Looking back it doesn't seem possible--let alone, likely--that nine months after hearing gunfire in a Wal~Mart parking lot I'd be informing some stranger that Palookaville Gas and Electric would soon be excavating his back yard and that he needed to either make way for our project or it would be done for him.
Impersonating a major utility simply doesn't seem like a smart thing to do, nor something I would do.
I'm not like that.
Then, after mailing this wholly fabricated notification of intent to dig, I futilely watched his yard all day long for a full week. And nothing happened. He wasn't budging. My bluff had failed.
And now I've been back to work for three weeks, dolorously trying to justify what I did.
That was before yesterday.
Yesterday, thing's changed. I visited Kevin and Tiffany's neighborhood and couldn't help but notice that his concrete slab had been razed.
Or so I presumed, seeing what I could see from the vantage point of their local park. Mostly what I could make out were blue tarps, some strewn and haphazardly arranged near or on chunks of concrete, some flapping between his young trees, stretched taut with bungee cords.
I saw this destruction right after work, drove home in mild shock, ate dinner, hung out with the girlfriend, then went to bed at my usual time.
Today I woke up at two in the morning, put on my old New Mexico Power jumpsuit (I labored for them before Dawn and I moved to this state), tip-toed to our garage, and started driving south. 22 miles later I parked one block over from Mr. and Mrs. B. Jumped two fences and discovered his tarps did indeed cover chunks of broken-up concrete... and more: a deep pit and a mound of freshly unearthed topsoil to be exact.
This pit threw me. The shape of it did. It started out approximately three feet in diameter, then tapered down to maybe two feet in diameter near the bottom. Depth? Between eight and nine feet.
It doesn't look like your typical grave.
But someone could have been buried in it standing up.
It's possible.
Clicking off my tiny flashlight, I stared into the loamy darkness for perhaps a minute before coming to my senses and realizing I should hit the road.
Which I did. Other than driving, I didn't know what to do.
Arrived home, still in the dark as to my next move. I figure I can't tell Dawn. (Sidebar: in case anyone's wondering, she knows about my myspace page, where most of this is mirrored. Most, but not all.)
No, it's not worth spilling the beans. I guess I just have to sit on this. I mean, people don't get buried vertically. (Do they?)
This question had me stumped for a while; finally, I went to Google. Here's what I found.
FORWARD to what happened next
BACK to my first run in with this stranger
OVER to HerbNation HOMEPAGE