Backfire

25

Near Nicasio, California

Sunday morning

He was glad for the drizzling rain, cold and wet on his neck. It made shoveling dirt over Mickey O’Rourke nice and easy. Finally he stepped back, studied the mound he’d made. Not good, too high, too easy to find. He began pounding the back of the shovel on the wet dirt, flattening it down, scraping some of it away. Once he had the dirt as flat as he wanted it, he dragged branches over to cover it.

“RIP, Mickey,” he said, as he kicked a chunk of sod under a branch.

He stood for a moment, marveling at the near-perfect silence, the only sound the rustle of leaves and the rain dripping off his arm and striking a rock beside his booted foot. He could hear himself breathe. The air was heavy with wet and green, not even a whiff of an exhaust fume. And here he was, only eleven miles from the interstate and its endless stream of cars. Not a bad place to be dead, he thought, like in a faraway forest.

He would miss this place, home for nearly a year and a half now, especially his small apartment in San Rafael, just a block from the Mission San Rafael Arcángel. He’d visited the old church quite often, not to pray but to focus his mind. It was as quiet as a tomb in the dark of night, cool and peaceful, as if the spirits settled there knew their own worth, and kept order.

He considered what to do with the shovel. Not leave it in the trunk of his Jeep; that wouldn’t be smart. He would dump the shovel, but not around these grassy hills, and not in these woods. They were too close to Mickey in his tatty shroud. No, he’d dump it in some thick trees on his way back to San Rafael. Maybe a hiker would find the shovel and think it was good fortune.

He turned his face to the sky, felt the cool drizzle seam down his cheeks. Then he shook himself like a mongrel and trotted the quarter-mile back to his Jeep.