Bentley Little - The Mailman

He pushed the thought from his mind as he walked back toward the house.

He threw the torn scraps of paper into the garbage before going inside.

The town had seemed nearly abandoned the other day when they'd gone to the store, with very few cars on the street, very few people visible anywhere, so Doug was more than a little surprised to see a crowd gathered in the parking lot in front of the deli. He had been planning to go to the hardware store, to pick up some more flashlight and radio batteries before they were all sold out, but he pulled into theBayless parking lot when he saw the crowd. He parked next to a gray Jeep Cherokee and got out. The group of people standing in front of the deli was fairly quiet and fairly still, but there was something threatening about them as they stood in a rough semicircle around Todd Gold's station wagon.

Doug moved forward. He recognized the faces of several students and several adults. They appeared to be waiting for something, and although there was nothing unusual in either their individual expressions or stances, merely being part of the crowd made them seem menacing.

Todd came out of his store, carrying a large white box. He put the box into the open rear of the station wagon, next to a score of others that had already been packed. He slammed shut the hatch. Doug pressed through the group of people to the front as the deli owner angrily waved the onlookers away. "Get the hell out of here. Haven't you done enough already?"

The crowd stood dumbly, silently watching as he went into the store, emerged carrying several sacks, then closed and locked the now empty deli. "Get out of here," he yelled again. He dropped one of the sacks on the ground as he took out his car keys.

Doug reached him just before he opened the front door. "What is it, Todd?

What happened? What are you doing?"

The storekeeper glared angrily at Doug. "I at least expected better from you. Some of these rednecks" -- he waved a dismissive hand toward the crowd "I can understand. They've never seen a Jew before, don't know what to do or how to handle it, but you . . ."

Doug stared at him, confused. The man seemed to be talking gibberish.

"What are you talking about?"

"What am I talking about? What am I talking about? What the hell do you think I'm talking about?" The storekeeper dropped a sack of mail onto his seat and began sorting through it furiously, picking up envelopes, tossing them aside, until he found what he wanted. He held it up. "Look familiar?"

Doug shook his head dumbly. "No."

"No?" Todd read the letter aloud. " 'You Christ-killing kike, we're tired of your greasy fingers touching our fish and meat and food. How would your sheenywife like a nice white cock up her ass?' "

Doug stared, stunned. "You don't think I --"

"Oh, you're telling me you didn't do it?"

"Of course I didn't!"

Todd looked down at the paper, reading. " 'Why don't I feed your wife some real knockwurst?' "

"Todd . . ." Doug said.

The storekeeper spat on the ground at Doug's feet. The expression on his face was one of intense hatred, a hatred borne of betrayal, and Doug knew that there was nothing he could say or do that could repair the damage that had been done, that could convince the storekeeper he had had nothing to do with this.

"Baby!" someone in the crowd yelled. "Crybaby!"

Doug looked up to see who had made the comment, but the faces all seemed to blur together. He noticed now that although the people were silent, they were by no means passive observers. There was anger on several faces, along with the ugly ignorant shadow of bigotry.

"Jewpussy," a man yelled.

"Go back to where you came from," a woman called.

Todd dropped the letter in the back seat and got into the car. He started the engine, put on his seat belt, and looked up at Doug. "I expected better from you," he said. "I hope you're happy."

"I'm on your side," Doug said, but the car was already backing up, turning around. Someone in the crowd threw a rock, and the rock hit the back fender of the departing station wagon, bouncing off. The car pulled onto the street, rounded the corner, and was gone.

Doug looked into the empty store and saw only the reflection of the crowd in the mirror. He saw faces he didn't know on people he knew. He saw people he didn't want to know at all.

He turned around.

"You're on his side?" a man said, demanded.

Doug held up his middle finger. "Fuck off," he said. He walked slowly back toward the car.

35

Tritia lay staring up into the darkness, needing to go to the bathroom but afraid to get out of bed. He was out there, she knew. Somewhere close. She had heard earlier the low quiet sound of his engine approaching and then cutting off, but she had not heard it start up again. She knew she should wake Doug, but he'd been so tense lately, under so much stress, and had had such a difficult time falling asleep that she didn't want to disturb him.

Upstairs, Billy's bed creaked as he shifted restlessly in his sleep. He had been nervous and anxious the past two days, ever since they'd left him home when they went to the store, and she was worried about him. He was becoming ever more secretive. Once again, something was bothering him that he refused to discuss with them, and though she was trying to be patient and understanding, it was hard not to feel frustrated with his lack of cooperation.

The pressure between her legs increased. She would have to go to the bathroom soon. There were no two ways around that. And she would have to decide whether or not to wake Doug. He snored softly next to her, his breathing rough and irregular, and she found herself thinking for some reason of sleepapnia , a disease in which the sleeping brain forgot to work the involuntary functions of the body, and a person stopped breathing and his heart stopped beating and he never woke up.

Stop it, she told herself. You're just being crazy.

The pressure increased yet again. She recalled with terrifying clarity the dream she'd had the night before. A dream in which she'd gone into the bathroom to take a bath and had lain in the warm sudsy relaxing water only to find that the mailman's body was beneath her. A hand had reached up from the bubbles to silence her scream as his burning organ entered her from behind.

She reached over and cautiously nudged her husband. "Doug?" she said softly.

"What?" He jerked awake, instantly alert, instantly on the defensive.

"I'm afraid to go to the bathroom alone," she said apologetically. "Would you come with me?"

He nodded, and even in the dark she could see the circles under his eyes.

He stumbled out of bed, pulled on his robe, and they walked to the bathroom together. From the kitchen came the low sound of the refrigerator humming.

Tritia reached around the corner, found the switch, and flipped on the bathroom light. Sitting on the covered seat of the toilet was a white envelope.

"Oh, I left that there," Doug said quickly, picking it up, hiding it. But Tritia knew instantly with a feeling of terror that he had never seen the envelope before. She had been the last person to use the bathroom, just before going to bed, and there had been no mail in the bathroom at all.

_He'd been inside the house_.

"Check Billy," she ordered, running down the hall, through the kitchen.

She was panicked, gasping for breath. She saw in her mind her son's empty bed, covers thrown aside, an envelope on his pillow containing a ransom note . . . or something worse.

_Billy's nice too Billy's nice too. . . ._

They ran crazily, Doug following her lead, up the steps to the loft.

Where Billy, alone, was fast asleep.

She had never really understood what a sigh of relief was, though she had read the phrase often enough in novels, but she breathed a sigh of relief now, an exhalation of the air she had been holding in her lungs as she prepared herself for the worst. Her eyes met Doug's, and both of them began silently searching through the loft to make sure the mailman wasn't hiding anywhere.