LANDFILL by JOYCE CAROL OATES

Tioga County landfill is where Hector, Jr., is found. Or his “remains”—battered and badly decomposed, his mouth filled with trash. He couldn’t have protested if he’d been alive, buried, as he was, in rubble and raw garbage. Overhead are shrieking birds; in the vast landfill, dump trucks and bulldozers and a search team from the Tioga County Sheriff’s Department in protective uniforms. . . .

And now, in the early morning of April 17th, Mrs. Campos answers the phone on the first ring. These terrible weeks that her son has been missing, Mrs. Campos has answered the phone many times and made many calls, as her husband has made many calls, and now the call from the Tioga County Sheriff’s Department they have been dreading. Mrs. Campos? Are you seated? Is your husband there?