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Though I had been trembling a little in the car beforehand, once I got out of the car my nerves turned steely and steady. I covered the distance to the postal truck in a navigationally perfect straight line, never wavering from my course, my head dead ahead, not pivoting around suspiciously, which would only call attention to my ill-gotten deeds.
The truck was concealed from view of an adjoining yard by a high fence and a long row of Linden trees with very thick foliage. The branches of one tree hung over the barrier to kiss the top of the mail vehicle. Without a mailman inside, it looked as harmless and irrelevant as a postal museum piece, but in reality, it was the bearer of my undoing.
On the other side of the truck a vacant lot stretched a quarter mile before ending in a cross street that split the subdivision. Any motorists there would be so intent on their destinations they wouldn’t look across the field, to notice the young man in shorts and flip-flops approaching the postal vehicle, dressed more for the beach than mail delivery.
I knew this was a subdued, withdrawn neighborhood, where folks mostly kept to themselves, and this increased my confidence as I walked up to the white mail machine with its bold red and blue stripes. All the same, I still had doubts the door would be conveniently unlocked, as Dusty had assured me.
As I went for the door, I caught an ill wind blowing off the Rockies. Perhaps Dusty’s plan was to throw me to the wolves, or dogs more appropriately, to make me the scapegoat for all the porch invasions in the neighborhood. But I went in nonetheless, because that’s the kind of dude I am. Unlike my Mother, who constantly vacillates and can never decide anything, once I commit to a course of action you can’t stop me.
With my purpose hardened, I boldly yanked on the door handle of the mail truck. To my surprise, it opened.
My first thought going in wasn’t about getting caught, but that the vehicle’s occupant was a mess. Candy wrappers and chip bags littered the floor. A thick layer of dust coated all surfaces. The flotsam of years of discarded rubber bands had accumulated in every corner, and these were woven together by so many fragments of leaves, sticks and other forms of organic debris that the mixture appeared certain to form a layer of viable topsoil within a few more months. Worse than that was the faint odor of urine pervading the air. Indeed, I soon spotted a greasy jug of uncertain purpose hanging from a hook in a corner, seemingly a clue to the fact that the old man peed in here regularly. But even this scent was overpowered by the residual aroma of beer farts, which I recognized distinctly from the halls of my college apartment complex.
What a dirtbag, I thought, curling my nose at the mess, but then chastised myself for being unfairly judgemental. Maybe if the old fart knew I was dropping by to murder him, he might have tidied up a bit.
I spotted the object of my quest almost immediately – an insulated metal water jug riding on the transmission hump, between the driver and passenger’s sides of the vehicle.
This container looked a lot cleaner than the nasty thing hanging from the shelf in the cargo compartment. If pressed to pick from which to drink, I suppose even a lonely, dirtbag mailman would choose this one.
I had no moral qualms stopping me now, if I had any to begin with. I set the small ziploc aside, then leaned forward to the metal jug and began unscrewing the lid.
“Stop!” a voice behind me said.
I retained the presence of mind to conceal the baggie in my palm, before raising up casually to a standing position. I wasn’t a guy who startled easily. People who snuck around corners to scare me with an unexpected Boo! always walked away disappointed.
I had been caught in the act before the act even started. But who the hell was doing the catching? It definitely wasn’t the old fucker, because the voice belonged to a young lady.
I turned around to see the eyes, those big beautiful eyes I had first beheld with Bruno through the naked living room glass. But this time they weren’t disembodied. They were physically attached to a woman about my age – a sad shadow of female loveliness who had been rendered bedraggled, haggard, and unkempt, the gloss faded from her hair. She looked like she was forced to rush frantically out of the house in her slippers and nightgown, except they were as lackluster and threadbare as she was, as if she never took them off.
“Don’t do it Cal!” she said.
It took me a moment to gather my wits. How the hell did she know my name, and how the hell did she know what I was up to?
“My name is not…”
“Oh come on, spare me brother.”
“Brother?” I protested, swiveling to face her obliquely, as my peripheral vision was starting to ache.
“Okay, half brother. Brother from another mother.”
As I regathered my smashed atoms from the chaos of being busted, I concluded this chick must be a nutcase, out wandering the streets in her jammies. What could I have to fear from her?”
