"Just because you're paranoid. . .
doesn't mean they're not after you."
doesn't mean they're not after you."
My Mailman, My Enemy by Patrick Cooper
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He put a spider in
my mailbox again. Third time now.
I don’t know why
the mailman chose Frances and me as the targets of his morbid game. It would be
nice to get my mail without putting gloves on. That’s a small luxury I miss.
The last time he
did it, I was watching through the blinds. I saw him do it: the mailman. He
opened my mailbox, put the mail inside, then reached back into his satchel and got
a spider. He placed the spider carefully inside and closed it up again. It was
difficult to tell from this distance, but I’m fairly certain he was smiling
when he drove off. Grinning broad and devilish.
This third spider
was cowering in the back shadow of the mailbox when I opened it. He didn’t
attack like the others, so I snapped a Polaroid and looked him up online. It
was a “hobo spider.” According to my cursory research, there’s no evidence that
a hobo spider’s bite leads to dermal necrosis. I filed this information in my
brain and took the hose and sprayed him out of the mailbox. Crushed him under
my slipper and left his corpse there as a warning to other spiders.
My neighbor Karen doesn’t
believe me. I asked her if the mailman had ever put a spider in her mailbox too.
She said, “This is Florida. Spiders get in everywhere.” She looked at me
sideways, wary of my presence.
See, I don’t leave
the house much anymore. Not since Frances died. Now Frances, she would’ve
believed me. If she hadn’t hung herself from the pine tree on the front lawn
last November, she would’ve had my back on this.
Frances didn’t
leave a note, so everyone assumes I drove her to suicide. That’s not true,
though. It was the mailman. He’s been playing games with us for years and
Frances, she just couldn’t take it anymore. Me, I’m too much of a coward to
kill myself. So I just keep finding spiders in the mailbox. I’ve covered the
front room in tin foil, though. So the mailman can’t hear my thoughts anymore. It’s
a good first step towards a solution, I think.
The second step is
the explosive. Before the spiders, before the mailman started listening to my
thoughts, I was a chemistry professor. I know certain things about making
reactions to cause others pain. The mailman doesn’t know about this because
I’ve never thought about it when he’s near. I keep my mind clear, almost like a
meditation. Or, I repeat a nursery rhyme in my head. “Solomon Grundy,” that’s a
favorite of mine.
I changed out of
my slippers and robe and walked to the hardware store. I don’t drive anymore.
Cars aren’t safe. The mailman, he drives a Grumman Long Life Vehicle, or
Grumman LLV. That’s what the postal carrier cars are actually called. Did you
know that?
Having buried my
debit and credit cards months ago next to the septic tank, I paid for the
sulfuric acid in cash. The other materials needed for the device I already had lying
around the house. The trigger mechanism was easy to build—just a few simple
wires attached to the mailbox’s latch. I won’t go into detail about how I made
the rest, because now that I’m awaiting trial, the investigators will surely
read this. I have to leave some details out so they have something to
investigate. It’s in their job title, after all.
Under the light of
the moon, I rigged the mailbox, wearing gloves and goggles, biting my tongue in
concentration. It was a thing of beauty, what I made. Such a damn shame nobody
would understand it but the mailman and me.
I paced in front
of the window all afternoon, wearing a path in the carpet. He typically comes
some time between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. Must’ve been running late that day. It was close
to Mother’s Day, the busiest mail holiday of them all. That could be why. Or
maybe he was off in the woods, collecting more spiders. The evil bastard.
Sunlight reflected
through the blinds, off of the tin foil stapled to the walls. “Solomon Grundy,
born on a Monday, christened on Tuesday…”
There it is, the
familiar squeal of the Grumman LLV’s brakes. Sounds like two houses down now.
“Married on Wednesday, took ill on Thursday…”
The brakes, louder
now. My heartbeat drummed in my ear. “Worse on Friday, died on Saturday…”
What’s taking him
so long? My neighbor must have a package. He had to bring it to the door. Wait,
here he comes now. “Buried on Sunday, this is the end…”
Hello, my enemy. My
mailman. That’s it, reach for it. Open the latch. “Of Solomon Grundy.”
The sulfuric acid
shot out of its plastic container inside the mailbox like a righteous punch
from God himself. The scream the mailman gave was like that of an animal being
torn in half. It was glorious.
The tail of my
robe whipped behind me as I ran outside. The first thing that struck me was the
smell. My God, the smell. He had fallen out of the Grumman LLV and was
thrashing on the ground. Blood poured out of his flesh as it bubbled and
cracked. Honestly, it worked out better than I thought.
I’m not sure which
neighbor called 911, but I bet it was Karen, the sanctimonious bitch who never
believed a word I said about the mailman and the spiders. I tried to explain it
to the officers, but they wouldn’t listen. Before one of them put me in a
choke hold, he said: “It’s Florida! Spiders get in everywhere!”
