Amelia Gray - Threats

He put the pears on the kitchen counter with Franny’s box from work. Then he threw the junk mail and the paper bag from the grocery into the basement. The slick circulars stuck to the stairs.

THERE WAS A DIFFERENCE in the way the air felt on David’s face and neck. Someone had been inside the house.

The intruder was an expert tracker. In the kitchen, the tracker had opened the refrigerator door and examined the contents. He or she had moved the jar of mustard a half inch to the left. David wondered if anything had been found there.

The threats were still in the silverware drawer, curled up against the spoons. The tracker could have found them and recorded their contents. David imagined the faceless tracker crouched over them, transcribing their contents into a notebook and then gathering them carefully, putting the sugar threat back into its plastic baggie, realigning the staples perfectly. David placed the stapled baggie in another baggie. Somewhere out there, he knew, there was an advertising salesperson who had updated “bag” to become “baggie” to make it more appealing to the baggie-buying class, which had once included David’s wife.

Franny’s cardboard box was on the kitchen counter. The edges had lost their shape when he crushed them against his chest on the trip home. He couldn’t determine the age of Franny’s aesthetician’s license photo but decided it was about ten years old, judging by her hairstyle. He folded it once and put it in his robe pocket. He took a closer look at the receipt that had been taped behind the frame and found words typed over the page:

David thought of Franny paying for a threat with a five-dollar bill and receiving seventy-nine cents in return. He thought of her pink wallet with the clasp, and he slipped the receipt into the sandwich bag with the other threat and put it into his pocket with Franny’s aesthetician’s license.

It seemed best that he not make any sudden moves that might alert the tracker, in case he or she was still watching. He boiled water, stirred cinnamon into the pot, poured the mixture into a mug, and took it to check the rest of the house.

Whoever had been there went upstairs as well. The tracker had taken fiber samples from the carpet where it began again at the top of the stairs. David could tell that things had been disturbed.

Items from the bathroom counter had been collected. One of Franny’s travel-size bottles of hair product was open in the sink, leaking down the drain. David wished he had photographed the area before leaving the house. The water in his mug bloated the cinnamon. David watched the water rolling over the dark texture of the spice. He tipped back the cup and allowed the wet lump of cinnamon to roll into his mouth. It was like eating a hot slug.

“David,” someone called from downstairs. The slug quit its progression down David’s throat. He coughed to dislodge it, coughed again, swallowed.

“David? Are you up there?” asked the voice. It was a man’s voice, and one David didn’t recognize. Someone had been in the house all along. David thought of the dumb fact of it as he walked to the stairwell and leaned around the corner.

A balding man stood at the base of the stairs. He wore a brown sweater over a collared shirt and tie, which made him look very much like David’s middle school vice principal. The man had one hand on the staircase rail and the other resting protectively on his stomach.

“David, it’s Ted,” the man said at the same moment that David realized it was Ted, his old friend Ted, the one who started fires, whose parents allowed him to prop a wide board over the curb at his house so Ted and David and Samson could speed down and into the street on their bicycles.

“Ted. You came.”

“Sorry, we let ourselves in. The back door was open. We had to chase some woman with a camera out of the kitchen. Hey, what’s going on here?”

Samson came forward to stand next to Ted at the base of the stairs. “Those people have been there for hours,” he said. “We figured they didn’t belong. Someone broke the window over your kitchen table. I took it off the tracks for you.”

“Thanks, Samson. How are you?”

“You’ll need to get some plywood to patch it up,” Samson said. “I looked for some in the garage, but there was a woman in there who told me to get out.”

“We’ve been here a while too,” Ted said. He was holding a folded newspaper.

“At least we were invited,” said Samson.

“What’s going on?” David asked.

“Asked you that.” Ted shrugged. “Apparently, your house was on the news. I missed it.”

“So those are people who watch the news,” Samson said. “I’ve always wondered what they look like.”

“Too much happening to watch the news,” Ted said. “It’s too depressing.”

“They seemed like nice enough people,” Samson said.

“A murder here, a suicide there,” said Ted. “Who can take it? Nurses at the trauma ward all, ‘Somebody else died. Call the paper.’”

“But they seemed real nice,” Samson said.

“It’s strange how many people could come out on a Tuesday afternoon,” David said. “Why would they all take off work, pull their kids out of school?”

“It’s Sunday,” Ted said. “Church crowd.”

David considered the progression of days.

“I fixed that dripper in your bathroom,” Samson said. “Thing needed a new washer; I had one in the truck. Nothing better to do. You should get a television.”

“I got your note in the mail,” Ted said. “Then Samson called and we figured we’d come over right away.”

“A friend in need,” Samson said.

“Why don’t you come on down? We’re having some beers in the sitting room.”

Samson, who had been holding his beer at his waist, brought it up and took a drink. “Been too long,” he said, resting his hand on his belly, rubbing the spot. David came down the stairs and accepted a beer from Ted. The tourists outside were starting to lose interest in the house. A couple took off, walking up the street with their cameras. David watched them leave from the front window.

The men drank their beers. “One of those kids sold me a paper,” Ted said. “Missing a sports section, though. Strange people for strange times. I’ll tell you, I’ve never seen so many strange people come into the dealership. Used to be, we’d get a wild-eyed man come in talking about buying a car, we’d call the police before he could kick a single tire. These days, it’s all you see. Man yelling on prices while his woman stands outside with the kids. It’s getting harder to part a fool and his money, or maybe they’re all fools now.”

“I come to houses where the pipes are all messed up,” Samson said. “These guys try to fix it themselves. They get online and read about it. The DIY guys aren’t new, but it’s the consistency of it these days. A woman last week broke the bowl clean in half trying to pry out her kid’s toy with a crowbar. She actually had a crowbar in there.” He looked at David. “Ever put a crowbar in a toilet?”

“No,” David said.

“You’re all right,” Samson said.

“How long has it been?” said Ted. “Millie’s nearly nine now, and I know you haven’t been over since she was a baby.”

“Nine years,” said David.

“Tell you, that girl’s the light of my life.”

“There’s a special place in heaven reserved for the fathers of girls,” Samson said.

“Thanks, Sam.”

“A crowbar. Incredible. Sometimes I want to fix plumbing problems and keep them from becoming a real nightmare, you know? I can see something’s falling apart. I’m a professional.”