Before she married him, Eli told Karen, "You can come with me, but you're going to get your hands dirty." So much for being lady-like. Here she was again, up to her elbows in engine grease with an itch on the very tip of her nose.
Karen crossed her eyes, wiggled her nose, pretended that that helped, and then dove back into the innards of the T800 Kenworth semi-truck. In exchange for a host of new skills, like diesel engine repair, it seemed she'd lost her ability to stay clean and pretty a long time ago. And her wedding ring. She lost her wedding ring too. Only that was just last week.
Anderson Trucking and Landscaping was no place for jewelry anyway. Her ring spent most days in the pocket of her stained jeans. Her earrings and necklaces stayed in her bathroom cabinet along with her make-up, nail polish, hair curlers and all those other things she hadn't touched since Eli had left. But she wasn't thinking about any of those things right now. Right now, she had to get to that hose clamp deep down on the underside of the semi’s engine block. It was probably loose. It had to be loose, and if it was, well maybe that was what was making the third cylinder on the right side knock: a lack of compression.
She could reach it, just barely. Her fingertips brushed the flange of it, but she couldn't grip it. Not enough to see if it was really on there or not. "God damn it!" she swore out loud.
The thing was, she had to get this rig back on the road. The owner was a big client and she couldn't afford to lose his account, not if she wanted to keep Anderson Trucking and Landscaping from going tits up. Not if Eli was going to come back to anything but a filthy dirty wife and a shuttered business. If Eli was going to come back...
Karen twisted her torso a little further, stretching deeper into the engine compartment. Her shoulder knocked the trouble-light out of position and the depths of the Kenworth became all that much darker. Her greased hands, the black paint of the heads and the cylinder block, the dull rubber hoses... Screw the light. She could work the hose clamp by feel. Her eyes fought to penetrate the darkness.
If Eli was going to come back. If. Something like fear of the dark slipped into Karen's mind. But this was much more real and threatening. Death himself lurked between all those hoses and wiring and cast-iron engine parts. She could see him like a black glare in the abyss. This wasn't the pale-faced morose Swedish fellow in the gray cloak with the clean sickle. This thing was shapeless and undefined. Covered in grease and rot. It stunk and leered through the jungle of the engine at her. She saw it, a shadow hidden amongst shadows. She panicked, childlike in fear.
"Motherfucker!" she yelled and pulled herself out of the trunk. She finished the job she started with her shoulder and knocked the trouble light the rest of the way to the shop floor. The bulb shattered. "Son-of-a-bitch-god-damn-it!"
"Hey there, Karen!" a man called out from the front of the shop. "Everything all right back there?"
She normally didn't use the f-word. Certainly not the m-f'er. She tried to keep her swears PG-13, but she guessed that was another part of Eli that had rubbed off on her. She forgot about her jet-black hands and rubbed the itch out of her nose. "Hey, Tom." She recognized his voice. He waddled back to the Kenworth in his bib overalls and Brewers baseball cap.
"Is she turning over?" he asked about the truck.
"It's turning over just fine,” she said. It wasn't the truck that made her swear. Not really. Not the hose clamp or the trouble light or the itch on her nose. It was Eli. He could have kept up with this old boy engine banter. She just wanted the thing fixed. “There's a cylinder knocking and if I can’t fix it, it's only going to cause more problems down the road."
"Yup, yup. You know what they say. If it's got ti... Um. You got a little something on your nose right there," Tom said.
"Yeah, yeah," she said, rummaging through the workbench for a rag clean enough to leave a net loss of greasy. "How can I help you this fine morning?"
"Oh, Just the usual. A couple yards of black dirt."
"Well, let me hop in the Bobcat and I'll meet you out back."
Black dirt didn't pay the bills. Not this small time self haul stuff. Not even a regular like Tom who came once a week for a pick-up worth of dirt for his tree nursery down the road. It really wasn't until they could charge for hauling that the "landscaping" half of the business ever turned a profit. Eli and Karen had argued a hundred times about dropping the landscaping business altogether and focusing on the trucking side of the house. But now he was in Iraq and had won all arguments by default until the Wisconsin National Guard decided it was time for him to come back. Another argument she'd never win.
