The Box of Stuff

It had happened again. This time it was while we were cleaning out our closet when Ana came across the old cardboard box. I had a pile of old t-shirts that I was deciding which would stay and which would become rags when I heard her cry. I turned and saw her on the floor with the box between her legs. The flaps hung open to reveal its stale contents; a jewelry box, a wristwatch, some papers, some books, and other personal belongings. She held a yellowed newspaper clipping in one hand and an eccentric jade necklace in the other.

“I’m sorry,” she whimpered while tears gently rolled down her checks.

I stood silent for probably too long. I never knew what to say. Finally I knelt down in front of her “Honey, it’s okay I know it is hard.”

“Every time I think it will get easier; this time I won’t cry. But it still hurts so much.” Her silent cry turned to sobs “Why does he get to live? Why doesn’t he have to pay for what he did?”

“I don’t know,” I said solemnly and reached over and rubbed her shoulder. “Come on, let’s put this stuff away.”

She nodded slightly as she sniffled and together we put the things back in the box, last being the article that detailed her parent’s tragic end.

Every time this happened I would get a burning inside of me. My poor lovely wife forced to deal with such a horrible experience at such an early age. And the man responsible for her parent’s death lived his life as though nothing ever happened. It was fifteen years ago, my wife was nine, when he killed them. I guess back then they weren’t too sharp on handling drunk drivers. My would-be in-laws were coming back from a formal dinner party when that waste of flesh slammed into them. Of course the drunk goes unscathed while the victims are zipped up and towed away in bags.

~

I tell you it was a strange feeling, almost like a literal switch being flipped. My mind began to work out a plan. More and more the intricate details became clearer as the days went on. I found my work was not getting done as I focused more on my plan. My solution to the box of stuff. Then the day came.

Ana thought I was away on business and I told work there were personal issues that needed to be handled so I needed a week off. Both were only half-lies. I left Atlanta and drove nonstop to Chicago. I only had a week at best so I could not spare a single minute.

He was easy enough to find and I began to watch him. People are such creatures of habit and he was no different. In only three days his routine was detailed in the notepad I kept in the seat beside me. She was absolutely right; he lived his life as though nothing had ever happened. As if he was not responsible for the murder of her parents. He had a wife and child, but the bottle was still more important to him. Drinks after work seemed to be the norm so it was quite easy to snatch him up leaving the bar. I merely hid in the backseat and right before he turned the ignition I laid the tire iron across the back of his head.

I think it took him a minute to understand what was happening as he looked at me with a glazed look through the windshield. His slow blink turned to eyes wide open when he tried to reach for the back of his head and realized he couldn’t. He looked down at the silvery globs where his hands should be on the steering wheel. He jerked frantically against the duct tape, but I had used practically a whole role on his hands alone. Yelling was not an option for the same reason he couldn’t move his hands, feet, or body. I managed to buy plenty of the tape on sale as a handy man special.

After a few minutes of enjoying his struggle, I came around from the front of the car to his window. He jerked away when I reached for his face and sounded off with muted screams. I grabbed his hair with one gloved hand to hold his head still and ripped the strip of tape from his mouth. Instantly he began to yell for help.

“Go ahead, scream and yell all you want,” I told him as I balled the piece of tape up then flicked it at his face.

He looked at me and continued to scream for help. His head jerked side to side looking for help while he screamed. But there was no one around. I was quite proud of myself having found this spot in a strange place on so little sleep. There were no lights on this particular part of the tracks. And his Lincoln fit nicely across them.

I stood with my arms folded and my eyebrows raised and waited patiently until finally he stopped screaming.

“What the hell are you doing?” he yelled.

I slowly shook my head, “In your position, do you think it is best to yell at me?”

His head dropped and he took a deep breath. Without looking up he asked, “What is it you want?”

“I want you to die,” I said nonchalant.

His head jerked around “Why? What did I ever do to you?”

“You are the stone in the pond and I am one of your ripples.”

“What the hell is that suppose to mean?”

“About fifteen years ago you killed a man and a woman.”

At first he looked at me with his face scrunched up, like I was talking in some foreign language, but then his eyes opened. “That was an accident!”

I stepped toward the car and kicked the driver door. “Accident? You chose to drink and drive! How is that an accident?” He just stared at me with his mouth hanging open. “You killed my wife’s parents. You stole her childhood. It is something she has to live with, something she has to deal with everyday. It is something that I have to deal with because it hurts her so.”

“I’m… I’m sorry.”

