Mail-Order Death

                                                                  Mail-Order Death


         As he flipped through the cards on the rack James couldn't understand why they didn't seem to make a single decent card for older people's birthdays.  His grandmother was seventy-three years old for god's sake, why would they put monkeys or cute little puppies on a card for someone like that?  No elderly person he had ever known had expressed an interest in monkeys.  A few of the cards just had flowers or birds on them and eventually he settled for a hummingbird with it's beak inside a perennial.  If he remembered right the last time he had actually visited his grandmother she had a hummingbird feeder hanging on her porch out back, although that was over a year ago.  With a sigh of dissatisfaction he slid the accompanying envelope out of the rack and headed for the checkout counter.
         After he had finished scribbling a fairly generic message into the card and sealed it in the red envelope he leaned over and popped open the glove box.  At some point he had stashed a partial sheet of stamps in there, he just needed to find them.  After some digging and shuffling he found them and pulled them out.  As he peeled one off and affixed it on the corner of the envelope he hoped they hadn't raised the price of stamps again since he bought these.  James slid the envelope into the visor above the passenger seat and drove off to find a mailbox to drop it in.
         Off the top of his head he couldn't think of where any mailboxes were.  If he wanted the card to arrive at his grandmother's on time it had to go out today and by the time he was done with his errands and got home the mailman would have already come.  His only hope was to cruise around until one of those blue boxes turned up somewhere.  As the he came to a stop at the red light it suddenly came to him: the old mall.
         The River Hills mall had been closed and empty for the better part of three years but he knew they had a mailbox in the middle of the east parking lot.  James knew this because for years he had made it a point to park right next to it and discretely stuff it with fast food wrappers that accumulated on the floor of his car.  Today however he needed to use it for what it was intended and he whispered a little prayer that they still picked mail up there since the mall was dead.  It was worth a try.
         Pulling into the parking lot of the mall was like pulling into a different world.  The cracked and faded concrete was a stark contrast to the month old asphalt James just turned off of.  The lamp poles that stood every thirty feet along the length of the lot had given up their gleaming silver finish for something more brown and textured.  Even the building itself seemed tired and ready to lay down and die.  Right in the middle of all of the desolation was the blue mailbox.
         As James pulled up to the mailbox he noticed that the sign on the front of it outlining the pickup times looked new which he took as a good indication that the box was  indeed still in service.  He dropped the car in parked and leaned over to pull the card out of the visor.  After he had the card he turned toward his window and nearly screamed out loud.  From out of nowhere a man had appeared between his car and the mailbox.  James immediately figured the guy for homeless due in no small part to the man's mangy beard and long coat that clearly hadn't been washed in years, if ever.  The man was leering at James with a look that was chilling and pathetic at the same time.
         “Um, can I help you with something sir?”, James asked.
         “Don't suppose y'all got any change floating 'round in there”, the man said half asking half begging.
         “You know, I don't actually.  I use my debit card for everything so I don't get change.”
         “Y'all got some empty cans maybe?  Cans is good for money.”
         “Uh, yeah I think I might have a few laying in the trunk.”
         James was hesitant to get out of the car, god knows what this loony was capable of, but he also knew it would be the only way to get rid of the man.  Homeless people were nothing if not persistent.  He undid his seat belt and reached for the door handle but the man beat him to it and opened the door for him.
         “Lemme help y'all with that door friend”, the man said with a tone as creepy as his face.
         “Thank-you”, James replied more nervous than sincere.
         Once he was out of the car James slid the card into his back pocket and started toward the trunk.
         “Beautiful day ain't it?”, the man asked.
         “Yeah, I suppose it is.”           
         James stuck the key into the lock and popped open the trunk.  Mixed in with the spare tire and tire iron were five or six empty beer cans.  He scooped them up as he eyed the tire iron thankful it was there just in case.  He turned to the man, who was chewing on the sleeve of his coat for some reason, and handed over the cans.  The man took them and individually placed them into various pockets between his coat and his pants.