If he were to come back... That thought, almost a voice in its unwelcome persistence, found its way into her head again. Today wasn't the first day, and it wasn't going to be the last. As she walked out of the garage door into the yard, her hand went towards her hip pocket. It was a mindless reflex her muscles had learned all by themselves in over the last few months. Her fingers were searching for the wedding ring that should be in her hip pocket. It was like a talisman or a worry-doll, something tangible to rub and hold even if she couldn't wear it for fear of catching it on some piece of machinery. It comforted her when the stress of the business and the shadows inside the engines threatened to crush her under the weight.
Today, her fingers found the flat of her denim. There was no ring in her pocket, just the ghost of her ring worn in where it usually sat, like the ghost of a tin of chew in Tom's back pocket.
What if he didn't come back? What if he was gone for good, him and the ring both?
The business would go under, that much was certain. Tom would have to find a new place for his black dirt. Their clients could finally find a respectable business that could repair their vehicles in a reasonable amount of time. Her father-in-law would think even less of her after she lost the family business. Not that that mattered. She'd never see Eli again. That mattered more than anything. More than clients or trucks, knocking cylinders and hose clamps, her father-in-law and Tom, black dirt and the rest of the bullshit. Once Eli was back, everything would be okay. If Eli came back.
Tom was already parked next to the mound of soil. He leaned against the cab and fiddled with his phone. As Karen rode up in the Bobcat, he tucked the phone back in the middle pocket of his bibs.
The Bobcat was loud even at idle, but they managed to yell over the noise. "Three scoops?" she asked.
"That ought to do 'er," Tom yelled back. "Just like the raisin bran!"
Karen went to work. Before the deployment, she’s mostly kept the books and had never touched the Bobcat. A week before he left, Eli showed her the all the levers and sticks. He was patient enough to laugh at her as she screwed it up. The pivot steer felt alien to her then. Now, she was an ace. It was cathartic work. Repetitious. Loud. Her hands moved like a well practiced boxer. Her body expected each turn and bump. The only problem was how short the job was. Three scoops with the front end loader and Tom's truck would be full, he'd be on his way, and she'd go back to fighting with hose clamps.
One scoop in the truck.
Funny how the job she enjoyed the most was the job she wanted to sell off.
Two scoops. Just like the raisin bran.
This batch of black dirt was particularly moist today. Rich. It would be good for Tom's trees. She maneuvered the bucket back for it's third and last scoop. Then Karen let go of the stick and flipped up the safety lap bar. The Bobcat died. Karen lept from the cab.
"Karen?" Tom said.
"My ring," was all she said. Then she was on all fours in the dirt, her hands again plunging into the darkness.
"Karen?"
She saw it on the surface from the cab of the 'Cat. As soon as the bucket touched soil it fell in deeper. Now, with every touch, the glistening golden circle seemed to sink deeper into the muck. Her hands couldn’t follow fast enough. She started shoveling with her paws like a cat in a litter box. Tom took a couple steps back.
"It's here. I saw it."
Deeper. She'd started to make a tunnel into the wet sticky soil. Just a few inches deeper.
"There!" she cried. She caught just a glimpse of the shine surrounded by the dark. That was all the encouragement she needed. Karen went in head first. The world disappeared. Everything was dirt.
Karen dug through the cow shit and rotten plant matter and worms. Nothing mattered anymore. Fuck her hair or her nails or how pretty she was when Eli took her to the senior prom. She wasn't that girl anymore and never would be again. The dirt he put on her hands had left a permanent stain. She dug and with every claw full of black dirt she committed more to this single cause. She had to find the ring. It was all she had of him. If she couldn't find that, she'd lose him for good. Nevermind all the things that he told her. Nevermind how he promised to come back, safe and sound. Nevermind how he told her how much he trusted the guys around him, how they would all do their jobs and make sure they were safe and how they were going to bring everybody home. She had seen how the husbands of other wives had come home, silent and inside a metal box. By god if those bastards in the fancy uniforms were going to come knocking on her front door, they wouldn't find her standing around without grime under her nails. She dug.
