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by Virginia Watkins
Sondra loved nothing better than the feel of heavy stones in the palms of her hands. Every morning she fed the fish, picked up the same two rocks from the coffee table, and ran away. She carried them and considered her day as she squeezed.
Alternating left to right, in opposition to her leading foot. Left foot forward, right fingers grip. She could run for hours that way, concentrating on not letting the rocks fly.
Of course, with her schedule, she couldn't run for hours. She had things to do. Ordinarily, Sondra scheduled her workday while she ran.
Home by six. Fix herself a power shake. Squeeze, squeeze. Shower. Squeeze. Meet Rogers about the Carson case, coming up for trial Tuesday. Squeeze. Lunch at the grill with Meadows to prep court papers. Squeeze, after lunch depositions from Mr. and Mrs. McGuire, going to court next week. Then him squeezes, as she jogged up the incline along the golf course. The hill was the hardest part of her route.
She tried to concentrate on the squeezing, not looking at what lay ahead, but only at her feet and her very next step. She'd discovered long ago that was the only way she could make it up the rise.
After depositions, she needed to meet with Jeremy, her paralegal to talk about his summaries. Squeeze, just not concise enough. Squeeze. She pulled up short at the man's body she found stretched across her path.
She couldn't just stand there, and she wasn't about to touch him, so she skittered over his feet where they lay tangled in a root and started running again as soon as she'd passed him.
She'd lost her stones avoiding him, but she wasn't going back there. She had to walk up the rest of the hill and followed her usual loop one more time. She couldn't stop, not even when she reached the body a second time. She stepped over him and kept going past her house to the phone booth on the corner, where she called 9- 1- 1. She could see the rocking chair sitting on her front porch while she dialed.
She wouldn't give her name. She couldn't say why.
"There is a dead man," she said to the operator, "Lying on the jogging trail around the golf course."
"Are you sure," the voice asked her.
"Yes. I'm sure," she said, watching her house through the webbed Plexiglas panels of the half- booth, "I killed him."
She clicked the receiver and stood at the phone staring into her smudged reflection and wondering what the hell was wrong with her.
Sondra went to the firm a little late and had to reschedule all of her appointments. The secretaries were whispering behind her back about it, she was certain. She wouldn't leave her office, where she spent the day waiting for the cops to knock at her door.
The next morning, Sondra took off on her run without her rocks. It was harder that way. She still gripped and jogged, but with nothing to squeeze, she kept losing her rhythm. And when she lost her rhythm, she had to start all over again trying to figure out her day.
By the time she got to the homeless guy, she was walking. She stopped and put her hands on her hips, just staring at him in astonishment. He was still there. The police hadn't come to collect his dead body. Maybe it hadn't been 9- 1- 1 she'd dialed after all. Maybe she'd dialed 4- 1- 1 and told all that stuff to Information instead. And here he still was, in her way.
She wanted her rocks and tried to find them. His head lay in a patch of vines, and his feet were caught under a root. His hands were stuffed in his pockets.
Sondra tried to retrace her steps from the day before. She studied the dirt where she'd stopped so suddenly, then followed his body to the feet, which she'd had to jump over.
No rocks.
His pockets, though, were full of something. And even though Sondra was pretty sure that something was his hands, she couldn't be sure her rocks weren't in there, too.
So she stepped over his tangled feet and examined the ground on the other side of his body, feet to armpit, which she really didn't want to get too close to. No rocks. She stood momentarily considering his pockets before shaking herself and walking away. There was no way she was rummaging through some dead guy's pockets looking for rocks.
She'd just find new ones. She knew he'd be gone by the next morning. Somebody else was bound to complain about a dead guy blocking the path. Her civic duty had been done.
When she got home, she went to work without showering.
The next morning, Sondra took off again, this time with two stones she'd pulled from her herb garden. They carried the scent of rosemary, and whenever she squeezed them, she thought she smelled lamb. It was a bit disconcerting.
Starting the climb along the golf course, Sondra could feel her breath, shallow and tightening in her chest, could feel it coming faster. She forgot to squeeze her left rock with her right foot forward and lost her balance.
She was walking again by the time she got to the homeless guy.
This time, she stepped over his chest and kept on walking, turning around only to pelt him with her rosemaried rocks. But before she could let them fly, she noticed that his feet were in the vines, while his head rested on the roots of the tree. His hands were out of his pockets, which still bulged with something weighty.