“No you’re not,” I chuckled. “If you were sorry you wouldn’t still be drinking and driving. If you were sorry you might have come to her and apologized for what you did, begged for forgiveness.” I could feel a vibration under my foot as I stood on the steel rail. I looked at my watch. “No, you’re not sorry, but you’re about to be,” I said as I turned and looked down the track.

We were both silent long enough to hear the rumbling and clanking of the train.

“Please don’t do this! I’ll do anything! I have a wife and son!” he yelled and tears started rolling down his face.

“Oh, you cry now when it’s you who is looking death face on. Did you cry for them? Did you cry for the little girl whose life you changed forever?”

I slowly backed away from the car and watched him begin to thrash against the tape. I looked down the tracks and saw it closing in. The massive serpent of metal wasn’t moving terribly fast, but it rumbled ahead quick enough. When I looked back I was shocked to see that he actually got a hand free. My heart pounded and I kept snapping my attention from the train to the car. Then he got his other hand free. The train was closer. Now his torso. The damn train wasn’t moving fast enough. I inched toward the car not sure what to do. I looked back for him, but he wasn’t there. Franticly I looked around for him and stepped toward the car. There I saw his back jostling as he worked to get his feet free. I was only a couple steps away from the car. Every part of my body throbbed as my heart jolted in my chest. Everything was happening in slow motion, especially the train.

His head popped up and he gave me a look of disdain; he had gotten his feet free. My eyes shot open and my jaw dropped. As he turned for the door the blast from the horn sounded causing me to jerk and snap my attention to the foreboding beast. The brake screeched as the train, deceptively quick, was upon us. Something that big doesn’t seem to move that fast, but it did. Over the horn and the breaks I could hear the horrific sound of him screaming. He had managed to get the door open, but that was all when the train collided with the car and him between the two. Being so close to the impact I stumbled backwards and fell. I stared as the train pushed the wreckage down the tracks creating a wake of sparks, then the car ignited. Once the train and the squeal of the brakes came to a halt I shuddered and began to run.

~

When I returned home I couldn’t sleep. Any moment I didn’t preoccupy my mind the images and the sound of his scream would fill my head. Every time the phone rang, every unexpected knock on the door I would start to sweat. I waited for word to come to Ana from her friends or distant relatives about his demise, but no one seemed to care. Truth was she really didn’t have anybody. I couldn’t wait any longer. I had to tell her, partly because I couldn’t stand to carry this burden by myself any longer, but mostly because I did it for her. I wanted her to know how much I loved her. It was at dinner weeks later that I finally broke down.

“Baby, you’re not eating your dinner. Do you still feel bad?” she asked as she twirled the spaghetti onto her fork.

She looked so sweet and innocent. Her shoulder length curls draped the sides of her soft face. Her round green eyes were set perfectly in her porcelain skin. I couldn’t help but crack a smile as I looked at her.

She sheepishly smiled back “What?”

“I don’t tell you enough how beautiful you are.”

She smiled big then looked down at her plate and shook her head “You are being silly.”

“Really, you are my world. You mean so much to me and I would do anything to make you happy.” I took a deep breath “I would even kill for you.”

She looked at me sideways “That’s a strange thing to say. Most people would say die for you.”

“Oh, and I would die for you, but that would be easier comparatively. There is something I have to tell you.”

“You are starting to scare me.”

“You know the man that killed your parents?”

“Stop, I don’t want to talk about this.”

“No listen. I didn’t go away on business.”

“Don’t tell me this! I don’t want to hear this.”

“I found him and I killed him.”

A loud clank rang out as she slammed her fork into her plate. “Stop it! Why would you say something like that? I don’t think this is funny!”

“Baby, listen, I know how much he hurt you. I couldn’t bear to see you get so upset every time you looked into that box of stuff. You were right, he deserved to die.”

“Shut up!” she screamed and jumped from her seat. The chair fell back and crashed onto the floor and she ran out of the room.

She was face down on the bed sobbing when I found her in our room.

“I did it for you. I love you!” I plead.

“Go away!” came a muffled yell from behind one of the pillows.

I placed his driver license on the bed and pulled the door shut as I left. While I was cleaning the dishes I heard her scream. It was much like his right before the train hit.

~

The silence in the house was probably the hardest thing to take. Ana refused to even look at me. Whenever I was home she found refuge in another part of the house. I wondered when she would leave and where would she go. She led a sheltered life and was very shy. Despite her beauty she had never been in a relationship before ours. The grandmother that raised her had passed away a little over a year ago and the family she did have were so distant, either physically or emotionally, she was basically alone. And though I hoped she would realize there was no where for her to go, even more so I hoped that she would realize all I had done was out of love. Even when I threw that box of stuff in the trash.