Death waited for her. Not that dignified gentlemen from the old movies. As her eyes hunted for the slightest gleam of her lost wedding ring, they found the dull glow of starched bones, hollow orbital sockets, a rotting black hood covered in mold. The worms and lose moisture in the black dirt ran down Death's face like rain. The weight of the dirt mound came down on her. She tried to scream, but couldn't breathe.
Something small, sharp and hard hit her skin. It the darkness, it felt like the hard metacarpals of Death's hand. She squirmed. She fought. She couldn’t move. She tried to grasp and black dirt filled her mouth. The dirt pile had collapsed on her. She was suffocating. She couldn't see or breathe. Death began to wrap her up in his arms.
Tom's tight grip around her ankle brought her back to reality. He gave her a tug so strong, she thought he'd pull her leg straight off of her hip. He tugged again and her head came out of the dirt. She took one second to gasp.
"Karen!" he called to her.
"No!" she yelled and dove back into the dirt and swam through the abyss. The bump... That bone that hit the back of her hand... She found it just before Tom got a new grip on her boot.
He pulled her free and she held up the ring like it was the Stanley Cup.
"Got it!" she said. "Jesus shit, I got the fucking thing!"
"Karen, what in the hell has gotten in to you?" Tom stood there with one of her Red Wings in his hand.
She leaned back against the muck pile and breathed. The sunshine blinded her. She smiled. Eventually, she'd catch her breath. For now she'd just lay here and pant. "Tom. It's my ring. It's my wedding ring. I found it."
“Huh. Well what do you know,” Tom said.
She held it up in front of her face and cracked open her eyelids. Sure enough. It was the very ring Eli had slide on her finger at the front of the church. She was so pristine that day, dressed in white from head to toe. Nothing like today, out of breath, dizzy with delirium, maybe crazy with hallucinations, smudged from sock and boot to bun in filthy. Still, laying on the mound of dirt, she felt this was just as joyous and just as permanent.
"Karen, are you okay? Do you need help?" Tom asked.
"Nope. I'm fine, Tom. Everything is going to be okay. I'm just going to lay here for a little bit. Catch my breath."
“You sure?” he asked.
She nodded.
“Okay. Well, what about the dirt?” he asked.
"Tell you what. Today it's on the house," she said.
"Need a hand at all?"
"Nah. Just a few minutes to catch my breath. Then, I got a truck to fix."
Karen crossed her eyes, wiggled her nose, pretended that that helped, and then dove back into the innards of the T800 Kenworth semi-truck. In exchange for a host of new skills, like diesel engine repair, it seemed she'd lost her ability to stay clean and pretty a long time ago. And her wedding ring. She lost her wedding ring too. Only that was just last week.
Anderson Trucking and Landscaping was no place for jewelry anyway. Her ring spent most days in the pocket of her stained jeans. Her earrings and necklaces stayed in her bathroom cabinet along with her make-up, nail polish, hair curlers and all those other things she hadn't touched since Eli had left. But she wasn't thinking about any of those things right now. Right now, she had to get to that hose clamp deep down on the underside of the semi’s engine block. It was probably loose. It had to be loose, and if it was, well maybe that was what was making the third cylinder on the right side knock: a lack of compression.
She could reach it, just barely. Her fingertips brushed the flange of it, but she couldn't grip it. Not enough to see if it was really on there or not. "God damn it!" she swore out loud.
The thing was, she had to get this rig back on the road. The owner was a big client and she couldn't afford to lose his account, not if she wanted to keep Anderson Trucking and Landscaping from going tits up. Not if Eli was going to come back to anything but a filthy dirty wife and a shuttered business. If Eli was going to come back...
Karen twisted her torso a little further, stretching deeper into the engine compartment. Her shoulder knocked the trouble-light out of position and the depths of the Kenworth became all that much darker. Her greased hands, the black paint of the heads and the cylinder block, the dull rubber hoses... Screw the light. She could work the hose clamp by feel. Her eyes fought to penetrate the darkness.
If Eli was going to come back. If. Something like fear of the dark slipped into Karen's mind. But this was much more real and threatening. Death himself lurked between all those hoses and wiring and cast-iron engine parts. She could see him like a black glare in the abyss. This wasn't the pale-faced morose Swedish fellow in the gray cloak with the clean sickle. This thing was shapeless and undefined. Covered in grease and rot. It stunk and leered through the jungle of the engine at her. She saw it, a shadow hidden amongst shadows. She panicked, childlike in fear.