She must have smelled my switch from shock to contempt. Her lovely green eyes, the last oasis of life in the forsaken desert of her being, lit up with a sly, penetrating stare.
“Your mother is Jean,” she said.
This hit me like a physical blow, forcing me to reel back against the side of the truck.
“How do you know my Mother’s name too?”
“Relax brother, it’s nothing creepy. Daddy told me. Our Daddy.”
“You’re crazy!” I cried, though I suspected I was a little crazy myself. “Just who is my Daddy, according to you?”
“You’re standing by his mail truck, brother. And there you were, ready to do him in, without knowing who he really is. I saw you parked there, and I know who you’re working for. I donated my dog to her because I couldn’t take care of him anymore, and she fooled me into thinking she was so sweet. I thought Bruno would be better off because I can get a little loopy sometimes, though I’m not loopy now. Then I immediately started to regret giving him away, because I found out what she was all about. From our Father. Not our Father who art in heaven, though you seem hell bent on sending him there. I guessed what you were up to today, and knew I had to spare you the sin of patricide. God doesn’t forgive patricide. But he might forgive homicide in general, if you direct it toward someone who really deserves it.”
I couldn’t take this shit anymore. Even worse, I couldn’t take not knowing why I couldn’t take it. I tried not to look in the face of this lunatic woman, but I was hopelessly mesmerized by those eyes. The more I looked into them, the more I saw my reflection there.
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about!” I shouted, raising my voice louder than I should have, shattering my carefully contrived calm. “You’re a crazy bitch!”
With that I got the hell out, stuffing the little baggie deep down my pocket as I slithered away, like the snake I had become.
“I’ll be seeing you soon, dear brother,” the strange woman said as I fled the scene, desperate to conceal myself beneath some rock. Was I running from the sin of my attempted crimes, or from the truth of myself?
That night I got rip roaring drunk on Dusty’s nickel, though I doubted any shiny new nickels would ever fall from her again, like manna from heaven. I had failed to do the boss’s bidding, and unlike the manna-giving God in the desert, she didn’t look like the type who could be moved to pity by your shortcomings.
Consumed with doubt and severely hungover, the first thing I did the next morning was call my mother.
Mom somehow seemed to be expecting my call. I heard resignation in her voice, the kind you get when your kid is off at war and an officer from the general staff shows up wearing a solemn expression. I never called her at that hour – in fact I hardly ever called her at all. She knew something was up, and what else could it be?
“Hello?” she said in a tentative tone.
I cut to the chase. “Is he my father?”
Mom sighed, then drew in several deep breaths, but cut herself off before she could hyperventilate, like last call at the bar.
“I knew this was coming. When you took the dog walking job I knew it was just a matter of time.”
Even though I had my answer, I required absolute clarification.
“Well?”
“Yes, of course he’s your Father. There’s no point denying it now.”
I experienced a head-rush of conflicting emotions, spinning around a common center of gravity that was a big middle finger to the world, to create a violent centrifugal vortex. On the one hand I felt pride, pride I was no longer fatherless, that I had finally been sanctioned by being bestowed paternity. Meanwhile, another portion of my soul was consumed by rage. Why would the bastard deny me all these years? How can you cast aside your own offspring like yesterday’s smelly garbage? The worst part was he didn’t look like a lowlife. He looked like a hard working dude, a man of honesty and character. He looked like someone I would be proud to call my Pop. So why had he forsaken me? Eloi, eloi, lema sabachthani?
“What about my sister?” I asked as my swirling universe began to stabilize again. The question felt so ridiculously Return of the Jedi.
“I might as well tell you the whole story, starting from the beginning,” Mom said. “I was a starving college student employed by a dog walking company, just like you. You who claim there is no God, there is no fate, that the Universe is not governed by a supreme being, but only the laws of statistics. Do you still believe that after seeing how we wound up back there at the point of origin, despite my best efforts to hide my past from you?”
Secretly I knew she was right. You can’t run from God forever, but I was giving it a hell of a go, and didn’t intend to slow down now.
Mom didn’t expect me to answer, or maybe she thought the question was pointless, so she kept plowing ahead without a pause.