It all came down to that damn box of aged reminders. Every time she looked in that box it tore her apart. Every time she was hurt by it, it hurt me. That damn box of stuff was the reason I had done what I had done. That night was the first time in six months she spoke to me. It was also the last.

“David, where is my box?” she screamed from the closet.

When I stepped into the doorway she was tearing the clothes off the racks. “Baby,” I paused as she slowly turned to look at me. “I had to get rid of it.”

She dropped to her knees and shrieked, “No!”

“Ana, don’t you see, it was that box of stuff that was tearing us apart” I said and knelt down in the pile of clothes beside her.

She held her face in her hands and wept.

I tried to stroke her hair, but she smacked my hand away “I can’t live here anymore,” she sobbed as she ran out of the closet.

Tears began to tickle my cheeks as I hoped that day would never come, but by the end of the night she was gone. I cried so hard I felt sick and threw-up in the shower. I just sat on the floor and let the water beat on me.

~

I’d been alone in the house for almost two years and why it took me so long to find her book behind the nightstand I’ll never know. She must have knocked it off when she left so hastily that night. But I did and in it what I found shocked me even more. Tucked almost halfway through the paperback romance were his driver’s license and a folded piece of paper. The book tucked under my arm dropped to the floor. The unfolded piece of paper revealed an Internet search of the name Richard Bateman, the man who had killed her parents and subsequently I had killed. Or so I thought.

I ran down the stairs and into the study. My fingers couldn’t type fast enough, but I found the archived article. As I read it I discovered that Mr. Bateman had managed to dive out of the way of the train at the very last second. When he was found at the site of the burning wreckage he was unconscious. He remained at the hospital in a coma for almost a month before he came out of it. Apparently he had no memory of the events that night or how and why he was parked on the tracks.

I couldn’t believe what I just read. I held the paper up with a shaky hand and my eyes darted around it. The article was written one month and one week after I had returned from Chicago. At the upper right of the paper was the print date; one week after the article was written. One day after I told Ana I had killed him.

She had known he was alive. She had known the whole time, yet she never said a word. Why? Why would she not tell me? All I ever did was love her. The only reason I did what I thought I did was for her. Yet, she couldn’t forgive me.

I folded the piece of paper up and slipped the license in one of the folds. The stairs creaked under my feet as I made my way back to the bedroom. I picked up the little novel and rubbed my thumb across the embossed cover and couldn’t help but smile as I looked at it. Every time Ana would start reading a new one she would make it a point to claim herself to be the voluptuous female character and me as the rugged male. I sighed as those happy days were long gone now.

Once in the closet I parted the hanging clothes to reveal a wooden chest. I turned through the dial on the lock and gave it tug. The lid opened with a squeak and I tucked the book into a little gap amongst the various items. I looked over to the right side of the chest and saw the smooth white orb. I lifted it up and looked deep into the sockets. In my head I could still see her green eyes set in her soft skin.

“Why didn’t you tell me? You knew all along he lived. It didn’t have to be like this, but you had to know I would never let you go.”

When I said I would kill for Ana I guess in the end that included her. I caressed her smooth skull and placed it ever so gently in its place. I closed and locked the lid, then put away my own box of stuff.

Death's Touch

I set my book down - the spine creased open - and peered into the shoe box for my new found friend. The small blue jay was on its side, motionless amongst the torn paper. I sighed and picked up the box and sat down with it on my lap. I can’t say that I was surprised the little bird didn’t make it. It’s as if this place kills everything that enters.

Out the corner of my eye it caught my attention while walking the yard. At first I thought it was trash of some sort. The frail thing was huddled in a corner by one of the benches in the yard. I crouched down to get a better look and he just quivered. His bright blue feathers with a soft grey haze from the baby down were out of place amongst the dirt and concrete. A survey of the area yielded no nest. The shy creature was hesitant at first, but seemed to appreciate the warmth of my cupped hands.

The guards have stray cats they feed and no doubt the little guy was easy prey and would have made a nice morsel. I didn’t want that to happen so I took the chance. At this point what could they do to me?

Once back in my room I slipped my hand into my coat pocket and gently pulled him out. Trading him from hand to hand I eased my coat off. Then I cupped him against my chest while I caressed his feathers. He settled in and closed his eyes and I felt the corners of my mouth arch upward. It was the first time in a long time that I had smiled.

