King - Dig

April 1, 2018

Marla Hemmings is hiding neon-colored plastic Easter eggs in the front flower bed. Four feet behind her, Gottfried is hacking at a patch of onion grass with a trowel. He stops to watch two spring robins chirp from a limb.

Do you think these are too hidden? Marla asks.

Gottfried goes back to his onion grass. Theyll find em.

Thats not what I asked.

They always find em.

Gottfried looks back at the robins. He thinks of a day back when hed just learned to drive. Seventeen at the most. Did he say that out loud? Marla looks at him as if he did. He thinks it again. Seventeen years old. Driving that finned 1960 Dodge Matador wagon his whole family used to fit into for trips to the beach or his faraway track meets. Warm day, just like this one. Easter coming. The two robins dancing in the middle of the road. He thought they were dancing. Then he thought they were fighting. Then he knew what they were doing. Seventeen is old enough to know what robins do in springtime.

Im going to the side now, Marla says. She adjusts her gardening apron, picks up her basket of gleaming plastic eggs, and watches Gottfried looking at the robins. Youll have to get the ham on soon.

Ham, Gottfried says. Gotcha.

Marla shakes her head. She wonders sometimes if her husband is losing his mind. He only ever needed to go to work and mow the lawn. She raised five children and did all the work that came with it and she isnt losing her mind.

The car was going too fast to stop. The robins were jumping up and then landing for another session, then rising again. By the time Gottfried got near enough to them to know he was going to hit them, he couldnt slow down more than he had already. Thirty miles per hour to a robin is fast enough. Before he took the car home, he drove all the way across town to the automatic car wash. During the spray cycle hed cried.

Gottfried never believed in the resurrection. Marlas insistence on perfect Easter egg hunts since the kids were little annoyed him. Her obsession with them now that there were grandchildren was infuriating, especially considering their grandchildren were mostly grownteenagers. When she asks questions like thatdid he think the eggs were too hidden?he wonders if Marla is losing her mind.

She says, And dont forget to peel the potatoes!

He throws the lumps of onion grass into the woods that surround the house.

He goes inside and washes his hands.

He puts the ham in the roaster.

He empties a five-pound bag of potatoes in the sink and retrieves the peeler from the drawer. As he slices the skin off inch by inch, he thinks of the robins again and cries.

Jake & Bill can bring the snake out now

April 1, 2018

Jake Marks and his older brother, Bill, walk through the high school parking lot. Bill has his snake with himwrapped around his neck and tucked into his coat. Jake has the look of skipping school on his face even though its a Sunday and a holiday. Could be a school day for all he knows. He gives no fucks. Jake never gives any fucks. It was once suggested that the school should rename the in-school suspension room the Jake-Marks-Gives-Zero-Fucks Room.

Jakes just flowing in Bills wake. Six years between them, and the two act like twins, which is sad if you think about it. Either Bill is seriously immature or Jake is growing up too fast. Smoked since he was ten. Crashed his first car at twelve.

PART 1.1: INTRODUCING THE SHOVELER AND THE FREAK

CAST IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE:

The Shoveler

Mr. _________son

The Shovelers Mom

Mike the Neighbor

Mrs. Second Grade

Penny & Doug or Dirk or Don

The Freak, Flickering

Half-Wit High School Bitches Kelly & Mika

The Freaks Mom and Dad

The Shovelers Shovel

Bill with the Neck Tattoo

The Talking Dirt

The Shoveler: the Snowstorm & Mr. _______son

84 Days before Marla & Gottfrieds Easter Dinner

5:33 A.M.

My phone rings and it makes no sense that my phone is ringing because Im in the ocean. Its darkstorm coming in, threatening sky, and Im trying to make it to shore ahead of the storm. Its not a scary place, even though the waves are twenty feet high and getting higher. But I am at one with the ocean. Every time a wave rises behind me, I turn to look and then dip my head calmly under water until the wave passes. Then I walk toward shore until the next wave comes and I do the same.

There are people on shore, but I dont know who they are. They seem worried about me, but Im fine.

---

I picked up the phone. There was a man on the other end and it wasnt my father.

Its never my father.

Hello? he said.

Yeah.

Is ______________ there? I dont remember the nameI didnt even hear it when he said it. It was Sunday morning at 5:33 a.m.I was still chest deep, walking to shore. Hed heard my answerscratchy, tired and dreaming. He knew he had the wrong number.