         “I sure do appreciate it friend”, the man smiled at James.
         “So whatcha doin' here anyways?  Mall's closed ya know.”
         “Yeah, I know that.  I just had to use the mailbox there”, James said as he pulled the envelope out of his pocket.
         The man's eyes seemed to get a little bigger as they followed James back to the mailbox.  James looked at his watch a moment and then grasped the door on the top of the mailbox.  Just as he was about to drop the envelope inside the man suddenly grabbed onto his wrist and pulled it back.
         “What the hell, let go of my arm!”, James said as he tried to wrangle his arm away.
         “Y'all can't be putting that in there”, the man said as he gave James his arm back.
         “Why not?  It's a mailbox and I've got something to mail.”
         “Y'all can't put that in there”
         “Again, why not?  Why can't I mail my card?”
         “'Cause the stamp's on upside down”, the man said coldly.
         “So what.  I'm pretty sure the mailman will still take it”, James responded.
         “Yeah he'll take it but you don't want him to.”
         James sighed at the absurdity of the argument.  He just wanted to mail his card and be on his way.
         “Look sir, I have things to do so I'm just going to mail my card and be on my way.”  James turned back toward the mailbox.
         “Friend, if you mail that you gonna be sorry.”
         “Alright, look”, James snapped, “either tell me exactly what the problem is or give me my damn cans back and I'll go somewhere else.”
         “Alright, alright”, the man said as he put his hands protectively over the cans in his pockets.
         “This box is cursed, it's bad.”, the man said with what might have been fear in his eyes.
         “What the hell does that mean, cursed?  Cursed how?”
         “If y'all mail a letter with an upside down stamp on it from this box then whoever gets that there letter is gonna die.”
         “Die?!?  From an upside down stamp?  Sir, are you drunk right now?”
         “Yes I is, but that don't matter.  I'm telling y'all, ya mail that and whoever gets it's gonna die”
By now James was getting really irritated.  He still had errands to run and he didn't want to be wasting time with a drunken vagrant. 
         “Suppose I believe you.  Why do they keep this mailbox here then?  Wouldn't they just get rid of it if it was so dangerous?”
         “They don't know.  They never put it together.  Too many letters goin' out to keep track of.”
         “Well then how do you know that it's cursed?”
The man's eyes fell to the ground as a look washed over his face that was something between guilt and sorrow.
         “I've had experience with what happens, just trust me.”
James couldn't help but wonder what the man meant by that.  Had he sent a letter to someone that died?  Even if he had what could that possibly have to do with the mailbox it was sent from?  As James watched the man steady his balance on the car it occurred to him what it must be.  This man sent someone a letter and that person died and since this man was clearly a drunk he must have blamed himself and concocted the “mailbox curse” thing to ease his guilt.  In a way James felt sorry for the man.
         “Listen sir, I really have to be going.  I do appreciate your concern, though.  Look, I have a ten dollar bill in my wallet I keep for emergencies.  I want you to take it and get yourself a bite to eat, maybe a drink.”
         James reached behind him and produced his wallet.  As he opened it the man held up his hand.
         “I don't want your cash, friend.  Y'all been kind enough with the cans.  I'll leave y'all to yourself, just think 'bout what I said 'bout that box”
         With a heavy sigh the man turned and started staggering across the empty parking lot.  James watched him for a moment not sure what to make of the whole encounter.  What the man said was ridiculous but at the same time he was so serious.  And when he talked about his “experience” with the mailbox he seemed genuinely distressed.  Still, it was all too crazy to give anymore thought to. 
         James glanced at the card in his hand for a moment.  He hadn't even realized he had put the stamp on upside down until the man pointed it out to him.  He ran his finger over the stamp a few times and shook his head.  He had never been late getting his grandmother her card and this year wasn't going to be any different.  James opened the door on the mailbox, hesitated for only an instant, and dropped the card inside.