Not putting the bird down, I held sheets of paper up to my mouth and tore them into strips. I emptied out a little box and brushed the shredded paper into it. Then I settled him in. He closed his eyes and went to sleep; his body rocking slightly with each little breath. I tried to ignore him in hopes he would rest, but couldn’t help glancing into the box every so often. I wasn’t really sure what I would do with the bird, but then again I really wasn’t sure of much lately.


I have been in this place for so long and yet can’t figure out why it is I am still here. They laugh and joke I will never leave this place. Sounds about right; twenty years so far. I’ve seen them come and go. The ones with the keys walk out; the others are carried away in black bags.

South of here is a college town full of life. Young adults having fun while setting up their futures. Here there is no future. Even further south is Mickey’s house where children laugh and sing; bonding with their parents. This place parents come to watch their children die. This is Starke, Florida. This is death row.

Do they deserve to die? These men are responsible for some of the most heinous and brutal crimes known. They were the grim reapers for mothers, fathers, and children. Do they deserve to die? Of course they do.

Do I deserve to die? I won’t lie, I am no angel; I have killed my share of men. But the ones that I killed were the ones that deserved it. But I guess we all have to go some time and now is as good a time as any.


I lifted the frail remains out of the box and cupped it to my chest once more and pet him. He was probably sick or maybe injured from a fall. This time there was no response to my touch. Or was this the response?

The bird rested in the box and the box on the floor. I sat back, took a deep breath, and rubbed my hand over my freshly shaven scalp. My once thick hair was another casualty of my sentence. I laced my hands together and rested my elbows on my knees. I looked up and around the small and dismal room. The uniform they gave me hung from me no longer fitting like it used to. Not much appetite when you know death is looming over your shoulder.

I was reading when I heard the taps of heels slow approaching. With every other tap there was the jingle of keys that bounced against the guard’s waist. And with each jingle I cringed. The footsteps and jingle stopped in front of my door; time for one less reaper in the world. I closed my eyes and inhaled deep when there were three hard raps.

“Yes,” I said.

A guard probably half my age opened the door. “Lieutenant Masterson, they are ready.”

I nodded. “Who is it this time?”

The young guard looked down at his clipboard “Umm… looks like Speary.”

“He the one that killed the little girl?”

“Yes.”

“Is his family here?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“What about the little girl’s.”

“Yes, they are already seated.”

My body jerked as my lungs convulsed and a hoarse cough found its way out of my clenched jaw.

“Sir, are you all right?”

He stood silent as I held my hand up, gathered myself, and then nodded. After another deep breath I closed the book, and stood up. I read the title “Living with Cancer” and tossed the book onto my desk. I was pretty sure my book should be titled “Dying with Cancer”.

“Well, let’s get this done then,” I said as I brushed past him. He stood trying to peer into the little box. “It’s a blue jay.”

“Is it alive?”

“No, he’s dead. As dead as me.”

He looked at me with a scrunched up face on his canted head. I just shook my head and walked on to pull the switch on another one. Another one closer to my own.

Tides of Time (A Short Story)

Isn’t it something when you grow older and develop that life of your own? The job, the wife, the kids; makes me think of the song Cats in the Cradle. It had been too long since I went fishing with my dad. How the time had flown and something that meant so much to me as a kid became nothing more than distant memories.

