Disenchantment 29

*****

 

 

 

Truck drivers sure keep odd hours, Mark thought, as he heard their diesel engines roar throughout the night at different times. He had been sitting on his tiny balcony for a long time, barely noticing the heat. Eddie had remained at his feet, snoring loudly when not trying to chew on his leg on occasion, always panting heavily in the heat. The sun was coming up and Mark went back inside, the bottle of Johnny Walker in his hand. He hadn’t opened it, but he had certainly considered doing so. It gave him a slight, barely perceptible comfort to hold it. The bottle was put back on his armoire, where it could greet him when he came back through his front door, always there.

 

Mark turned on his coffee machine, and took what was supposed to be a quick shower. He made sure the water was cool, and just stood there for minutes at a time. He would realize that he was supposed to be washing himself, but then his thoughts kept returning to Nannette and he would stand there and think about her, even momentarily forgetting he was in the shower at times. What should have been three minutes, took closer to twenty minutes. When he stepped out, he couldn’t even remember if he had washed his hair or not, and decided it didn’t matter.

 

Nannette was gone. Nannette was dead. Nannette was not coming over ever again, she would not be moving in. He would never get the chance to correct the awkward kiss that he had ruined.

 

This new death in his life also forced memories of his son back on him. Where did you go, man? I hope that you were kidnapped by a nice family and they are taking good care of you. Maybe I’ll see you again someday. He knew that was unlikely and that his son had probably suffered a horrible fate, just like Nannette.

 

“This fucking world,” he said aloud. What was the point of it? Life was nothing and he was quite tired of it. A poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. Words from a high school English class came back to him. “Yep, it’s a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

 

Eddie came up to him, wagging his butt, as his corkscrew tail was too tightly wound to move, then began licking his leg. “Fine, buddy, there is a little significance. I can’t go anywhere when you still need to be taken care of.”

 

There is always Oren’s Underworld. If all souls go there, maybe you can see them again. Shit, maybe you can stay there. He still found it difficult to believe all that crazy shit, but it gave him a slight comfort. “I feel so elated because I’m about to find it out. Maybe then I’ll come back and fill you in, Eddie.” Mark poorly recited some Iron Maiden lyrics to his dog that stupidly stared back up at him, wagging his whole backside.

 

Mark was extraordinarily tired, but not sleepy. He needed to hit a meeting before work. He decided not to call in sick to work, as he didn’t want to be left alone with his thoughts all day. Work might do him some good, keep him busy, keep his mind off of things.

 

As he drove to the meeting, his thoughts played over the night before. Nannette had suddenly stopped talking on the phone, then he heard her scream for help. He immediately hung up and dialed nine-one-one. It took a surprisingly long time to answer and when the dispatcher came on the line, she was rude and abrupt.

 

“Is your emergency actively occurring and is there a homicide involved?” Mark didn’t think that was the way they usually answered their calls.

 

“Yes, both, maybe.” Mark explained to her what he knew of the situation.

 

“We’ll send someone out there as soon as possible. Goodbye.”

 

“What?” The line was disconnected. Mark was fairly certain that they were supposed to remain on the line until police arrived. They must be busy. The world was certainly going to hell.

 

He tried calling Nannette again, once, twice, three times. He wasn’t sure how many times, but she wasn’t answering. After that he called emergency services again.

 

“Is your emergency actively occurring and is there a homicide involved?” It was the same woman.

 

“Yes, I told you.” Mark then had to refresh her memory.

 

“Sir, we are extraordinarily busy. There are already police on the scene.”

 

“Can you tell me what happened?”

 

“Sir, I don’t have any more information for that. If you are a family member, you will be notified of the situation.”

 

“What if I’m not a family member?”

 

The woman declined to say goodbye that time as she hung up.

 

Mark then tried Nannette again. And again. Again. Almost three hours had gone by before her cell phone was answered.

 

“Hello Mr. Nicastro,” It was a man’s voice. That terrified Mark.

 

“Who the fuck is this? Where is Nannette?”

 

“This is detective Hornblende, Mr. Nicastro. I’m afraid that I’ve got some bad news for you.”

 

Mark’s heart sank in his chest. Hornblende told him what happened.

