“I’ll kill you!” I said and charged. Jeremy and I toppled onto the white-tinged lawn, trading headlocks and kidney-shots. First I was on top, then we somersaulted and he was on top working his hands around my throat. I freed myself and rolled again, onto Elaine’s small legs. There was a crunch. I stood and shoved my little brother hard. I ran inside, crying.

“She’s dead,” I yelled before I got both feet in the door.

“What? Who?” my mother said.

“Elaine,” I said, starting to sob. Snot bubbles blew from my nose. “You were wrong. She wasn’t chasing some puss. She’s dead. She froze to death.”

I was 11, I had no concept of rigor mortis.

“Don’t worry,” my mother said. She hugged me close and began to cry. “When your father wakes up, he’ll take care of her. He worked all night and has to get some sleep.”

I didn’t like the idea of my dad as undertaker. He was a military man and genuinely hated Elaine. He claimed it was because she was a yippy coward. He was always rough with her, using the handle-end of a broom to force her into the bathtub or booting her outside when she scratched at the door. She peed on the floor every time he raised his voice.

“He never grew up with animals,” my mother would say. “He doesn’t know any better.”

Elaine and I did take our quiet revenge though. When my father was at work, I would lead her to his shoes or his sweat pants and, soon enough, Elaine would make her way over and urinate right on them.

“That dog pissed on my boots out of spite,” my dad said one time. “She knew those were my boots and pissed all over them. I’ll put those boots right up her black ass.”

I decided to collapse on the couch and watch cartoons until my father woke up. It was my mother’s suggestion. Eventually I fell asleep and when I awoke my father was there. It was weird; he was kind and compassionate, rubbing my back and saying consoling things. I was immediately suspicious.

“Don’t worry,” he said, sitting beside me on the couch. “It’s taken care of.”

“Thanks, dad,” I said and wondered if my father had performed a proper burial for Elaine. I envisioned a small lump of dirt, a few flowers, maybe a bone, all under the large tree in our backyard. That seemed appropriate.

I thanked my father again and went outside to pay my last respects. I opened the screen door, passed the garbage bags still awaiting pickup, and walked to the tree. The earth was hard and untouched at the tree’s base.

I turned to ask where exactly he had buried her, when I noticed Elaine’s head peeking from the top of one of the garbage bags.

“You threw her away?” I said, throwing open the screen door. I couldn’t control my crying and shaking.

“The ground is too hard,” my dad said. He spoke slowly, as if I were a senior citizen. “The garbage man comes tomorrow. He’ll take her off to a better place.”

I protested the landfill burial, pleading with my parents to go to a taxidermist instead. “I promise,” I said, “I’ll keep her in my room and comb her every day.” And by that, I meant with my father’s toothbrush.

The bungalow filled with yells and complaints. My dad was indifferent. My mother attempted to take charge. “You,” she said to my father, “go bury that dog. And you,” she said to me, “cannot keep her. Besides, the way her tongue’s hanging out like that, you’ll have nightmares for the rest of your life. I’m going to cook dinner.”

Then I heard something. It was subtle at first, then the sound began to crystallize. My brothers were laughing. That infuriated me.

I sprinted for the porch and found Jeremy kneeling behind the garbage bag, putting on a poor ventriloquist act. Christopher served as the audience, laughing and clapping at each wisecrack.

“Well it must be October,” Jeremy said from behind the garbage bag, in what was apparently his Elaine voice, “because I’m so cold, I’m dead.”  This garnered a great uproar from Christopher. They switched places and began the joke again.

Convinced I hated my family, I searched for a shovel in the shed. All I could find was a gardening spade, so I took that and forced the pointed tip of into the ground and began to dig.

Soon, I utilized the spade in more of a stabbing motion, goring the ground as my brothers continued their standup routine. Christopher, who was probably six, made Elaine tell several jokes about poop and how she liked to eat it. This went over well with the crowd, which now consisted of Jeremy and my father. My father even offered his impression of Elaine, tongue out and all.

“Good one, dad,” Christopher said. “She is dead just like that.”

Later that night, Jeremy would show some remorse for what happened. The entire family was in the living room and Jeremy began laughing, saying “Elaine is dead.” He was laughing so hard, he had to cover his face, but as soon as his hands went up, he started crying, lamenting, “Elaine is dead. Elaine is dead.”

I forced the spade into the hard earth beneath the tree. My knuckles scraped against the dirt and rocks. The wind burned my cheeks. I mindlessly swiped at my running eyes and nose, spreading the dirt to my face. I occasionally looked up at the large tree I was digging under. It must have been 100 years old. I felt it would make a great grave marker.

When the novelty of dead Elaine wore off, my brothers joined me, with miniature tools of their own. Jeremy had a large silver spoon from our kitchen and Christopher brought a yellow beach-toy shovel. The three of us dug until we hit a root.

I thought it was a sign and ordered for the body. The three of us carried the 10-pound dog like pallbearers. Before we lowered her, I played ministered an off-the-cuff eulogy, cut short by Christopher making Elaine give Jeremy a high five.

I smacked him in the kneecap with the thin edge of my spade, causing Christopher to drop Elaine’s body next to the shallow hole we’d dug. I tried to correctly place her in the inadequate ditch, but half her body was still above ground.

“Put her back,” I ordered. Jeremy and Christopher each took two legs and tossed her back into the garbage bag. Aside from the long-distance dog-tossing and Jeremy creating a homemade hat from an empty yogurt container he found in the garbage, my brothers were actually helpful. I was even able to overlook Jeremy’s observation that, if Elaine had been flattened by a car, the burial process would be easier.

My mother stepped outside and commented on how cold it was. She said she made pork chops and mashed potatoes with light brown gravy, because that was my favorite kind of gravy. I said I wanted to stay out and dig. My brothers ran for the kitchen at the mention of food.

“You two better wash your hands first,” my mother yelled after them. “I saw you playing with that dead dog.”

My father came around the corner with a shovel he borrowed from the neighbor.

“Why don’t you go in,” he said. “I’ll finish up.”

I told him I wasn’t hungry, so he took the opportunity to lecture me on death. His voice was low, almost gentle, as he spoke, “Everything dies. That’s just the way it is. No one here is getting out of this world alive. But it’s much better in heaven than here. In heaven…”

I tuned out. I tried the religious path and God never made good on his end. Even that huckster St. Anthony and his morbid sense of humor. Sure I found my dog. Thanks, Tony, thanks a lot. My dad continued to monologue while I watched the way he used his foot to force the shovel deep, the way he made a neat pile of dirt beside the hole he was digging. Sometimes I would look up at the tree or at Elaine, who was now just lying in the middle of the porch, like a welcome mat.

My father stopped digging and picked Elaine up by the back of her neck. He was wearing gloves and held his arms straight out in front of him, as far from his body as possible. He dropped her into the hole and began to scoop the dirt over her. When she was safely covered, he patted the ground with the bottom of the shovel and spit. I don’t know why, but he spit right on her grave.

“Now are you ready for some pork chops?” he said, as if everything was normal, now that I couldn’t see my dog anymore.

“I’ll be in in a minute,” I said.

My dad left and I sat outside, by the grave and the tree in the October cold. I felt exhausted. Death had taken a lot out of me. I couldn’t even cry anymore. I wasn’t sure what to do next. So I sat there, a few minutes more, before taking my place at the dinner table, where the breaded pork chops and mashed potatoes were still warm.

Adam Matcho regularly shares his work stories with The New Yinzer. Names and details have not been changed, as they are all as guilty as Adam. His chapbook, Six Dollars an Hour: Confession of a Gemini Writer was published by Liquid Paper Press.