Hard Clay

"Great tacos!"  Richard called out as he walked to his car.

"Yeah, see you Saturday," Harold shouted back.

Richard drove off and Harold spotted his neighbor trimming his hedge.  The neighbor looked up and waved.  Harold waved and walked toward the fence.  "Looks good," he said, pointing at the neatly-trimmed hedge.

"Thanks.  I have to get it trimmed now because I'll be out of town for a couple of months."

"Yeah?  Where’re you going?"

"Extended vacation.  Bermuda for a week, then the Bahamas, a couple of days in the Dominican Republic, then to Puerto Rico, Antigua, Barbados, and a couple-ah weeks in Jamaica, mon!"

"Sheesh, Walt!"

"…Then on to a few more places in the Caribbean.  A little over two months in all.  We got lucky in the stock market and cashed it in before the bottom fell out.  My wife has plenty of vacation time and I do too, so we decided to go see some of the places we've always wanted to visit.  Would you watch the yard for me while we're gone?  You, know, pick up the flyers that people throw in the yard so it doesn't advertise the fact that we're not here?"

"Sure.  Be glad to.  Your yard surely does look nice.  I wish I could get mine looking that good.  This clay soil is so hard and the water just runs right off of it.  Then the grass dries out and dies."

"I know what you mean.  I had mine aerated twice last year."

"Well, I can't afford that.  I work for the college, you know.  I would aerate it or roto-till it myself, but I'm afraid to do much because I have C.I.P.A. and I can't really risk getting an injury."

"C.I.P.A.?"

"Yeah, it stands for 'congenital insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis.'  It's a genetic disorder that prevents me from feeling any pain and my body doesn't maintain its body temperature as effectively as normal people's bodies do.  If I were injured, I might not know it.  I could bleed to death without knowing I was hurt, or get an infection and not know it.  Any kind of complications could result.  I have to be really careful."

"Wow!  Are you serious?  I know your crazy sense of humor!  You're pulling my leg, aren't you?"

"No.  I'm serious.  I really do have C.I.P.A.  And I probably should watch my sense of humor.  I could get myself in trouble with some of my jokes."

Walt laughed.  "You've pulled some pretty good ones.  If I didn't know you so well, I'd think you were dangerous!  Well, maybe you could hire someone to do the aeration and tilling for you."

"Yeah, but I don't have a lot of money to spare.  If I could find someone who would do it inexpensively enough..."

"It will work out.  Things usually do."

"Yeah, I'm sure something will come up.  Who knows, maybe I'll have it all done before you get back."

"Good luck with it.  I'll see you in a couple of months or three.  If the vacation goes well enough, we may just take an extra month."

"Enjoy yourselves.  Send me a card from somewhere."

"Sure thing, Harold.  Maybe we'll throw in one of those little umbrellas from the drinks too."

They both laughed.  Harold turned and went back to his house.

---

A couple of days later, Harold and another friend, Richard, met at a restaurant after work.  They sat in a booth by the window and talked as they ate.  Richard had been to Harold’s house for a taco feast a few days earlier.  "Those sure were good tacos we had at your place the other day," Richard said.

"Yeah, and they didn't make me sick either."  Harold was in one of his joking moods.

"Oh, yeah, I forgot about the salmonella scare with the tomatoes."

"No, the tomatoes were from my own garden.  They didn't have any salmonella on them, and they wouldn't make me sick just because I fertilized them with the bodies of those people I killed either."

Richard knew Harold's sense of humor and just played along.  "No, I don't suppose they would at that.  No worse than burying a dead fish next to the Peony bushes, right?"

They finished their meal and left the restaurant, but a small, elderly woman who was sitting in the next booth had overheard their conversation.  Looking out the window, she wrote Harold's license number on a napkin as he drove away.

After dropping Richard off at his place, Harold arrived at home.  His neighbors had left for their vacation earlier that day, so Harold checked their front yard to make sure no flyers were laying on the porch or in the yard and then he went into his own house.  Later that evening, as Harold was watching a comedy show on television, a loud knock came at the door.  Wondering who could be coming by this late, he got up and went to the door.  As soon as he opened it, three policemen in riot gear stormed in, knocked him to the floor, and handcuffed him.