         By the time James got home later that night the mailbox curse was almost entirely gone from his mind.  He had pondered it for a while but eventually he scolded himself for even entertaining such a stupid idea and promptly forgot about.  After he went inside and took off his coat he headed to the refrigerator and got out a beer.  He wasn't much of a drinker but today had been nothing but running all over town for various things and he just wanted to relax.  As he plopped down into his chair and twisted the cap off of his beer he picked up the remote and turned on the news.  By the time the weather forecast was over he had finished the beer and was ready to finish the day.  With a yawn and a good stretch he got up, turned off the TV, and went off to bed.
         James was at the table eating his Salisbury steak Hungry Man dinner, which was burnt in some spots and still frozen in others, when the clock in the living room started chiming.  He glanced down at his watch and frowned at the time.  It had been three days since he mailed the card to grandma which meant that she should have gotten it this morning.  Every year she would call him within ten minutes of opening the card to gush about what a lovely grandson he was and how much she loved him.  This year though it was already four in the afternoon and she hadn't called.  He started to wonder if maybe that mailbox wasn't in service after all and maybe he should try calling her. 
         After he choked down the last bite of frozen corn he got up to head to the phone.  He was about ten feet from it when it suddenly rang.  He exhaled a sigh of relief as he picked up the receiver.
         “Hello?”
         “James, it's Grandpa”
         “Oh, hi grandpa.  I thought it would be grandma calling about her card”
         “That's why I'm calling son.  Grandma passed away this morning.”
With those words the phone slid out of James' hand and fell to the floor.  His grandmother had been the only mother he knew after his real mother ran off with that truck driver when he was five.  His grandparents raised him from then on and he loved them both very much.  As he fought back his tears he bent down and picked the phone up off the floor.
         “Are you there son?” grandpa asked.
         “Yeah pops, I'm here.  What happened?”
         “Well, your grandma got your card this morning.  She started crying and was getting ready to call you.  She went to use the bathroom and was in there for a long time.  I got worried after a while and went in to check on her.  She was on the floor and wasn't breathing.”
         “Oh my god, grandpa I'm so sorry.”
         “I'm sorry too son.  I know how much you loved you grandmother.”
         “She was the only mom I ever had.”
         “Well, she loved you very much son.  She was very proud of you.”
         “What are you going to do pops?”
         “I'm gonna cry my eyes out and try to move on.  That's all I can do.  I have to go son, your aunt just pulled in and you can imagine how upset she must be.  I'll call you later son, I love you.”
         “I love you too pops.  I'll talk to you later.  Bye.”
         James put the phone back on the hook and fell into his chair.  He was in such shock that he didn't even realize that he had tears pouring down his face.  How could this happen?  Grandma was in perfect health.  She walked two miles everyday and was probably in better shape than he was.  It just wasn't fair.  It didn't make any sense.  And then he remembered the homeless man and the mailbox.
         It couldn't be the mailbox.  There was no such thing as a curse.  And even if there was how could a mailbox of all things be cursed?  At the same time the man did say that with an upside down stamp whoever received it would die.  And now his grandmother was dead on the same day that she received his card.  It couldn't be a coincidence, it was too strange.  So what did that mean, did he believe it could be true?
         James spent all day in his chair rolling it all over in his head.  What if that mailbox really could make people die?  That would mean that he was responsible for his grandmother's death.  The thought was unbearable.  No one would have believed the crazy man's story, anybody would have mailed that card.  As the guilt began to well up inside him he had to know for sure.  He had to know if he had killed his own grandmother.  He had to test the mailbox.
         How could he test the curse?  The only way would be to send a letter to someone but if they did in fact die then that would be two deaths he was responsible for.  There didn't seem to be any real way for him to try it out, and then it occurred to him.  What if he sent a letter to someone that deserved to die?  If it did work then he would actually be doing the world a favor and wouldn't have to feel guilty about it.  But who could possibly deserve to die?
