. And lately the tide had been going out faster and faster. The reality of mortality struck him at that moment, as it had so often and so unexpectedly in the four years since Matty had died-struck him full in the face and for a moment he was blinded and made breathless by its power.