Please Don't Go (29 page)

She was being silly, and so were her thoughts.

Jackie shifted herself in reverse, backpedaling as she examined the exterior of the house. Around the left side was a greenhouse, the very same one that Zephyr had mentioned. A pang of curiosity filled her. Had the greenhouse been an overflowing goblet of red wine, she may have said something akin to, “when in Rome.” She tread through the darkness, examining the shadowy greenhouse beneath the moonlight. It was hard to make out the inside of the structure, but she could see a distinct diffusion of the moonlight through the topside of it, implying a crippled surface. She could not be absolutely certain, but it seemed there was something amiss with the glass, enough so to at least partially validate Zephyr’s story of the explosive overhead glass and raining destruction.

The crickets chirruped behind her, louder now, dancing in the scattered woods that surrounded the secluded property. It was the ideal piece of land for a hermit such as Rattup. Not a neighbor to be heard for miles, nor seen. With a careful and detailed living schedule, one could go years—decades even—without laying eyes upon another living soul. It was the perfect retirement cottage, away from the hub-bub troubles of life. In that, she appreciated the absent Charles Rattup, but pitied his vapid existence of lonesomeness in the same breath. How could one loathe the company of man so much as to segregate himself from that misfortune until the end of his days? People weren’t
that
bad. Stupid, but not evil. Perhaps this antisocial gene lived inside of Zephyr as well, a brand of universal hermitage that permeated the heart of every writer and vagrant.

Of course, Zephyr was
no writer
. She had never fathomed such bold guts to tell him that, but felt that he was doomed to mediocrity with the rest of the slavish cogs of literature. He was destined to publish a short story or two later in life, in less respected journals than she would ever care to mention to friends or family. It stood with the annals of time that he would simmer in the world’s disinterest in his Great American Novel, which was always at the tip of his diseased fingers, always at the back of his mind, beneath all the other rubbish that stopped him from gargantuan erections and total awareness, right next to his potential alcohol problem, right on top of his love for reality television. She found a dose of pride in his passion for something non-standard in the way of a hobby, and had those same inclinations herself. Jackie, she had once decided in a moment of unexpected and overwhelming confidence, could have been a decent writer if she had applied herself and worked at certain niches of the craft. Zephyr, on the other hand, would never write anything more important than a to-do list of household chores. It felt cruel for Jackie to think such thoughts, but she could not escape the razor truth of those impulses.

She inched her way through trifling darkness once again, coming back to the front of the house. Jackie gave three more thumps upon the door, telling herself, “This is it. Last chance, if you’re even in there.”

Rattup’s home had been a shot in the dark. A pipe dream at best.

Zephyr was gone.

To a place that better fit him, enjoying the rapture of life.

Jackie thought of what she would tell his mother, the nasty nag Lana. She had a way of carrying herself over the phone that made Jackie’s skin crawl. She fought against every prospect that her eventual self would end up as hypocritical and shallow as Lana, of grinding her nose where it did not belong and making those around her miserable for misery’s sake. Perhaps this mysterious evacuation of Zephyr from the world would be a blessing in that sense, assuming he was still alive and that they would not one day drag his withered wrinkled body from a lake or a pond or a loosely packed grave at the side of a railroad. Having Lana stripped from her existence would be just fine. Sure, she loved Zephyr and would miss him with all of her heart, but there were far too many trivialities that came with that passion.

“
What am I thinking?” she said out loud, punishing herself for such a brash mentality.

Their flame had burst into existence out of nowhere, and overnight. Jackie coached herself on a regular interval that
this is not how love occurs
, but found little evidence to end the path that they had been straddling upon. They had both fought the rapid frenzied pace of things, but were more entwined with their love than the reality of that love. Reality, since then, had come crashing down upon them.
Zephyr may have been thinking the same thing
, thought Jackie, which would explain why he took off, with or without the old man.

All men leave, in the end. All men leave. Zephyr had always been one to pull the trigger on his romantic impulses earlier than most, or so he had claimed to Jackie early in their courtship.

Jackie was unsure whether she genuinely missed Zephyr, or if she missed the
idea
of him, which seemed nothing short of a maddening cliche. She wondered if he felt the same, wherever the hell he was.

Inside the house, Zephyr bit his lip, disgusted by the controlling entity writhing upon him. A giggle escaped his pained gasps for air and he felt an immense guilt wash over his trembling body.

Jackie slid into the seat of her car, turning on the headlights, which bathed the side of Charles Rattup’s home. She wished that she could wipe Zephyr away from her life, wished that things were just that easy. She wished also that she could kiss him, to hold his panting breath against her chest, to whisper in his ear that he was just fine, that nobody could hurt him any longer. The boy inside the man. The man inside the boy. They were one in the same.

She turned her headlights off.

She turned them on again.

One final time, she turned them off and pulled from the driveway with blinded abandon. Looking to the house of Rattup, she felt as if she were saying goodbye, but could not find the words to express that hidden notion. Pulling her cell phone from her jacket pocket, she dialed Lana to inform her of the cold trail in Zephyr’s disappearing act.

5.

Trent Gallows had been delivering mail to the Rattup home for more than seven years, and in that time he had never met the man, though he had once heard his voice reverberating through the door. Trent had gathered stories from postmen who had once been stationed the route. They claimed that Charles Rattup was a “total freak-show,” that he had not seen the glorious light of day in decades. One particularly well-versed postman by the name of Clive had even gone so far as to compare Rattup to that of Miss Havisham from Dickens’
Great Expectations.
The reference had fallen on deaf ears with Gallows, but upon looking up the name in Wikipedia, he accepted that yes, that was a fitting analogy.