"Motherfucker!" she yelled and pulled herself out of the trunk. She finished the job she started with her shoulder and knocked the trouble light the rest of the way to the shop floor. The bulb shattered. "Son-of-a-bitch-god-damn-it!"
"Hey there, Karen!" a man called out from the front of the shop. "Everything all right back there?"
She normally didn't use the f-word. Certainly not the m-f'er. She tried to keep her swears PG-13, but she guessed that was another part of Eli that had rubbed off on her. She forgot about her jet-black hands and rubbed the itch out of her nose. "Hey, Tom." She recognized his voice. He waddled back to the Kenworth in his bib overalls and Brewers baseball cap.
"Is she turning over?" he asked about the truck.
"It's turning over just fine,” she said. It wasn't the truck that made her swear. Not really. Not the hose clamp or the trouble light or the itch on her nose. It was Eli. He could have kept up with this old boy engine banter. She just wanted the thing fixed. “There's a cylinder knocking and if I can’t fix it, it's only going to cause more problems down the road."
"Yup, yup. You know what they say. If it's got ti... Um. You got a little something on your nose right there," Tom said.
"Yeah, yeah," she said, rummaging through the workbench for a rag clean enough to leave a net loss of greasy. "How can I help you this fine morning?"
"Oh, Just the usual. A couple yards of black dirt."
"Well, let me hop in the Bobcat and I'll meet you out back."
Black dirt didn't pay the bills. Not this small time self haul stuff. Not even a regular like Tom who came once a week for a pick-up worth of dirt for his tree nursery down the road. It really wasn't until they could charge for hauling that the "landscaping" half of the business ever turned a profit. Eli and Karen had argued a hundred times about dropping the landscaping business altogether and focusing on the trucking side of the house. But now he was in Iraq and had won all arguments by default until the Wisconsin National Guard decided it was time for him to come back. Another argument she'd never win.
If he were to come back... That thought, almost a voice in its unwelcome persistence, found its way into her head again. Today wasn't the first day, and it wasn't going to be the last. As she walked out of the garage door into the yard, her hand went towards her hip pocket. It was a mindless reflex her muscles had learned all by themselves in over the last few months. Her fingers were searching for the wedding ring that should be in her hip pocket. It was like a talisman or a worry-doll, something tangible to rub and hold even if she couldn't wear it for fear of catching it on some piece of machinery. It comforted her when the stress of the business and the shadows inside the engines threatened to crush her under the weight.
Today, her fingers found the flat of her denim. There was no ring in her pocket, just the ghost of her ring worn in where it usually sat, like the ghost of a tin of chew in Tom's back pocket.
What if he didn't come back? What if he was gone for good, him and the ring both?
The business would go under, that much was certain. Tom would have to find a new place for his black dirt. Their clients could finally find a respectable business that could repair their vehicles in a reasonable amount of time. Her father-in-law would think even less of her after she lost the family business. Not that that mattered. She'd never see Eli again. That mattered more than anything. More than clients or trucks, knocking cylinders and hose clamps, her father-in-law and Tom, black dirt and the rest of the bullshit. Once Eli was back, everything would be okay. If Eli came back.
Tom was already parked next to the mound of soil. He leaned against the cab and fiddled with his phone. As Karen rode up in the Bobcat, he tucked the phone back in the middle pocket of his bibs.
The Bobcat was loud even at idle, but they managed to yell over the noise. "Three scoops?" she asked.
"That ought to do 'er," Tom yelled back. "Just like the raisin bran!"
Karen went to work. Before the deployment, she’s mostly kept the books and had never touched the Bobcat. A week before he left, Eli showed her the all the levers and sticks. He was patient enough to laugh at her as she screwed it up. The pivot steer felt alien to her then. Now, she was an ace. It was cathartic work. Repetitious. Loud. Her hands moved like a well practiced boxer. Her body expected each turn and bump. The only problem was how short the job was. Three scoops with the front end loader and Tom's truck would be full, he'd be on his way, and she'd go back to fighting with hose clamps.
One scoop in the truck.
Funny how the job she enjoyed the most was the job she wanted to sell off.