         The other night when James had come home and turned on the news they did a story on a guy who was the leader of a KKK faction here in River Hills.  He was rallying people to damage and harass local businesses that were owned by black people.  This guy sounded like someone that maybe shouldn't be alive, all he did was hurt people.  James got on his computer and started doing a little research.  It seemed this guy was also tied to at least a half dozen physical attacks against people of color.  He really was evil scum.
         Within half an hour James had managed to track down his name and his address.  It was scary what you could find on the Internet but sometimes it was useful.  With the information in hand he set about writing a letter.  It didn't really matter what he wrote since he didn't want to communicate with the scum, he just wanted to test the curse.  So eventually he settled on writing “You're an asshole” onto the paper.  He folded it up and slid it into the envelope upon which he had already placed a stamp, upside down.
         When James pulled into the mall parking lot there was no sign of the homeless man.  In a way he was glad because he didn't want to tell the man that he was right but at the same time a part of him did want to tell him.  If this curse thing was true then it was very admirable that the man had tried to stop him when he didn't have to.  James pulled alongside the mailbox and with no hesitation this time dropped the letter in.  Even if the curse didn't work it felt good to tell this Klansman that he was an asshole.  With the letter dropped he pulled away and headed for home.
         By nine o'clock James was already down four beers.  As strange as that was for him he never thought about it.  He was lost in the concept of the mailbox and what it could mean.  If it really did bring death to people then the power it had was intriguing.  Someone could essentially commit murder with no chance at all of getting caught.  The idea washed over James like a wave of warm bath water.  All the people that had wronged him, all the ones that made fun of his red hair back in school, all of them could be dealt with.  For a moment James understood what it must feel like to be God.  He slammed back one more beer in two gulps and retired to bed with a sea of possibilities swimming in his mind.
         For as long as he lived James would never forget the morning he got out of bed, pulled a beer from the fridge and turned on the news.  As he suckled the bottle the Channel 8 logo on the screen faded into a close up of the news anchor.
         “Today's top story: Daniel Hicks, the Grandmaster of the River Hills chapter of the Ku Klux Klan, was found dead this morning.  Authorities aren't releasing many details but they have said he was found by his wife at his home on Cherry Street  and appears to have died of natural causes.  We will bring you more information as it becomes available.”
         James just stared at the screen for a while.  He was raging with a combination of amazement, fear, and power.  It was true.  The mailbox killed anyone who received a letter with an upside down stamp.  This vile Klansman was dead and it was because of James.  And in a million years of investigating no one would ever know.  The power was intoxicating.  Laughing so hard his eyes teared up, James got up and got another beer from the fridge.
         After his grandmother's funeral the following week James had decided he was ready to use the curse again.  It had seemed strange to him at first, the idea that he was murdering people.  But it wasn't really murder he had told himself, after all he wasn't actually doing any killing.  It was whatever power the mailbox had that was doing the actual deed.  All he was really doing was directing that power in a certain direction.  Somehow that made him feel better about the whole thing.
         This time James decided he would send a letter to the governor, David Wilcox.  Wilcox had recently admitted to a string of affairs after his secretary had come forward as one of his mistresses.  As if that wasn't bad enough he had also been linked to a long running scheme that funneled money out of the fund designed to aid various missions and food pantries throughout town.  The money would become lost in a sea of paperwork and find it's way into the personal accounts of at least eight people involved in the plot.  All of this added up to mean that David Wilcox was a low life crook and James decided that he didn't deserve to live anymore.
         After James had dropped the letter in the mailbox he stopped at the liquor store on the way home.  The beer he had been drinking was making him feel bloated and he wasn't getting the same feeling from it anymore.  He decided on a bottle of Jack Daniels and made his way home.  He thought a few shots and some reheated pizza sounded like the perfect way to round out the day.
