a thirty eighth story...'the letter'

Don was retiring.  He had been looking forward to the day ever since he first set foot in the foyer of the forty five storey Co-operative building as a fresh faced and eager twenty five year old.  He was now fifty four. 

Some things in life are a long time coming! 

Some things, however, are worth the wait!

~

Although Don’s leaving do involved the usual corporate schmaltz – a bland three course dinner, over sentimental speeches, a bouquet of flowers, the award of a Co-operative Tie and Blazer Combination Set – on his First Day of Freedom he got up after midday, didn’t bother shaving, had breakfast in his underpants, lit up a huge doobie and sat on his porch watching the world go by in his dressing gown; later in the afternoon, he put on his grey slacks, ambled to the record store, bought the first Stooges LP, grabbed a couple of tins on his way home and played air guitar around his living room for an hour before his wife returned.

On his Second Day of Freedom Don got drunk on an expensive bottle of English Harbour Antiguan Rum he found gathering cobwebs in his wine cellar, and wrote a provocative letter to his replacement – a thirty something know-it-all from some underwhelming business academy or other – and signed it with a flourish.  Sitting at his satinwood writing desk he felt like John Chamberlain and penned another letter, this time to his daughter, urging her to break off her engagement with her fiancé, a big, handsome and brainless washing machine salesman. 

Satisfied thereafter, he ordered pizza and popcorn and watched Paris Texas until he followed his wife to bed and clumsily tried to make love to her.

~

It was on Don’s Third Day of Freedom he began to feel a little restive.

For starters his head hurt like hell! 

And his tongue felt like sandpaper.

Moreover, he found the refrigerator empty of beer and his tobacco pouch empty of marijuana.

‘Gnnnnnnnr’, he groaned.

Then the telephone rang and his head hurt some more.  Don stumbled over his dressing gown and across the kitchen, in an attempt to pick up the telephone and stop the shrill chimes echoing around his skull.  Cradling the receiver in both hands, he answered: ‘Nnnnhello’. 

‘Hello, daddy’ – it was his daughter.  ‘Nnnhello, sweetie, how are you?’, Don replied, groggily.  His daughter was fine.  ‘Is Mom in?’, she asked.  Mom wasn’t in, and Don had to concede he couldn’t remember where she had gone.  ‘Can you tell her to call?’.  ‘Nnnyes’, said Don, feeling his throbbing forehead, before realising he needed to show a little more interest, ‘What it is anyhow sweetie?’. 

His daughter had chosen a venue for her wedding to the big, handsome and brainless washing machine salesman. 

With a sobering jolt, Don remembered yesterday’s letter.

~

After rifling through the miscellaneous receipts, scrap paper and personal documentation in his satinwood writing desk, Don hobbled outside to check his mailbox.  Nothing.  Surely he hadn’t actually sent the letter?  His heart was beating fast at the thought.  Oh Heck!

Back in his study, Don turned every drawer inside out.  Then he tried to recall exactly what he had done on his Second Day of Freedom.  Although his mind was a Liberal Mess, he did at least remember the other letter he had written to his mithering replacement at the Co-operative, and winced.

Next, Don had the idea to call up the mail depot. He drained a glass of Alka Seltzer and dialled the number.  ‘Welcome to USPS’, said a pre-recorded female voice, ‘Your custom is important to us!’.  Don frowned and rubbed his left temple.  ‘Please choose from the following options..’  Don tried to listen to the stream of information that issued forth, and in the end decided to press ‘1’ on his telephone keypad.  There were a couple of bleeps and then another pre-recorded voice, ‘You have chosen to find out more about our products and services!’.

‘JUST LET ME SPEAK TO A HUMAN LIFEFORM!’ yelled Don in reply. 

___‘Please be aware your call may be recorded for training purposes’, continued the pre-recorded voice oblivious to Don’s outburst.  ‘Now choose from the following options’.  Don’s patience snapped.  He picked up the machine and hurled it at the adjacent wall.  He would have to go down to the depot himself.

~

Don jumped in his saloon car and started the engine.  It spluttered and stalled.  He tried again.  It spluttered and stalled again.  Don gripped the steering wheel ferociously and bit his lip hard.  ‘C’mmon’, he chided, ‘C’mmon, you piece of shit!’.  The engine failed once more.  ‘‘Gnnnnnnnr!!’, moaned Don, catching sight of his reflection in the driver’s mirror, an angry mask of red.  ‘Goddamit!’

~

When at last the engine did come to life, Don wasted little time in getting off the start line.  He tore out of his driveway and headed into town.  Stuck to the dashboard with a piece of chewing gum (the nearest available adhesive) were hastily scrawled directions to USPS’ local mail depot.  At every junction Don would slow right down to scrutinise these handwritten instructions, before putting his foot through the floor upon ascertaining where to go.  It would have been exhilarating where the stakes not so high!

But the sense of relief Don felt on arrival at the USPS mail depot was huge.

