The-Hummingbird-s-Cage(10)

Numbly I gathered the dog in my arms; she was still warm, still soft. I could feel her firm ribs, so familiar. But there was no trace of the familiar thrum of a beating heart.

I looked at Jim, awaiting orders.

“Go on, stupid,” he said. “Dump it in.”

At once I turned and knelt at the hole. I leaned forward and slid her body into it. I arranged the legs, the head, to approximate something natural. I smoothed her white ruff, my hand lingering, but only for a moment. Then I stood up again.

Jim leaned the shovel back against the shed and wiped his hands on his trousers. “Don’t forget to clean this. Use the hose. And oil the blade so it won’t rust.”

He nodded at the dog.

“Now cover that up.”

There was no malice in his voice. No exultation. He sounded like any sane man might.

My legs buckled. I was on my hands and knees when he drove off.





May 18





On Jim’s last day off, he took Laurel and me grocery shopping. He drove us into Wheeler to the Food Land market, and as a family we walked the aisles, Jim holding Laurel by the hand and I pushing the cart. He has lived in this town for thirteen years, since moving here from some town or other in Utah—the exact location keeps changing when he talks about it—and one way or another he knows everybody. They greet him warmly in the produce section or at the meat counter or by the bakery, and he shakes their hands and asks after the family, the kids, chatting about work, the weather, what’s biting right now.

I can tell by their easy banter that they like him. They like us. They don’t like me necessarily, because I am so reserved with them, and so very quiet, so deficient in small talk that I give them nothing of substance to form any real opinion. If pressed, they would probably say there’s nothing about me to actively dislike. But they do like us as a unit.

As often as not, Jim will take us shopping like this. If he knows he’ll be working, and a grocery trip is required, he will make out a list ahead of time and go over the particulars with me so I understand to buy the multigrain bread he likes, for instance, and not the whole wheat. Or the rump roast rather than the round. He will estimate the total cost, including tax, and give me enough cash to cover it. Afterward, he will check the receipt against the change, which he pockets.

Besides the Expedition, we also have a car, an old Toyota compact, which I may use with permission, for approved trips. Before and after his shifts, he writes down the mileage in a small notebook. He alone gases it up, and I know from the fuel gauge that he never puts in more than a quarter tank. He changes the oil himself. Rotates the tires. If it needs servicing, which it rarely does, he has a mechanic friend who does the work on his time off for spare cash.

From outside our fishbowl, Jim is a solicitous husband who takes care of his family. He is a hard worker with a responsible job. Good company with his friends. To women, still a striking man in his uniform.

He’s invited out often for a beer after work, a weekend barbecue, but usually begs off. Family time, he’ll say. For us as a couple, the invitations come less often and are nearly always refused. Some invitations aren’t so easy to turn down—when a colleague retires, for instance, usually a ranking officer—and the occasion must be observed.

Two nights ago, for instance, the sheriff’s wife threw a retirement party for a captain with twenty-seven years under his belt. She held it in their lovely home on a southside hill overlooking Wheeler. The weather was warm and the night was so soft, the party spilled over into their garden—it was well irrigated, green with new sod, landscaped with huge bougainvillea bushes that were heavy with scarlet bracts. I sat in a corner under a trellis of flowering vines, smelling their sweetness, listening to the Tejano music in the background, the bursts of laughter. Lanterns hung over the brick walkway; the boughs of an acacia tree glittered with strings of lights. If you closed your eyes, you could be almost anywhere.

The evening was going so well that a band of Jim’s buddies didn’t want it to end. After the speeches, the toasts, the cake decorated like a fishing boat, after the sheriff’s wife began thanking everyone for coming, they urged Jim to join them as they moved the festivities to the Javelina Saloon, and Jim had had just enough rum and Cokes to break with habit and accept this time.

The Javelina isn’t as rough as it once was. I understand that years ago it was a dive frequented by the sort of drunks who pried hubcaps from the cars parked in the business lot next door so they could bankroll their next binge—usually on a cheap, fortified wine called Garden Delight. Then it was turned into a biker bar, with loud Harleys in and out at all hours, straddled by rough-looking riders who wore dark T-shirts with slogans like Bikers Eat Their Dead. The bikers scared off the hard-core winos, many of whom turned in desperation to infusing Aqua Net hair spray into big gallon jugs of water. It made a cheap and wretched home brew they called “ocean.”