She walked back over to the man's body and checked to see if he was breathing. She didn't want to smell him; she just couldn't believe that he might be alive.
He was breathing. Breaths neither shallow nor tight. She tried to breathe as he did without smelling him. It wasn't possible. His overcoat lay spread away from his body so that Sondra thought she could reach in without his noticing. She started with the left pocket.
His overcoat was made of poplin, and was old and dirty enough to be covered in slime. Inside, the pocket was lined with plaid flannel. It was a sensory relief after the shell. She pulled out her rock.
It was her right hand rock -- she could tell by the way it fit into her palm. Right hand rock in his left hand pocket. Things were going well. She stepped over him to get to his other pocket, certain that he would move, wake up, or start dying violently in front of her at any minute.
He didn't. Sondra leaned back on her heels, wondering how he got so relaxed. Every night, she lay rigid. Trying not to worry about what she had to do the next day. The next month. This guy, he could sleep with his head on a root.
She wondered if he'd even notice if she kicked him.
She didn't kick him, but she wanted to. Instead, she took her other rock out of his right pocket and held it for a moment in her left hand, weighing them evenly, readying herself to finish her jog.
When she got home, she made herself a shake and sat on the front porch. From there, she could see where the path came out. And ten minutes later, she saw the homeless guy -- he was really quite tall -- come out of the path and cross the street, walking south.
She slurped her shake, wishing he would check his pockets and find her rocks gone. She wanted what she'd stolen to be missed.
The next morning, Sondra got up, fed the fish and started making a list of her plans for the day. It didn't take long and she was out on the porch by six, strawberry shake in hand, waiting for the homeless guy to come out.
As soon as she saw him leave the path, Sondra took her rocks and went jogging, running the whole way. It was 9:30. Squeezing and running and sweating. She hated running this late. She hated to sweat and for her day to be half over. She squeezed more than she should have, and when she got to his spot, she stopped and wrote with her toe in the dirt - "Go home! We don't want you here!"
It was the meanest thing she'd ever done.
She kept jogging, smiling now.
The next day, waiting impatiently for him to come out of the path, Sondra was chucking small driveway rocks at squirrels. Mostly, she missed, but one she accidentally hit in the head. It had been standing on the electrical wire over the front yard, when she threw a rock particularly hard. It was already 9:45, and the homeless guy hadn't left yet.
When the rock hit the squirrel, it brought him down off the wire instantaneously. One minute she's throwing, the next minute, he's on the ground. She wrapped him in a plastic produce bag and put him in the trash. She named him Baby.
At 10:15, he finally stumbled out of the path and crossed the street, going south. Sondra jumped up from her chair and ran toward the path.
Running, she thought about the squirrel and fumed over her days: this one would be shot, too, by the time she got home. Shower, to work, she'd already missed her monthly partners' meeting. She wondered if they might fire her soon. Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze. Who cared about doing anything when the day was already over?
When she got to his space, she wished she could tell him the myriad ways he was ruining her life. But since he wasn't there, she lay in his spot, pleased to steal it back.
She got home, shook the dust out of her hair and climbed into bed facing the fish. She watched them suck and spit out rocks beside her bed all day and all night.
The next morning, Sondra awakened with the alarm and took off. On her way out, she grabbed a new pair of rocks. She thought she was ready for them.
She felt light, back in the coolish air she'd missed. As she ran, she planned her day: she would be working on a Saturday to make up for the day before. She'd dictate a memo to Gardner and prep for the rescheduled depositions in the car; she could eat something at the office.
When she started uphill, she didn't watch her feet. She looked ahead down the path. There he was, in her way again. This time, she nudged his elbow with her shoe. But he only drew it in closer to his body. She kicked his shoulder, but he just snored in response.
Sondra circled him. His head was in the ivy; his feet tangled up in the roots of what she now noticed was a pecan tree. He was growing there. She hefted the rocks in her palms, impressed by their balance, and moved up to stand over his head. She wasn't even a foot away when she threw the first rock as hard as she could.
It clipped him above the eye, leaving a bloody dent in his forehead that Sondra thought might be permanent. She threw the left hand rock hard right between his eyes. She looked around for more rocks. She threw pebbles, stones, sprayed him with gravel until she knew he was dead.
She chose two new evenly- weighted stones and drew a deep breath -- the first in days -- before she headed home. She'd forgotten to feed the fish.