 

He had talked with Hornblende for a time, but he had trouble remembering exactly what was said. He answered automatically in a dull, passionless voice to multiple questions. No, he didn’t know any Andrew Fargle. No, he didn’t think Nannette had any enemies. There were many other questions and it seemed that his primary answer was no.

 

After a time, he started getting irritated with the questioning, and he was finding it difficult to think. He took a page from the emergency dispatcher’s book, and just ended the call. Hornblende had called him back, and Mark had promptly ignored it.

 

“My name is Mark, and I’m an alcoholic. I don’t feel like being sober anymore.”  It was a small meeting. Most early morning meetings at the small church in Castaic didn’t draw a large crowd.

 

“That’s why you’re here, right? That’s why we’re all here. The disease. The fight is continuous, Mark. Never ending.

 

Mark proceeded to tell the small group what had happened to Nannette. There were often deep truths revealed in the meetings. People would say things at AA meetings that they wouldn’t tell their spouses or those closest to them.

 

“I am so sorry to hear that Mark, I think we all are. I know we all have our own higher powers, Mark, and I don’t want to step on your toes or your beliefs, but I have to say that we don’t always know God’s plans.”

 

“God’s plans? God is a devil that goes by the name of Hades and we are all going down there to meet him when we die. There is no heaven, only hell.” Mark then decided to let the group in on everything that had been happening since Oren’s wife disappeared.

 

“Maybe your friend, Oren, would benefit from checking us out? Maybe you can talk him into coming to a meeting.”

 

“That’s not his style. I know it sounds crazy, but I am starting to believe him. Shit, I’m hoping it’s true. I want to see Nannette again, and my son.”

 

“Look, we are here for you, Mark.” Others nodded or verbalized their agreements. “Mark, it’s a trying time. You can get through this. You don’t need to drink.”

 

Mark sat there, stoic, no expression on his face.

 

“Hey Mark, I’ll take the day off of work. We can talk. Hang out. We can hit some more meetings this afternoon. You up for it?”

 

“I need to get to work.”

 

“You have my number. You also have the tools for success, the steps. We can do a meeting tonight, after work. You feel like it?”

 

“I feel like drinking, but I also don’t feel like drinking. I feel...numb. I feel overwhelmed and I feel nothing. I also don’t know what I feel if that makes any sense.”

 

When Mark left the meeting, he did feel nothing. He was hoping for some strength to get through the day. He usually received that, but his soul felt barren and lost. He was hoping for catharsis, absolution, even a reason to live, what he ended up with was a dried out husk and the taste of ashes in his mouth.

 

He drove to Santa Clarita, wondering if work was a good idea.

 

It was his fault. He had asked Nannette to come over. He hadn’t just asked her, but talked her into it.

 

He didn’t know what he should do. He wondered if the police were able to contact her family. Mark didn’t know anything about Nannette’s family. He didn’t even know if they were in California, or even the USA, for that matter. Did she have friends that needed to be told about her demise? Would there be a funeral in LA? Mark knew none of this. He was supposed to have time to learn more about her.

 

When he arrived at the post office, he sat in his car for a few moments. He did not feel like working. He contemplated just going home and he certainly didn’t even care if he called in to notify them that he would be absent. However, he took a deep breath and went inside.

 

The casing area of the post office was loud. It wasn’t always so. When Mark first started working at the post office, he had to case his own mail, but the machines did that now. It used to take four hours every day to case, to organize and load his truck in a convenient manner to be distributed. Now it was done in less than an hour.

 

Monstrosities of technology, DPS machines, direct point sequenced mail, and FFS machines, flat sorting system, did all the work previously done by human-hand. Even the post office was not immune to advances. In his twenties, they used to play music for four hours while he loaded his truck. Now, the incessant machinery lumbered on, drowning out other sounds, notifying them that technology had overcome man. Machines had come and the music had died.

 

“Hey Mark, I’ll be following you today,” came a voice from behind him.

 

Mark turned around to see Warthog. He had to glance at her name tag to remember her real name: Cynthia. “Today’s not a good day.”