“He was already living in the neighborhood at that time, and already working for the post office. His wife was a successful real estate agent who was hardly ever home. He suspected she was fooling around on him. Was that true? I don’t know, but I cling to the idea I was not the only Jezebel to initiate the infidelity. Anyway, because wifey was allegedly out chasing clients to provide for the family, and he worked long, exhausting hours too, they contracted with my employer to walk their beloved pet, a golden retriever. His name was Bruno.”
I felt a shock so hard it nearly gave me whiplash.
“Bruno? Are you kidding me? What kind of game is this? Are you telling me it’s the same dog I walk every day? That’s impossible.”
“Don’t be silly. Brunos breed more Brunos. And people breed more people. That’s what I got out of my dog walking job, a belly. But I don’t regret it a minute.”
“How did it happen Mom?” I asked, and regretted the stupid question as soon as it took wings.
I heard a metallic pop over the line, followed by a fizz. Mom was starting early today. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
“What, biology isn’t a requirement for a University education, anymore? What do you think happened? The man was lonely, and his wife was fooling around on him. He was ruggedly handsome, and I was pretty cute too, back in my twenties. Nature and booze has since taken its course, but I wasn’t always flabby and wrinkled. Our temporary union was more accident than selective breeding, but I think you turned out with the necessary genetic survival skills.”
I had always thought my Mother to be a fighter who didn’t take shit from anybody. But my opinion of her now reached a low point.
“And you just let the bastard get away with his sperm donation? You didn’t take him for all he was worth?”
A long pause followed, as my Mom drained at least six ounces in a single gulp.
“To be honest son, I think I forced myself on him more than he did on me. He wasn’t the type to take advantage of young girls. He seemed to be perfectly happy in his misery. He stayed by that woman faithfully until she died of breast cancer ten years later. But he wasn’t a total deadbeat Dad. He gave me money from time to time – still does. I wound up with a decent job, so I didn’t want to intrude on the life he and his daughter had together. He was having a hard enough time with her. She has a strange phobia — a fear of curtains. It’s so weird there’s not even a proper name for it in the DSM. At the same time, she has agoraphobia, a fear of going out in public. The two together make strange bedfellows, don’t you think? The poor girl was diagnosed with both very young. Why complicate his life when I had you, and was perfectly happy with that?”
The thing that irritated me most about my Mom was how she always conformed to her mediocre economic situation.
“Mom, you’re not stupid. You should have fleeced him! Why are you always happy to let people get ahead of you in the race? Can’t you understand it’s a race, and we’re losing!”
She took another deep swig, then popped open another.
“Well, that’s why I have you,” she said. “From the beginning, I could see you had qualities I lacked. I have perfect confidence you will make us both comfortable, soon enough.”
This I could agree with. I knew I had it in me. One way or another, I would make us comfortable, soon enough. It was only a matter of finding the right circumstances to jump into.
Later that day, I received a call on my secret phone from Dusty’s secret number. I was expecting it.
“Did you do it?” she asked.
“Everything is taken care of,” I answered. I wasn’t lying.
“I’m not seeing anything on the news.”
“Relax,” I assured her calmly, feeling I had the upper hand. “When something happens to people who are already on death’s door, it doesn’t make headlines. It’s like when an old dog dies. Nobody reports it.”
“I hope you’re right,” she said with a faint flicker of pleasure in her voice. I think our kindred spirits intertwined in that moment, but it made no difference.
“I need you here as soon as possible,” she continued, in a vain attempt to reassert her authority.
“Sure,” I said. “I just happen to be in the neighborhood. By the way, I’m pulling into Starbucks right now. I feel I have to make some sort of token of appreciation for your generosity. May I bring your usual?”
“Sure,” Dusty replied, then hung up fast, without further ceremony.
I got to Dusty’s office to find her temporarily away, so I put the giant Frapp on her desk. It wasn’t easy to find a spot to set it down, because the desk was already layered with packages of Oreos, potato chip bags, and candy wrappers, all in varying stages of consumption. Since ordering the hit, the girl had been on a real feeding frenzy. Sharks often get this way when they smell blood in the water.