Two scoops. Just like the raisin bran.
This batch of black dirt was particularly moist today. Rich. It would be good for Tom's trees. She maneuvered the bucket back for it's third and last scoop. Then Karen let go of the stick and flipped up the safety lap bar. The Bobcat died. Karen lept from the cab.
"Karen?" Tom said.
"My ring," was all she said. Then she was on all fours in the dirt, her hands again plunging into the darkness.
"Karen?"
She saw it on the surface from the cab of the 'Cat. As soon as the bucket touched soil it fell in deeper. Now, with every touch, the glistening golden circle seemed to sink deeper into the muck. Her hands couldn’t follow fast enough. She started shoveling with her paws like a cat in a litter box. Tom took a couple steps back.
"It's here. I saw it."
Deeper. She'd started to make a tunnel into the wet sticky soil. Just a few inches deeper.
"There!" she cried. She caught just a glimpse of the shine surrounded by the dark. That was all the encouragement she needed. Karen went in head first. The world disappeared. Everything was dirt.
Karen dug through the cow shit and rotten plant matter and worms. Nothing mattered anymore. Fuck her hair or her nails or how pretty she was when Eli took her to the senior prom. She wasn't that girl anymore and never would be again. The dirt he put on her hands had left a permanent stain. She dug and with every claw full of black dirt she committed more to this single cause. She had to find the ring. It was all she had of him. If she couldn't find that, she'd lose him for good. Nevermind all the things that he told her. Nevermind how he promised to come back, safe and sound. Nevermind how he told her how much he trusted the guys around him, how they would all do their jobs and make sure they were safe and how they were going to bring everybody home. She had seen how the husbands of other wives had come home, silent and inside a metal box. By god if those bastards in the fancy uniforms were going to come knocking on her front door, they wouldn't find her standing around without grime under her nails. She dug.
Death waited for her. Not that dignified gentlemen from the old movies. As her eyes hunted for the slightest gleam of her lost wedding ring, they found the dull glow of starched bones, hollow orbital sockets, a rotting black hood covered in mold. The worms and lose moisture in the black dirt ran down Death's face like rain. The weight of the dirt mound came down on her. She tried to scream, but couldn't breathe.
Something small, sharp and hard hit her skin. It the darkness, it felt like the hard metacarpals of Death's hand. She squirmed. She fought. She couldn’t move. She tried to grasp and black dirt filled her mouth. The dirt pile had collapsed on her. She was suffocating. She couldn't see or breathe. Death began to wrap her up in his arms.
Tom's tight grip around her ankle brought her back to reality. He gave her a tug so strong, she thought he'd pull her leg straight off of her hip. He tugged again and her head came out of the dirt. She took one second to gasp.
"Karen!" he called to her.
"No!" she yelled and dove back into the dirt and swam through the abyss. The bump... That bone that hit the back of her hand... She found it just before Tom got a new grip on her boot.
He pulled her free and she held up the ring like it was the Stanley Cup.
"Got it!" she said. "Jesus shit, I got the fucking thing!"
"Karen, what in the hell has gotten in to you?" Tom stood there with one of her Red Wings in his hand.
She leaned back against the muck pile and breathed. The sunshine blinded her. She smiled. Eventually, she'd catch her breath. For now she'd just lay here and pant. "Tom. It's my ring. It's my wedding ring. I found it."
“Huh. Well what do you know,” Tom said.
She held it up in front of her face and cracked open her eyelids. Sure enough. It was the very ring Eli had slide on her finger at the front of the church. She was so pristine that day, dressed in white from head to toe. Nothing like today, out of breath, dizzy with delirium, maybe crazy with hallucinations, smudged from sock and boot to bun in filthy. Still, laying on the mound of dirt, she felt this was just as joyous and just as permanent.
"Karen, are you okay? Do you need help?" Tom asked.
"Nope. I'm fine, Tom. Everything is going to be okay. I'm just going to lay here for a little bit. Catch my breath."
“You sure?” he asked.
She nodded.
“Okay. Well, what about the dirt?” he asked.
"Tell you what. Today it's on the house," she said.
"Need a hand at all?"
"Nah. Just a few minutes to catch my breath. Then, I got a truck to fix."