“Oh. God.”
Was it a bone? Or maybe plastic? No, a bone. An animal bone?
Covered in dirt, yet a very pale bone.
A human bone?
But so small—had to be a child’s bone.
A child’s forearm perhaps.
Reno picked it up in his gloved hands. It weighed nothing—it might have been made of Styrofoam.
“It is. It really… is.”
Numbly Reno groped amid the broken pottery, tossing handfuls of clumped dirt aside. More bones, small broken rib bones, a skull… A skull!
It was a small skull of course. Small enough to cup in the hand.
Not an animal skull but a child’s skull. Reno seemed to know—a little girl’s skull.
This was not believable! Reno’s brain was struck blank, for a long moment he could not think… The hairs stirred at the nape of his neck and he wondered if he was being watched.
A makeshift grave about fifteen feet from the base of his house. And when had this little body been buried? Twenty years ago, ten years ago? By the look of the bones, the rotted clothing, and the broken urn, the burial hadn’t been recent.
But these were not Indian bones of course. Those bones would be much older—badly broken, dim, and scarified with time.
Reno’s hand shook. The small teeth were bared in a smile of sheer terror. The small jaws had fallen open, the eye sockets were disproportionately large. Of course, the skull was broken—it was not a perfect skull. Possibly fractured in the burial—struck by the murderer’s shovel. The skeleton lay in pieces—had the body been dismembered? Reno was whispering to himself words meant to console—Oh God. Help me, God. God! As his surprise ebbed Reno began to be badly frightened. He was thinking that these might be the bones of his daughter—his first daughter; the little girl had died, her death had been accidental, but he and her mother had hurriedly buried her…
But no: ridiculous. This was another time, not that time.
This was another campsite. This was another part of Paraquarry Lake. This was another time in a father’s life.
His daughter was alive. Somewhere in California, a living girl. He was not to blame. He had never hurt her. She would outlive him.
Laughter and raised voices from the lakeshore. Reno shaded his eyes to see—what were they doing? Were they expecting Daddy to join them?
Kneeling in the dirt. Groping and rummaging in the coarse earth. Among the broken pottery, bones, and rotted fabric faded to the no-color of dirty water, something glittered—a little necklace of glass beads.
Reno untangled it from a cluster of small bones—vertebrae? The remains of the child’s neck? Hideous to think that the child skeleton might have been broken into pieces with a shovel, or an axe. An axe! To fit more readily into the urn. To hasten decomposition.
“Little girl! Poor little girl.”
Reno was weak with shock, sickened. His heart pounded terribly—he didn’t want to die as his father had died! He would breathe deeply, calmly. He held the glass beads to the light. Amazingly the chain was intact. A thin metallic chain, tarnished. He put the little glass-bead necklace into the pocket of his khaki shorts. Hurriedly he covered the bones with dirt, debris. Pieces of the shattered urn he picked up and tossed into the cardboard box. And the barrel staves… Then he thought he should remove the bones also—he should place them in the box, beneath the debris, and take the box out to the landfill this evening. Before he did anything else. Before he washed hurriedly, grabbed a beer, and joined Marlena and the children at the lakefront. He would dispose of the child’s bones at the landfill.
No. They will be traced here. Not a good idea.
Frantically he covered the bones. Then more calmly, smoothing the coarse dirt over the debris. Fortunately there was a sizable hole—a gouged-out, ugly hole—that looked like a rupture in the earth. Reno would lay flagstones over the grave—he’d purchased two dozen flagstones from a garden supply store on the highway. The children could help him—it would not be difficult work once the earth was prepared. As bricks had been laid over the child’s grave years ago, Reno would lay flagstones over it now. For he could not report this terrible discovery—could he? If he called the Paraquarry police, if he reported the child skeleton to county authorities, what would be the consequences?
His mind went blank—he could not think.
Could not bear the consequences. Not now, in his new life.
Numbly he was setting his work tools aside, beneath the overhang of the redwood deck. The new shovel was not so shiny now. Quickly then—shakily—climbing the steps, to wash his hands in the kitchen. A relief—he saw his family down at the shore, with the neighbors—the new wife, the children. No one would interrupt Reno washing the little glass-bead necklace in the kitchen sink, in awkward big-Daddy hands.
Gently washing the glass beads that were blue—beneath the grime a startling pellucid blue like slivers of sky. It was amazing, you might interpret it as a sign—the thin little chain hadn’t broken in the earth.
Not a particle of dirt remained on the glass beads when Reno was finished washing them, drying them on a paper towel on the kitchen counter.
“Hey—look here! What’s this? Who’s this for?”
Reno dangled the glass-bead necklace in front of Devra. The little girl stared, blinking. It was suppertime—Daddy had cooked hamburgers on the outdoor grill on the deck—and now he pulled a little blue glass-bead necklace out of his pocket as if he’d only just discovered it.
Marlena laughed—she was delighted—for this was the sort of small surprise she appreciated.
Not for herself but for the children. In this case, for Devra. It was a good moment, a warm moment—Kevin didn’t react with jealousy but seemed only curious, as Daddy said he’d found the necklace in a “secret place” and knew just who it was meant for.
Shyly Devra took the little necklace from Daddy’s fingers.
“What do you say, Devra?”
“Oh Dad-dy—thank you.”
Devra spoke so softly, Reno cupped his hand to his ear.
“Speak up, Devra. Daddy can’t hear.” Marlena helped the little girl slip the necklace over her head.
“Daddy, thank you!”
The little fish-mouth pursed for a quick kiss of Daddy’s cheek.
Around the child’s slender neck the blue glass beads glittered, gleamed. All that summer at Paraquarry Lake, Reno would marvel he’d never seen anything more beautiful.
STILL AIR
by Terrance Hayes
The morning after Amp got killed our neighborhood was lit up with rumors. My mother and me, we barely even made the block before someone passing said, almost with a whistle, “You hear that nigga Amp got popped by some gangbangers?” Someone else said, carrying the news like a bag of bricks, “Sad what happened to that boy who got robbed last night.” People who didn’t know Amp or his kin said, “I know his mother.” “I knew his pops.” Rumors idled in the slow drag of the traffic, the rich Fox Chapellers and Aspinwallers who drove across the Allegheny River into what was our little moat of trouble: Penn Circle, the road looping East Liberty like a noose.
Lies, gossip, bullshit, half-truths spread out, carried in the school and city buses. Pompano heard it was two white guys, probably plainclothes cops, that took Amp out. Walking by with her girlfriends, Shelia said she heard gunshots and shouts. “Amp went out shooting shit up like a true thug,” she cackled, pointing her finger at me like the barrel of a gun. Her girlfriends laughed like she wasn’t talking about someone who’d actually been killed. I mean, Amp was dead and people was already kicking his name around like it never had any air inside it.