A Guardian of Innocents Read Online Free PDF Page B

naturally the first place that popped into my head.
    I was nervous on the drive out to Watauga, thinking this was a bad time of day to be digging a hole on private property. I wouldn’t get there until probably 4:20 in the afternoon, and that was just when kids were returning home from school and their parents were on their way home from work, but when I got there I suddenly remembered this place was a retirement village, not a “home” like those cruel places you hear about on the news that abuse their patients, just a few apartment buildings that cater to the elderly only. “Assisted Living,” I believe is what they call it now.
    I pulled into the parking lot, and saw absolutely no one outside except an old man on a second story balcony smoking a cigarette and thinking about how much he hates his life since his wife of fifty-something years died six months ago.
    I made a conscious effort not to hear his grief, I had problems of my own. The last thing I needed was to feel sorry for someone having suicidal thoughts while I was planning a murder. He never noticed me, which I was grateful for. He was lost in his own world of emotional anguish.
    When I pulled up to the end of the complex, I was pleasantly surprised to find the same entrance to the wooded area that I remembered as a child was still there, an entire plank missing from a rotted-out seven-foot fence that separated the apartments from the uncleared land that lay beyond. After all this time, that one board had still never been replaced.
    I backed my car into the parking space directly in front of it, my rear bumper only two feet from the fence. After putting the car in park and killing the engine, I closed my eyes and bowed my head, placing my hands on the steering wheel. If anyone had seen me just then, I’m sure it would have appeared I was praying. I reached out with my mind, scanning the area for thoughts of others. Is there anyone looking at me? I thought, Is there anybody watching me?
    Vague images floated up from behind my eyes. An old woman watching Ricki Lake, thinking her daughter was a whore and should be up on that there stage parading around in slutty clothes with the rest of those whores. Another elderly woman was cooing to her three cats as spooned out their canned food into a plastic bowl that said, “Muffy Buffy Scruffy” around its perimeter.
    After about thirty seconds passed with that kind of information, I was satisfied none of the residents had taken an interest in my actions. I got out, unlocked the trunk, yanked the posthole diggers out and gently closed the deck lid so as not to make too much noise, and slipped into a place of fond memories.
    There was all kinds of litter and trash within the first few feet of the fence, junk thrown over by kids, I imagined, who rode their bicycles around this neighborhood. Images were still coming at me, even though I no longer wanted them. That’s the way it works sometimes, like an overheated engine that has to cool down before it runs properly again. Sometimes after a broad scan like that I get dizzy and have to sit down, but so far I was feeling fine.
    I found a spot past a large tree where the dirt seemed pretty soft and the weeds weren’t too high and I went to work. The first foot was so easy I thought I would have this hole dug in two minutes. But then I found out what a lot of Texans already know. The first foot or so of topsoil is soft, but then you hit that tough motherfucker known as Red Clay.
    If I had known then about the trick of pouring water into the hole to loosen up the clay, I would have left then, gone to the nearest grocery store and bought maybe ten gallons of water. But unfortunately, I knew next to nothing about digging through three feet of what is possibly the toughest earthen substance next to solid rock.
    For those who don’t know what a pair of posthole diggers is, it’s like two shovels joined together like a pair of scissors, only it works the opposite way. You push