"Where are the bodies!"  One shouted as he slammed Harold to the floor and jammed his knee into Harold's back.  "Quit resisting," he shouted, and slammed Harold's face against the floor again.

"I'm not resisting." Harold groaned under the full weight of the large man whose knee was pressed into his back.

The police dragged Harold outside and stuck him in the back of a squad car as more police arrived and entered his house.  Harold could hear things breaking as they rifled through the house.  They took him to jail and booked him under suspicion of murder.  A sergeant took his finger prints and locked him in a cell.  He heard heavy doors closing as the officers left.  Then he was alone.

Harold had no pets and he did not have to return to work until the beginning of the Fall semester, so he did not let himself become too anxious over his situation.  His neighbor had said that things always seem to work out and Harold agreed to himself that they usually do.  He resigned  himself to just make the best of it.  There was nothing he could do this late in the evening anyway.

Several days later, he was taken before a judge.  He had not been interrogated at all while at the police station and no lawyer had appeared to talk to him in his cell.  He had been left in what amounted to solitary confinement from the time he was arrested until the time they took him to the hearing.  Food and bottled water had been provided and there was a toilet and a sink in the cell but, with the exception of the guard bringing the food and water each day, he had very little human contact until the day of the hearing.

"I can not hold a man on suspicion without at least some shred of evidence," the judge said.  "Unless you provide such evidence, I am prepared to release the defendant immediately."

The district attorney objected and begged the judge to keep Harold locked up while the investigation continued.  A short discussion ensued after which the judge ordered Harold held without bail while the police continued excavating Harold's yard in search of human remains.  Multiple murders were unheard of in this small town and the local police chief was not about to let a suspected mass murderer walk the streets.  An attorney was appointed to represent Harold but bail was still denied.

Harold became accustomed to the jail and to the defacto, solitary confinement.  This was a small, community jail and no other inmates were locked up there so it amounted to solitary confinement simply because he was the only person incarcerated.  Occasionally, a drunk was brought in and locked in a cell a few feet away, but there was never anyone in the cell adjacent to his.

After about a month, Harold was released without bail and all the charges were dropped.  The judge apologized to Harold for the breach of justice and the oversight of his being held so long without the case being expedited or bail arranged.  He explained that no evidence had been found and that budget shortfalls had caused his case to "fall off the table," as it were.  Harold had just been overlooked.  Released, Harold called a taxi to take him home because, as the sergeant also explained, "the police provide transportation only one way."

When Harold arrived at home, his entire yard had been dug up.  All the flower beds, the lawn, everything had been excavated to a depth of about six feet.  Harold sighed.  It was early in the day, so Harold took advantage of the light and retrieved a rake from his tool shed.  He then set about raking and leveling the soil in the yard and in the various flower and vegetable beds.  He wore leather gloves and a shirt of heavy fabric to protect himself from possible injury.  The police had been quite thorough in digging up every section of his yard that was big enough to hide parts of a human body.

This does seem to have worked out ok, he thought.

Harold completed raking and leveling the soil in about two days.  Then he seeded and fertilized the lawn and activated the sprinkler system.  He bought new plants in pots and planted them in the flower and vegetable gardens and set up a drip system to keep them moist.  In about a month, the grass was thick and the flowers and vegetable beds looked vibrant and healthy.

Eventually, Harold's neighbors arrived home from their trip.  One day, Harold went to his mail box to retrieve the mail just as Walt and his wife drove up.  Walt rolled down the window of his car and shouted to Harold as he pointed at the lawn and flowers, "looks great!"

Harold smiled and waved.

Walt parked his car in the garage and his wife went into the house.  Walt walked over to Harold and said, "your lawn and flowers look great.  You must have practically killed yourself to get all of that done in the time we were away."

Harold smiled again.  "Some friends down at the police department dug it up for me."