The Wooden Sea

“I’ll take your word for it. Get up, George. We have to dig a hole now and stop wasting time. Did you find a place yet?”

The boy wandered away, poking his stick into the ground.

“Anywhere around here should be all right, Fra

I stabbed the shovel into the earth. It clanged loudly against a tree root. It was like the day I had tried to bury Old Vertue out here—thick roots crisscrossed the forest floor just below the surface. I had learned the hard way that cutting through them was impossible.

I walked back and forth pushing the shovel into the ground every few feet but it was all the same—roots galore. The only sounds were the birds, me poking with the shovel and the boy swishing his stick, hitting trees, swatting at their branches.

“I don’t think we can do it here. There are just too many goddamned roots.”

“Should we go get the body or not?”

I dropped the shovel on the ground and crossed my arms. In my mind all I could picture was a giant traffic light stuck on red. Something had to be done, a decision had to be made fast, but what?

A wind kicked up. The air was suddenly filled with the lush scent of pine and the sexy hiss of a warm breeze through summer’s trees. Without thinking I lifted my head and sniffed the air. “My God, what a beautiful smell.”

As if it couldn’t decide on whether to go or stay, sunlight flickered across different parts of the boy’s body. His head was bowed. From the look of it, he’d recently gotten his hair cut by Vernon the town barber, dead twenty years now.

Seeing something on the ground, Little Fran dropped his stick and slowly began to bend down. His eyes were glued to one spot. “Hey, look at this!” He was twenty feet away. I was a

“Look!” The boy snatched at something on the ground.

Rising again, he held something between his thumb and index fingers. The rest of his fingers were splayed out like he didn’t want them to touch whatever it was he held. Until it moved, I thought it was only another stick.

It was a lizard or a chameleon, I don’t know which—I ain’t no herpetologist. I should have asked George the expert on everything but I was too excited to care. The poor little fucker had been minding its own lizard business, taking a little sun on the forest floor. Until without warning it was yanked up in the air by its long tail. For a moment. For a moment it stayed that way, swinging and twisting in circles desperately trying to get away. Then its tail snapped off and Mr. Lizard hit the ground ru

Without a second’s hesitation I remembered George and me looking at Antonya Corando’s school notebooks. And I heard him say there were only two images that kept recurring in all of her strange, prophetic drawings—that shovel and a lizard.

My eyes glued to the spot on the ground where the kid had picked up the lizard, I stepped over and said, “Dig here.”

“There? It’s right under that tree. There will be roots everywhere.”

“Pick up the fucking shovel and dig here, Floon. Or I’ll stick it up your ass, blade first.”

“But, Fra

“George, remember Antonya Corando’s notebooks? Remember the two images you said kept coming up over and over?”

Sucking in his lower lip, he raised a hand to make a point. Like he was raising it in class to be recognized by the teacher. But his hand slowed going up as the understanding of what I’d said hit home. His hand abruptly snatched at the air and turned into a tight fist. “The lizard and the shovel!” “Exactly. Start digging. Right here.”

“Yes!” He whipped around to Floon who was now looking at both of us as if we were the enemy. “It’s here, Caz. Fra

“I’ll start! Let me.” The kid cried out happily, picking up the shovel but dropping it again in his excitement. He picked it right up again and began digging like a little machine.

“No, we’ll do it. It’ll go faster. You just stand back.” I gestured for him to hand over the shovel.

He wouldn’t. He tried putting it behind his back. “No! That’s not fair! I found that lizard. I did. And I found these guys too when you couldn’t. So I should get to dig first.”

I tried to sound reasonable, like a good guy who was only on his side. “My man, we just gotta do this ourselves and as fast as possible. We gotta dig this hole and then get out of here.”

His face tried turning to stone but you know how little kids are—they haven’t learned how to be cool yet. They know passion cold and hot, but not cool. His next voice came out a sob. “That’s not fair! I helped you twice today and you know it! I helped you get out of the library too. I—”

“Give me the goddamned shovel. Now!” I stepped toward him. Whatever was on my face scared him. He held the tool behind his back, but when he saw me coming, he dropped it. Stumbling backward over it, he fell down. His eyes stayed scared on me. There was no more time to waste. I picked up the shovel and turned away from him.

“You’re the pisser! You’re the big fat pisser and you don’t have a penis!” His outrage turned to singsongy taunt. “You don’t have a penis, you don’t have a penis!”

Ignoring the boy, I gave Floon the shovel and pointed out the spot on the ground. I was dizzy and needed to sit down.

“Fra

“He kicked you.”

“Doesn’t matter. Let’s go.”

But it did matter. When we decided it would be better for George and Floon to first go back for the body, I stood alone thinking about the little boy. Where would he go? Would he be coming back?

I felt weak but clearer in my mind than I had all day. Some sort of plan had taken shape: Dig the hole, bury the body, return to town—The snap and click of twigs under their feet a

As if it was still alive and they were concerned for its comfort, they lowered it very gently to the ground. Floon picked up the shovel and began digging. He worked with precise gestures and no wasted effort. The hole grew quickly not least because there was nothing in the way—no roots, boulders, nothing unseen or unexpected. I was sure there wouldn’t be. The lizard had been the X to mark this spot and I knew that the minute I saw it.

When George took over digging he asked if I had ever heard of Kilioa. When I said no he explained it was a mythological creature—one of two lizard women who keep the soul of the deceased imprisoned. By then I didn’t give a damn whether the lizard we’d seen was Kilioa or a normal forest reptile catching a few rays on a su

“Yes, but lizards have always been very important in world mythology, Fra

“Fascinating, just keep digging—”

“You don’t care do you?”

“Not at all.”

The excavation went on. We talked some but not much. I didn’t feel up to joining in the work yet so I let them do it. Periodically I checked to see if the dead Floon was still with us.