“
I’ll kill myself. WHERE WILL THAT LEAVE YOU THEN?” Rattup had once asked in a booming voice. There was a distress in his tone, Trent noted, as though the man was on the brink of big salty tears or a total nervous breakdown.

Trent had left the slot ajar, guilty that he was eavesdropping but fascinated to hear the recluse’s vocal meandering for the first time. He had often wondered whether Charles Rattup even existed; that possibly he had died years (or decades) earlier, that maybe nobody had found his rotting stinky body yet. He had never seen a single glimpse of the man, which was odd for any resident on a route, even more so given that he was always at home, several feet away, through the walls. But a stranger all the same. “I’ll take my life, you miserable sow. I’ve nothing to live for, anyway. You’ve killed all my pleasure and I cannot bear it!” Rattup shouted in frustration. It was safe for Trent to assume that he had been talking on the phone with a woman, but his words relating to a potential suicide gave Trent pause... was this the sort of outlying event that he should report back to his supervisors? Was it any of his business? “Oh, really? You would never stick to such a plan. You’d make me promises and turn on me the moment I was comfortable. I’ll never underestimate your ability to pull on my heart strings.
Insufferable cunt
,” said the man in the house. Trent had started to ease up on the mail slot and it creaked from a lack of oil.

“
What?” Rattup had asked the voice on the other end of his phone. “He’s listening?
Who
?”

Footsteps came scampering as Trent let the slot settle into its home position. He backed away from the door. “Who’s there?” shouted the voice of Rattup from the other side.

Trent had said nothing, backing away like a red-handed thief.

“
State your business!” Rattup had growled. Had he not looked down at the bundle of mail that had come through the slot only moments earlier? Trent paused, unsure whether he should make his identity known. Why was he feeling so goddamned guilty about this? He had only been doing his damn job, after all. His hand had been in the proverbial cookie jar. Snooping was not a virtue in any line of work.

“
It’s the mailman,” Trent had said in a booming voice, holding his chest out, fully expecting the door to swing open to reveal Rattup standing there in his moment of suicidal madness.

“
I see.” He had whispered something to the person he had been speaking to on his phone. Then he addressed Trent again, “My friend says that you were listening in on us. You’re a nosy son of a bitch, aren’t you?”

Confused by the allegation, Trent had piped up in defense, “I’m sorry, sir, but that’s not the case at all. I was just doing my job. Delivering your mail, like I have for years.”

“
Is he lying to us? Is he a spy?” Rattup had asked his phone caller, quiet enough for Trent to have heard him, but just above a whisper. Rattup had then spoken up, “You don’t belong here. Deliver your mail and be gone, if you know what’s good for you. I’ll cut your fucking ears off if you eavesdrop on matters that are not your own.” The threat had been delivered without warning, and Trent fought the urge to lash out at the man, withheld by the fear that he would lose his comfortable and well-paying job in a heartbeat. His wife and toddler daughter needed him to provide for them, as was the duty of many men, modern or otherwise. Under most circumstances, he would have fought back against such cantankerous words. In the end, the old man
had
been right about his listening in. It was not proper etiquette for him to eavesdrop, no matter the subject or situation. There were direct US Postal Service violations in his activities, of both written and unwritten codes of deliverymen. “This house is cursed, and you would be wise to consider that when you go sticking your ears or nose or tongue or dick through our mail slot, Mister Gallows.”

As if a higher power had flipped a switch, it started to rain, suddenly pummeling Trent’s shoulders like miniature bricks.

How had the son of a bitch behind the closed door known his name?
“I’m sorry, sir,” Trent had said, feeling an overwhelming dread spill over his body, as though a dead angel was flapping its wings above him. Why did he feel this way? Under normal circumstances, he would have wanted to beat Rattup’s face in.
How had Rattup know his name
?

He had scampered away like a child who had just broken his Daddy’s favorite bowling trophy.

Since that day, Trent had worked his hardest to trade away the route to co-workers, none of whom would take the tainted deal; echoes of similar stories forever circulated in the back rooms and gossip channels of their workplace. Nowadays, when he approached the Rattup home, he did so just short of a jogging pace. He would pull up the slot, jam the mail through with the mad motion that came with breathless focus, and hop back to his delivery truck in less than thirty seconds. He had it down to such a science that it didn’t seem like a part of his day, that in recollection at the end of a shift he could not even remember the Rattup home, as if it were blocked from his memory like a victim of rape may do.

***

Zephyr rose from the mattress, feeling in an instant that he was not held in place by the sailor’s knot, that she was away from him for a sliver of a moment. She had faded into the walls and floorboards, consumed by something else in the home, allowing him some level of freedom, which was altogether unexpected. When he had that freedom, or so he had been warned, he was still to abide by her stringent rules. Were he to try and escape, she would find him, so much seemed certain. “Hello?” he asked the air with a crackle in his dry blistered voice. Thoughts of the night before came grinning back at him and he felt sick to his stomach, doubling over in disbelief of the foggy dreams that lay behind him, taunting his very sanity. She had punished him and destroyed his free will.

Demoralized.
Broken.

Snapped like a twig beneath her heel.

He inched from Rattup’s (although maybe it was better to now call it
his
) bedroom, peeping around the corner into the back hallway that led to the greenhouse. “Hello?” he asked of the ordinary air around him, his wavering voice hidden in the depths of his shallow breathing. He braced himself for her taunting grip that he had felt multiple times upon his tender flesh, digging into him for purchase like a mountain climber coming to the top of a craggy ridge. “You there, bitch?” he called out, provoking her to take action. It was not a usual part of his vernacular to cuss, but the word felt all too fitting for her.