Still, in his dressing gown and wearing a pair of soiled jogging bottoms, Don, hurried through the car park, past security and up to the main enquiry desk.  He was irritated to find a slow moving queue of seven or eight people, and at once became self conscious of his appearance, not too far removed from that of a Bowery Bum.  He kept his eyes to the laminate floor and every two or three minutes shuffled forward a few paces. 

After what seemed like an eternity, Don reached the end of the queue.  Behind a row of plexi-glass windows sat seven or eight check out girls, all seemingly young and vivacious, dressed in their USPS uniforms.  Don, trying to look like someone who could be taken seriously, smoothed back his thinning hair and set square his jaw.

~

‘How can I help?’, said a beautiful, young, Latino woman from her installed position behind the plexi-glass.  ‘Nnnnhello’, replied Don gruffly.  And then drawing himself to his full height, and trying to assume as much of an air of gravitas as someone is able to do in their dressing gown and soiled jogging bottoms, ‘I have a..request’. 

The beautiful, young, Latino woman, nodded, ‘OK?’.  ‘Yes, a request’, Don continued, ‘I would like to recall a lett..two letters I sent, accidentally, yesterday’.  How daft do I look? thought Don; how daft do I sound!?  The beautiful, young, Latino woman reached for a pen, ‘when did you send them?’ she inquired.  Don cleared his throat.  ‘Nnnhm, er, yesterday’.  ‘When yesterday?’ pressed the beautiful, young, Latino woman.  Don shuddered involuntarily, ‘Nnnhm, I, I..can’t remember exactly when..’ he conceded.  ‘Well..’

~

‘There’s nothing I can do then?’, Don asked, exasperated.  The beautiful, young, Latino woman shuffled her paperwork.  ‘Sir, you could send another lett..two letters by way of apology’.  ‘Apology!!’, choked Don.  ‘But I..don’t..want..to..apologise’, he found himself saying. 

The beautiful, young, Latino woman raised her eye brows and sighed: ‘Well, sir, I think you’re wasting our time’.  ‘Wa—‘, Don began, ‘Sir, with all due respect what are you doing here?  You look as if..’. ‘My daughter is about to marry an imbecile’, Don raged.  ‘I have to stop her, but I mean to tell her in person and not in a letter!!’.

There was only one thing for it.  Don would have to beat the mail van to his daughter’s house.

(he decided to forget about the letter to his mithering replacement at the Co-operative – at worst he reasoned he would be asked to return his Co-operative Tie and Blazer Combination Set)

~

So the freeway was clear.  Don knew he had a long drive ahead of him. But somehow, it felt absolutely necessary.  Bloody Antiguan Rum! he fumed as he scorched the tarmac in the outside lane.  And yet he felt more alive than at any time in the last twenty one years.  He wished he had his Stooges LP with him, but a brief and rather dangerous high-speed search of the glove compartment yielded an old Robert Palmer tape and Don decided it would do. 

And he started to relax.

He started to relax and enjoy the ride.  In his head Don had convinced himself the letter would still be at the USPS mail depot from where it might be sent out that evening to arrive the following morning, if so he would be home and dry – so long as he beat his big, handsome and brainless son-in-law to be to the mailbox. 

That shouldn’t be difficult, Don chuckled sourly to himself, ‘stupid fucking washing machines!’, and he got to remembering the first time he met his daughter’s fiancé. 

~

‘Hullo, Don’, this big, handsome and brainless man had said, ‘can we talk?’.  Don was in the middle of doing ribs on the family BBQ, and took a swig of his beer.  Still, he had guessed who he was conversing with.  ‘Sure, what do you want to talk about?’, he replied, imagining his son-in-law to be a Sports fan.  ‘Could we go somewhere, private?’ his son-in-law to be had asked. 

‘Nnuhuh’, said Don. 

Then they had gone out to the front yard and there, to Don’s disbelief and despair, the big, handsome and brainless washing machine salesman with the social poise of a caveman in an ape suit had beseeched him for his daughter’s hand in marriage – his bright, bubbly, and oh so pretty pride and joy!

How can it be permissible?, wailed Robert Palmer..

..Yet, his daughter had said ‘YES!!!’

~

For days, if not weeks, after his daughter’s engagement, Don half wished he had sent his bright, bubbly, oh so pretty pride and joy to a Nunnery before she had developed her sense of independence.  Anything he felt, or rather anyone would be better for her to spend the rest of her life with than HIM.  Don’s wife, of course, kept her thoughts to herself and was charm personified every time HE visited. 

Pish!

Don yawned, he’d been driving for eight hours straight.  But, in his imagination, the mail van driver was a red eyed, relentless maniac who would keep on through the night, in any weather, to deliver the LETTER.  Don simply had to keep going (by now he was on the ninth playback of the Robert Palmer tape), whatever and however he was feeling. 

(Furthermore, the imagined sight of his daughter’s face crumpling to tears or folding into anger and betrayal on receiving Don’s real sentiments toward her big, handsome and brainless finance made Don feel queasy.  He fumbled in the recess of his memory to bring back what he had actually written, the words ‘intellectual half-wit’ had definitely been used as well as ‘cave man in an ape suit?’ He prayed for it not to be so, and then realised he had actually described his daughter’s fiancé as something yet more insulting.  Cripes!)

