My Hole Life
by L. Jay Mozdy
“I don’t know, Doc, it started when Mildred died. I found my Christmas present, or one of them, in the garage. It must have been a gag-gift, ya’ know. It was a shovel all wrapped up in fancy paper, with a bright red bow on it. She had been asking me to dig her a garden out front, but then she got sick and…well. So, when I came home from her funeral, I opened the gifts. I felt strange, like I shouldn’t have opened them, like I was violating something. I don’t know, but I unwrapped the shovel and smirked a little. What am I going to do with a fucking shovel? Then, I remembered her asking me to make her a garden. I don’t really know the first thing about gardening, but I started digging, still in my good suit, I was out in the yard digging. I guess it became some kind of a habit, ‘cus, I couldn’t stop.
It got dark, so I went inside to get the lamp, but I needed the table to put the lamp on, so I got the table, too. Then, I thought, it’s kind of dirty down there; so I got the rug to put on the ground, to put the table on, to put the lamp on the table. It was good, nice and bright, so I kept going.
I had the living room, bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, everything, all laid out under a roof of two by fours and plywood; a little rain gutter all around. It stayed dry, sort of. It smelled musty, but I didn’t care. It was the bathroom that took some engineering, I’ll say. But, it really did flush up into the existing plumbing.
You know, I’d still be down there calling in sick for the second month in a row, if it wasn’t for the neighbor knocking on the floor. ‘What the hell are you doing, Frank? Are you sick?’
I took it as an insult, naturally, and I beat the shit out of the poor bastard and that’s why I’m here. “
“Frank, do you really want me to believe that?”
“What do you mean, Doc? You asked me why I was here and I told you; I beat piss out of poor Mr. Alderwhile, the neighbor.”
“Frank, seriously… Okay, Frank, I’ll see you every day at noon for an hour each day. Here’s a prescription, get it filled today and I’ll see you tomorrow, right.”
