Cash
I always wanted to be a mailman.
That’s a joke, by the way. To let you know my dad didn’t care too much about what I did.
Didn’t care too much about anything except beer and poker.
He was a mean son of a bitch. Yeah, I can admit that now.
Never worked at a job for longer than a few months (unless you counted dealing weed and gambling).
A walking, cursing, hunting, redneck cliché.
But I guess he was still one up on Mom because he stuck around.
His cronies, who he’d have round for card games – which often ended up in a fight and, once, a knife being drawn – were carbon copies of Dad.
Sad, angry, bitter men who felt they’d been dealt a crap hand by the world, or by the shit whores they’d married, or their wastrel kids who ‘sucked ’em dry’ or the ‘spics’ or the ‘blacks’ or the ‘damn faggots’. Never their own sad, lazy asses.
I’d sit on the stairs and hear them talk, the air thick with cigarette smoke and cussing, and I’d swear that I wouldn’t end up like those men. Eaten up inside with hate.
Nope. I was going to be like Duffy.
Duffy was our mailman, and he was just the nicest damn guy I’d ever met in my life. Short and slight, almost childlike (although he must have been in his mid-forties), he had a close crew cut of fine, sandy hair, a freckled face and the widest smile you could imagine.
‘Hey, Cash,’ he would call out if I was on the porch.
‘Got a stack for you today,’ or ‘Nothing for your dad today, dude.’ And then, with a flourish, he would draw some candy out of his satchel.
Always with that same big, wide grin. It seemed to me that Duffy had a lot to grin about.
Duffy was a happy man, a content man, and I wanted to be that happy and content when I grew up.
Not like my dad. That was my first real ambition in life. To not be my dad.
I guess I succeeded. I’ve been a mailman in Serenity Falls for almost twenty years, and I count myself a lucky guy.
It’s darn hard to get a gig in Serenity Falls, but this just kind of fell into my lap.
Sometimes, the big guy decides to cut you a break.
Of course, I’ve learnt since that the big guy doesn’t do favours for free.
If Duffy was the kind of man I wanted to be, Serenity Falls was the kind of town I always dreamt of living in.
I guess it’s the kind of town everyone dreams of living in.
It’s the town you see in all those wholesome Winsom movies.
Like the one with the dog that talks, or the kid who travels in time, or the Halloween one with the not so evil witches or, my favourite, the one about the group of kids who meet an alien.
It’s the kind of town people say doesn’t exist any more.
But it does. Because Mr Winsom built it.
Of course, I don’t own a house here. No, sir.
A postman’s salary doesn’t get you a lot in Serenity.
I rented a room from a nice lady call Mrs Grayson.
And that worked. Mrs Grayson was elderly, and she needed a little help around the place.
I was happy to do that for her, and I suppose we both enjoyed the companionship.
I don’t have a wife, or kids. Truth be told I’ve never been too bothered with that side of things.
Not that I’m gay. Nothing wrong with it, but my cookie doesn’t crumble that way.
You probably don’t need to hear about the particulars.
The fact is I achieved my dream. I got to be Duffy. In more ways than one.
A few months after I turned sixteen, so this would have been the fall before I left home, Duffy stopped delivering our mail. I was sat on the porch, smoking a cigarette (I’d grown out of candy by then), when a new guy turned up. Short, beefy, face drawn into a permanent scowl.
‘Where’s Duffy?’ I asked.
‘Who?’
‘Our mailman.’
He looked at me, and then I saw it spark. ‘Oh, that guy. He won’t be coming back.’
‘Why?’
‘He’s dead.’
I just stared at him. ‘How? Was it an accident?’
‘Nope. Killed himself.’ He handed me a stack of brown envelopes. ‘Final demands.’ He chuckled. ‘Not a good day for you folks.’
Later, I found out from our neighbour, Mrs Quirk, that Duffy had got home that weekend, walked into his garage, looped a length of rope around a sturdy beam and hanged himself. No note, no explanation.
‘But he always seemed so happy,’ I’d said, choking back tears.
She had shaken her head. ‘You can never really know people, kid.’
That’s the bitter truth. It’s something I’ve learnt myself as a mailman. No one is the same out in the world as they are at home, behind closed doors. Everyone puts on a face, and everyone has secrets. A good mailman is good at keeping those secrets, and a happy man doesn’t rock the boat.
I guess I would have stayed a happy man, living contentedly in Serenity Falls till the end of my days … if only I hadn’t seen that list. And the cat. Yeah, the darn cat.
After that, well, the end of my days came a lot sooner than I expected.
And unlike Duffy, I sure as heck didn’t choose it.