Down a small hallway that led to the office through a side door. After the rush of the water subsided Dusty walked back into the office. It was all I could do to keep my nose from curling with disgust when I saw her, thinking of the gooey mush of junk food flowing from her bowels through the pipes, denounced by this multi-colored collection of wrappers before me.
She looked shocked when she saw me. “Holy shit! Don’t you knock?”
Dusty was in a very tense state. She looked puffier than usual, and had probably gained fifteen pounds since our last meeting. Her cheeks were pink and swollen, and she had bags under her eyes.
“I let myself in,” I said. “You said you wanted to meet with me.”
“Next time check in at the front desk.” She was trying to be a hard ass, but her ass was much softer than the rest of her body, padded by the detritus of her junk food orgy.
“There’s never anybody at the front desk. You called this meeting, so here I am.”
Dusty sat in her office chair, a cheap model which groaned precariously beneath her weight. I considered calling her attention to the Frapp I had so graciously supplied, then reconsidered, thinking it better she discover it on her own, so she might forget where it came from.
Did I really think she was dumb enough to fall for it? Making a living the way she did demanded a high degree of animal cunning. Was it reasonable to believe gluttony would overcome her survival instincts?
Perhaps we poor people err in giving too much credit to the crooks who dominate us. Maybe Dusty prospered solely on cruelty, tenacity, and dumb luck.
I arrived at that conclusion as she reached for the Frapp, took a long draught, then covered her mouth after releasing a tiny belch.
“Excuse me,” she apologized. There must have been some modicum of politeness in her upbringing, somewhere. “Now where were we? Oh yeah, I called you here to say your payment is delayed until we confirm he’s really out of action.”
“You couldn’t tell me that over the phone?” I was trying to give the impression of being inconvenienced, to make her dismiss me as a threat and take another long draw on that straw.
Which she quickly did, sucking another four or five ounces down her trunk, like an elephant at the watering hole.
Did my eyes widen in amazement at how easy this was?
“I call the shots here, not you,” she said. “Oh geez…”
Dusty sat up straight and she went pale. For a moment she looked at me beseechingly, as if briefly unveiling her vulnerability, perhaps considering joining the human race to implore me for help. But even then she wasn’t ready to stoop that low.
“Jesus Christ,” she mumbled to herself, but there was no hiding it.
I realized with pleasure that the secret ingredients in Dusty’s Frapp were working. She was getting a taste of her own toxic medicine.
“What’s the matter,” I said, not in the tone of a question, but like a boilerplate phrase expected from me in such circumstances.
“I have to go,” she replied, then got up very noisily and sloppily, knocking over a couple food items balanced precariously at the edge of the desk. I heard a cookie crunch beneath her foot.
Dusty was alone and helpless in the world she had helped make so cruel, and she knew it. Not even a damn dog wanted to be by her side in this moment of extreme vulnerability.
I assumed Dusty’s internal organism was rejecting my latest contribution to her junk food diet in a violent way, and she was going to make a beeline back to the toilet. But instead of heading down the hall, she grabbed her bulging granny purse and hauled ass toward the front entrance. I had seen her car parked there, as close to the door as possible, where she didn’t have to drag her fat ass too far to the office.
The bomb of Dusty’s own design had blown up in her face. I turned to watch her go, realizing I had been very lucky. What would I have done if she didn’t flee, but simply collapsed in her chair? Would the people who came in to scrape up her carcass assume she had a heart attack, based on the evidence of an artery-clogging junk food bender on her desk? Was the substance she ingested traceable in an autopsy? I wasn’t even sure what it was. I was a rookie at this, but next time I would carefully consider all possible outcomes.
In the meantime, it seemed I had dodged a bullet. With Dusty’s abrupt departure, the empty building emanated a cacophony of silence. What was I supposed to do now?
I suppose a prudent person would have fled the crime scene by following her out the front door, but I had taken away some valuable lessons during the course of my employment for Dusty Dogwalker. Via osmosis from Bruno, I had learned to put my big wet nose to the ground and sniff out opportunity. So I decided to pull a page from his playbook.
I rose from my seat and went to Dusty’s desk. After conducting a quick visual survey on all sides, I opened up the top drawer.
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Image by Copilot from Author’s Prompt