         Two days had passed since he mailed the letter to David Wilcox.  The way he figured the timing of the mail Wilcox should have gotten the letter this morning.  James had spent most of the day in his chair watching soap operas until it was time for the news to come on.  Almost as soon as he arrived at channel 8 the story came up. 
         “Ladies and gentlemen,  it is with great sadness that we must report that Governor David Wilcox was found dead in his office this evening.  A preliminary exam by the county coroner suggests that Governor Wilcox suffered a massive heart attack sometime this afternoon and was dead for a number of hours before his newly hired secretary found him around three o'clock.  We will be following this story has it develops.”
         As a wide smile worked its way across his face James raised his shot glass to the TV screen.
         “I hope all the people you ripped off dance on your grave you son of a bitch.”
The smile remained on his face even as he was pouring the shot into his mouth.
         Days went by and James was itching to use the curse again.  At first it had been all about providing justice where it would have otherwise gone absent.  The last few day however he was noticing the craving for the power more than anything.  Every time he turned on the news to see the effects of what he had done he got almost high on the elation he felt over having that kind of effect on the world.  Lesser men prided themselves on their ability to make money or heal the sick but he had the ability to judge who was worthy of life.  A power that had once been the exclusive domain of the Gods was now a power he himself could wield as he saw fit.  And now he was thinking of another soul that needed to be judged.
         Adam Weston had been the varsity quarterback when James was in high school.  Adam was a stellar student and a down right prodigy on the football field.  He was one of those guys that the women were in love with and the men wished they could be.  And he hated James.  Well, maybe he didn't actually hate him but he thought it was hilarious to pick on him relentlessly.  If he wasn't shoving him against his locker for no reason then he was pushing James into the girl's locker room right at the end of gym class.  James couldn't deny that he enjoyed the peek that it gave him of the girls in the shower but he hated the detentions he had to serve for it afterward.  No one would believe that he was pushed in against his will because Adam Weston was a saint and would never do such a terrible thing.
         As James threw back another shot he recalled the feelings he had when he was sitting in detention with every one there thinking he was some kind of a pervert.  Those feeling were not something anyone deserved to feel and it was because of that that Adam Weston deserved to die.  A quickly written note was stuffed into the envelope with an upside down stamp.  This time James decided to do something he hadn't done before.  He filled out the corner of the envelope opposite the stamp with his name and address.  He wanted Adam to read his name so that it would be fresh in his mind as he died.  That was the sweetest revenge James could know.
         After three days there still wasn't anything on the news about Adam being dead.  As disappointed as James was he assumed it must be that Adam simply wasn't a high profile enough person to be featured on the news.  He was just another everyman whose life had gone to early.  Still, James couldn't feel the rush and satisfaction he was becoming addicted to without knowing for a fact that Adam was dead.  He decided that later that afternoon he would go to Adam's house under the pretense of a friendly visit.  There he would hopefully find the streaming tears of a heartbroken widow waiting for him.
         James was staring out the window in kitchen when the mailman pulled up.  He must have seen James standing there because he gave a little honk of the horn as he pulled away from the mailbox.  James grabbed a beer out of the fridge and stepped out the door.  The afternoon was ideal, warm and sunny with just the slightest of breezes.  On the way to the mailbox he had filled his mouth with beer and was letting it soak into his gums.  He swished it around casually as he opened the mailbox and pulled out the one letter inside.  As he turned it over in his hands he saw Adam's name in the center of the envelope and his own name in the top left corner.  Stamped across the front were the words
“Invalid address, return to sender”. 
         Almost before he even finished reading the stamp he began chocking on the beer he had been swishing in his mouth.  He dropped the envelope to the ground and grasped at his throat.  His knees gave out as he struggled for air and soon he was lying face down in the grass.  He finally stopped chocking but he never did start breathing.  As his vision slowly closed in like a tunnel the last thing that he saw was a crazy looking man with a mangy beard and a long dirty coat walking along the sidewalk carrying a bag of empty cans over his shoulder.