The inability to sleep was pure torture. Not from a tired sense, but more so because of being awake and waiting. What would we catch? What would we see? Every trip into the Florida Keys gave my growing mind something to feed upon.
“Well, we’ll see how the weather holds out,” he would say as we turned in for the night.
The weather. I found it odd that all I wanted to do was marvel at Mother Nature and yet it was she which created the greatest obstacle. Worrying about the green blobs drifting across the radar screen would get me out of bed every time. I sat for an hour, or so, studying the storm reports before he would get up.
“Clear skies, slight breeze coming out of the east,” I would be at him as he turned the coffee pot on.
“How long have you been up?”
My eyes would find a spot in the linoleum. “Just a little before you.” I didn’t tell him I watched the American flag while they played the national anthem before the screen went to snow.
“Uh-huh,” he would reply with a smirk.
“So are we going?”
“I don’t see why not,” he said as he laughed and rubbed my crew cut.
And that would be it. I’d dash out the door to get our gear together and load the little refurbished johnboat. It wasn’t much to look at, but it was just right for tooling about the mangroves surrounding Key Largo. This particular day he was going to take me to a new spot.
Not much was spoken, not much needed to be said. He had taught me well and we were focused on the task at hand. Fishing was not our hobby, it was our obsession. He didn’t ask corny questions about my youth and I didn’t give him answers that would appease him. I knew he loved me, and I hoped he knew I loved him too.
We turned onto U.S. 1 and headed south past Bojangles’. A little further down to Jack’s Bait and Tackle for eight dozen shrimp for eight bucks. Past The Last Chance bar and into Key Largo.
Dad liked to take Card Sound Road around and south instead of staying on the highway for reasons I couldn’t tell you. It was for the most part a desolate ride. I would just stare off into the darkened mangroves catching glimpses of the moon on the water.
I would think to tell my dad how much I loved him and how much I admired him, but still we would ride listening to the tinny sound of Buffet on the AM radio. We shared this bond, this love for the water. Nothing needed to be said. Or maybe it was because I was getting older and it wasn’t cool to say I love you. Maybe it was because I was getting older and I could see that my hero was not made of steel.
His hand on my shoulder, “Wake up, we’re here.”
I snapped up and looked around; didn’t even remember going over the Card Sound Bridge. He had already backed the boat into the makeshift ramp. I jumped out, causing hundreds of fiddler crabs to scurry back into their holes, and grabbed the bowline while he lowered the boat in. Standing there as he parked, I inhaled deeply taking in the smell of the saltwater. A slight breeze came off the little bay and my shoulders shook from the chill in the air.
Dad climbed over the bow and to the transom lowering the motor. Primed the bulb, pulled the choke, and tugged on the cord. The little fifteen Evinrude started up with a whine and a two-stroke cloud drifted off the water.
The short ride across the flats left me shivering up front, but soon he idled down and was hunting for his spot.
“There, see the beer can in the mangroves?”
I could barely make it out, but sure enough right at the mouth of a cut in the mangrove forest was a sun-bleached can stuck on a branch. It looked nothing more than a piece of jetsam that got snagged in the stilted tree, but in fact it was the marker he used for his honey hole.
He motored up and told me to tie off to one of the branches. “We’re a little early; the tide hasn’t started moving yet.”
“Well, we could try!”
“Sure, why not,” he said as he opened the cooler converted to bait-well. He pulled out a good four inch shrimp and handed it to me which I quickly skewered and tossed overboard.
In a matter of seconds I felt the tugging at my line and reeled it up to reveal the fierce shaking of a channel cat. I cringed and the grimace on Dad’s face said it all as I dangled the slimy critter in front of him.
He grabbed it with a rag and popped the hook out. “Watch out,” he said and tossed the fish up in the bow.
“What did you do that for?”
“Just watch.”
“Can I have another shrimp?”
“Let’s wait for the tide; I don’t want to be wasting shrimp on catfish.”
I looked down and watched the catfish wriggle its body side to side when I heard something in the mangroves. It got closer and closer until I saw its eyes aglow from the white light on the transom.
The raccoon stood on a rocking branch watching me for a moment then climbed down on the boat, snatched the catfish up and climbed back into the mangroves.
I smiled at my dad and he gave me a nod.
A few minutes went by and the back of the boat began to swing out of the cut. Dad grabbed a couple of shrimp, handing one to me and hooking the other to his rod. We dropped them over and within seconds we had snappers on. Over the next few hours it was hook, toss, catch, repeat.
The cooler was teeming with fish, the tide was done, and so were we. I’ll never forget that day.

Today I was up early checking the weather; cloudy with a slight chance of rain. The house was quiet as my wife and kids lay in their slumber. I finished my cup of coffee and put the mug in the sink then hit the road.
As I pulled my boat into the driveway my dad’s house was still. I picked him up and not a word was spoken. The ride down Card Sound Road was quiet, not even the radio. I whipped around and backed the boat in the ramp; no help, no problem, he taught me well.
I stood there breathing the salt air, watching the rippling bay. We loaded into the boat and took off. My windbreaker flapped in the wind as I spied the cut in the mangroves.
The boat tied off, we waited in silence for the tide to move. Once the transom shifted around I went and sat by him.
“We made this trip many times when I was younger; it was always one of my favorites,” I said. “I’m sorry I didn’t take the time to do this sooner, but, you know, life gets in the way. I hope you know that I love you and always have. Thank you for making me who I am today.”
I couldn’t fight back the pain in my throat any longer as I spread his ashes. Tears rolled down my face as I watched his remains become absorbed by the brine.
He lives through me in my love for what he loved.