 

“Yeah, you also need to do this 39-96.” The form was a daily thing. Thanks to Amazon, Mark usually worked overtime, so the post office had forms to fill out regarding the overtime. Bureaucracy at its finest. Not wanting overtime, the post office had found a way to waste more time filling out forms to give out overtime, that they were trying to avoid.

 

Mark realized he should not have come in. “Where’s Brian?”

 

“He’s out sick. So, I came in to observe you.”

 

“Brian did it last week.”

 

“This one is official. It needs to get done, and I’m going to do it.” If it was his supervisor, Brian, the man would follow him for twenty or thirty minutes, consider it good enough, then return to the post office. He knew that Warthog would tail him all day. He also knew that she had been promoted to postmaster of the district and it wasn’t her job. She had it out for him, and had come back today just to be a bitch.

 

Warthog had been his supervisor over a decade before, and she had made his life hell. Her genetics had not been kind to her, cheekbones unusually low on her face, eyes too close together, bad acne earlier in life had left her face scarred, and she had the ugliest of hazel eyes. It was a former member of the post office that had come up with her nickname. He had claimed that he would rather fuck a warthog that Cynthia, and the name came to be.

 

Mark would have thought that unkind, even in his more immature days, but she had a personality to match her looks. She had an undeserved air of superiority and would constantly berate her coworkers to the point that several of them quit. Apparently the post office appreciated that behavior and she received promotion after promotion in a few short years. Her quick advancement ended up being a blessing, as she had left the office, and Mark had not seen her or dealt with her in years, until now.

 

Mark felt himself wondering if he would be able to get through the day.

 

Two hours later he pulled up to the condominium complex that housed Martha Higgins. Please don’t be there. Please don’t be there. Please, any other day but today, please don’t be there. Martha Higgins stood at the entrance to the complex, wide-eyed and smiling. “Goddammit.”

 

In the past hour of deliveries, Warthog had approached him no less than five times, telling how to do his job better. Park on the opposite side of the street to save time, here. He could immediately get out of his vehicle instead of taking a drink of water first, there. He could save valuable seconds everywhere and Warthog was sure to tell him.

 

Mark opened the door, and noticed his hand was shaking. Help! Nannette’s voice echoed in his mind. She must have been terrified in her last minutes. Will you be my Dr. Jones?

 

Both Martha and Warthog approached him as he arrived at the back of the truck.

 

“Good morning,” Martha beamed. Two postal workers? That’s great. You should do that every day, starting at 5:00am, of course.”

 

“Mark, you shouldn’t talk to customers. It could waste valuable time.” Warthog lost no time in reprimanding him.

 

“Did you see me fucking talk to her? I just got here.” Fuck this shit.

 

“You do not talk to me that way. You are definitely getting written up for that.”

 

“That is very bad language,” said Martha. “I ordered a porcelain pig and Amazon said it would come today. Do you have it?”

 

“Here it is,” said Mark, pulling out a package from the back of the truck.

 

“Mark, it’s illegal to give packages to customers. It goes in the mail box.”

 

“Oh, it’s okay,” said Martha. “He knows me.”

 

“Mark, this is grounds for dismissal.”

 

He stopped for a second, taking both of them in. He should not have come to work, he realized. He also realized that he just didn’t care anymore, and that he hadn’t cared for a long time, until Nannette had come into his life. Now she was gone.

 

“You want your pig? Here it is.” Mark flung the parcel onto the ground and then stomped on it. He both heard and felt it crush beneath his foot. “There’s your fucking pig!”

 

Martha screamed, as her eyes watered. “Why did you do that?”

 

“And you, Warthog,” he said, turning toward her. Take this, and he flung a handful of letters at her. “And this.” Mark took a huge armful of letters from one of the mail carts on his truck and dumped it all at Warthog’s feet.

 

“Mark, you’re fired.”

 

“No, I quit. I hope you fucking die, cunt. I hope you rot in the underworld. You are just as ugly on the outside as you are on the inside. You’re a fucking warthog.”

 

He turned back to the older woman. “Mrs. Higgins. She is a postmaster, and you should talk to her about your ideas for changing the post office. She is just enough of a bitch to probably think it’s a good idea.”

 

With that, Mark got into his truck and drove away.