~

Dawn was breaking when Don, driving wonkily, arrived in his daughter’s home town – the street lamps were glowing orange and no one was out.  He wound down his window to get a lungful of fresh morning air.  He had cramps in his hands and arms he only noticed now he was off the freeway and driving more slowly.  Nevertheless, he knew he had to be on the look out for a USPS mail van. 

~

Don parked fifty yards or so away from his daughter’s clapboard house and tip toed for reasons best known to himself to the end of her drive, and as quietly and carefully as possible opened her mailbox.  Inside there were two envelopes.  His adrenalin started pumping.  Come on, come on! he pleaded to some higher being that could have been God, or Abraham Lincoln. 

With a sharp intake of breath, he took out both envelopes, almost too scared to look.  Had his marathon drive been in all in vain?  Or had he beaten the red eyed, relentless maniacal mail van driver?

The first letter carrying a typed address, Don saw to be for his big, handsome and brainless son-in-law to be.  The other..

The other was NOT his letter.

‘‘Gnnnnnnnr!’, Don moaned as he tried to suppress his anger. 

Then again, perhaps his had not yet been delivered.

~

Don shivered.

He had been waiting for a good three hours in his car, and now he was cold, chill to the bone.  The one thing he had done in the intervening period was to move his car within direct sight of his daughter’s house in case the mailman came, or in case his daughter emerged without her big, handsome and brainless fiancé.  He worried they might go to work together – his daughter was a teacher, and he bet sod’s law, washing machine sales persons had to start early too.  ‘Why the hell would anyone go shopping for a washing machine at 8AM,’ he muttered to himself by way of reassurance. 

Why the hell indeed!

Nevertheless, had Don brought a pair binoculars with him, he would have seen his daughter draw the bedroom curtains at approximately 6.55AM.  He would have noticed her big, handsome and brainless fiancé through the kitchen window, making coffee at the breakfast bar.  He would have noticed his daughter in her front facing study searching for a pupil’s homework book.  He would have heard the neighbourhood dogs barking at the mailman!  He would have known something was about to happen!!

Don, however, had fallen asleep at the wheel.

~

‘Dad..

Daddy, is that you?’

Don dreamed he heard his daughter’s voice calling his name.  He dreamed she was tapping on the windshield of his parked car outside her house in her home town.  Or that she was trying to contact him from the nether world.  He smiled, and drooled some more. 

Then with a start he realised it was REAL!

~

BARP! He awoke to the sound of his car horn, his daughter’s exasperated but oh so pretty face looking in at him.  ‘Daddy’, she said again, her voice muffled by the car window glass, ‘What are you doing here??’.  Don opened and closed his mouth but no words came out.  ‘Is Mommy okay??! Does she know you’re here’, his daughter persisted.  ‘‘Gnnnnnnnr’, Don attempted to answer. 

..And then attempted a second time. 

‘NnnI need to talk to you!’, he managed. 

‘You need to talk?’, repeated his daughter, her look of exasperation growing. ‘I..can’t..I have to go to work now!!’. 

‘Didn’t you get my letter??’, Don asked, winding down the window, a little more alert than a few moments ago.  His daughter put her hand on Don’s arm, ‘No, I didn’t, wha_’. 

‘Good!’ said Don opening the driver’s door and leaping out of the car still wearing his dressing gown and soiled jogging bottoms, and taking his bewildered daughter by the arm, Don started to frog march her back into her house.  

‘Daddy, let go, I have to go’, protested his daughter meekly, but Don kept on until the reached the front door.  ‘DaddY!’, his daughter shouted, at last losing her temper altogether: ‘WHY are you here!!’. 

~

Don paused.  His daughter had not, it seemed, received the letter, and he realised he could say anything he wanted – it was his Fourth Day of Freedom, and he was a Free Man again.

‘Darling’, he began tenderly, ‘Darling, I w-‘, ‘I don’, ‘I think you are making a’, he hesitated, his daughter, his bright, bubbly, and oh so pretty pride and joy looked back at him imploringly.  ‘Darling, I came all this way..to say..’  A yellow school bus glided past the house, a swallow alighted on the roof above, a flower opened it's petals to receive the first of the morning sun.  ‘I wanted to say, I..

(a young girl in Victorian dress skipped joyously past the end of the drive)

..just..

(a bumble bee entered the newly open flower)

..want..

(Don's shoulders fell, imperceptibly)

..you..

(Don's daughter waited)

..to be happy.

~

His daughter's face crumpled (or folded), but it wasn't sadness (or anger and betrayal). 

It was because she was touched, deeply moved, because it was romantic, because it was a beautiful moment, a moment they would talk about for years to come, a moment Don's daughter would recount to her grandchildren, and Don's daughter's grandchildren to their own.

And, as is custom at such occasions, such heart-swelling and poignant life episodes, such expressions of agape love, of the human soul, of a father's selfless love for his daughter, of a daughter's patient and understanding love of her father..

There was only one thing for it:

Don and his daugther both started to cry.