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This writing was accepted for publication in the 108 page perfect-bound ISSN# / ISBN# issue/book “In Plain View” Down in the Dirt, v195 (the 5/22 Issue) Order the paperback book:

Order this writing that appears in the one-of-a-kind anthology The Final Frontier the Down in the Dirt May-August 2022 issues collection book		get the 420 page May-August 2022 Down in the Dirt 6" x 9" ISBN# perfect-bound paperback book:

The Collector

Anthony Zamzes

    While each day drags on, by Sunday you can’t help but wonder where the week went. By the end of the month you wonder where it all went.
    It doesn’t really matter, though, because I’m one of the lucky ones.
    At least that’s what I tell myself as I do a final count. I triple-check the amount and once satisfied that all is in its right place, I place the envelope on the cracked and mangled curb, 8PM sharp just like last month and every month before.
    A quick glance up and down the street reveals more envelopes than last month. It’s futile to feel good about that, but I do anyway. It’s an encouraging sign...until I remember how many more envelopes were out last year around this time. Doesn’t matter, though. Mine is taken care of and I don’t want to linger too long outside.
    Inside the house, things quiet aside from the soft murmurings coming from upstairs as my wife puts the kid to bed. The kid...
    That really set us back. I never suggested we leave it behind, mostly because I knew she’d never be able to. I guess I’d never be able to, either, but I often wonder how far away we’d be if we did. Not that I didn’t love the kid—I do—it’s just things would’ve been different. Or they would have caught us anyway and it wouldn’t matter. For now we’re stuck with it, at least until it was able to run with us.
    I put on a fresh pot of coffee. No sense pretending I’ll get a decent night’s sleep. On a regular night, maybe, but not tonight. I stopped thinking about how weird it was that we stayed up all night for this long ago. I even stopped thinking about how weird it was that we considered this normal. She’s still upstairs when the coffee’s ready. I pour us both a cup, a dash of whiskey in mine, and start closing the curtains.
    It’s nearly nine o’clock by the time she tiptoes down the stairs, and I wonder if the kid, barely a year old now, has a sense of what’s up. She and I haven’t talked about it, but she’s had to have noticed it, too. There’s only one night each month that the kid seems to have trouble getting to sleep—the same exact night every month. Tough to chalk that up to coincidence at this point, don’t ya think?
    Her coffee is cold by now, so I pour her a fresh cup. I pour myself a cup of whiskey with a dash of coffee before joining her on the couch. We sit in silence, sipping our drinks and enjoying each other’s closeness. The payments aren’t new anymore so there’s nothing to really talk about. I finish my drink, pour myself another (no coffee this time) and offer her a few nips of it. Too much makes her woozy, she says.
    It starts just after ten o’clock, the click of heels echoing off the street announcing his arrival. Or her arrival, if you ask my wife. To think that we actually spent hours arguing whether The Collector was a man or a woman is absurd, but even more absurd is that we don’t argue about it anymore. Whether it’s a man or woman, whether it’s slick dress shoes or sharp heels, the staccato click of heels that saunter our block once a month bring a finality, a finality that suggests The Collector has existed longer than recent memory suggests, that The Collector is not just stepping on today’s asphalt, but on yesteryear’s cobblestones, on the hard-packed dirt road from centuries ago, and even on the trail paths of the Native Americans before us—the thought that we were their Collectors has dawned on me before—and whatever came before them.
    I don’t know what the neighbors think. There’s a hushed relief on the second of the month for those of us still there that’s quickly replaced by grim determination on the third of the month. There’s no time for chit-chat when you’re trying to make it to next month.
    Click-click-click, his heels sound off.
    Silence as The Collector reaches the first house, the first envelope, the Robbins family—never late, never short.
    Click-click-click
    He reaches the second house, Kristie and Mark, a newish couple to the block. My wife knows them more than I do, though that’s not saying much.
    Click-click-click
    The young guy, Simon something-or-other, that moved in mid-month.
    I can’t help but think that The Collector simply holds the envelope in his hand, palm open like a scale weighing the contents, and determines the amount based on its weight.
    Click-click-click
    Silence as The Collector weighs the envelope, followed by a quick click-click of feet ascending a short stoop that’s common to the block. There’s the sound of a spray paint can being shaken, the tiny marble bouncing around the metal can, popping like bacon fried in a pan. I hear a quick spray, a slash to mark the door.
    I look to my wife but she only shrugs—neither knew whose house that was.
    Click-click-click
    The Miller family, paid in full.
    Click-click-click
    A spray of paint on Marie’s house. No one’s seen Marie, an elderly woman that I assumed held all the neighborhood’s secrets, old and new, in months, so the mark wasn’t a surprise to me.
    Click-click-click
    Jeff—I think?—the drummer that “didn’t realize” his late night practice sessions were a nuisance to his neighbors
    Click-click-click
    There was a longer silence, followed by the quick click-click of feet climbing the stoop. There’s no spray paint this time. Instead, there’s three loud, deliberate knocks that reminded me of a high school teacher that used to smack a ruler on the desk of a sleeping student. My wife cringes and we share a look.
    “The Bowers?” she mouths silently.
    I nod, even though I honestly can’t remember the family’s name. It’s easier not to know the neighbors, they come and go so often. There was a movement a while back where the idea of pulling resources as a neighborhood gained some traction. My wife was intrigued by the idea; I wasn’t. Someone was bound to fail, not hold up their end of the deal, and we’d be left with the bill.
    Fuck that.
    Three knocks again, this time quicker, more impatient. Someone inside the house was crying. I looked to my wife to confirm if it’s who she thought it was, but she’s got her eyes closed and is snuggled up close to me so I can’t see her face. There’s more crying coming from the house that’s interrupted by the sudden crack of the front door being kicked in. A few more kicks and the door’s shattered, the crying from inside spilling out into the street, followed by a brief shouting match that ends with a crack that sounds too much like a broken bone. My wife shudders.
    I can hear a crying child being dragged out of the house and, as if on cue, a vehicle turns onto the street. A door slides open, and the crying becomes muffled as the child gets thrown in and the door closes behind, silencing the kid like the flame of a candle being snubbed out. The car drives on, as casual as a garbage truck picking up the weekly trash.
    Click-click-click
    Katie, the freelance photographer, the classic urban pioneer treating this as a youthful jaunt to be reminisced on later when she was big and famous.
    Click-click-click
    A spray of paint on the Sullivan family’s front door. Too many kids, none of them old enough to work.
    Click-click-click
    The Rodriguez house—too many kids there, too, if you ask me, but at least some of them were old enough to work.
    Click-click-click
    Silence. Click-click as The Collector ascends the stoop of our neighbor’s house, Damon and Sharon. They were nice, I guess, but you could tell this was coming. The tiny marble jumping like crazy, as if itching to get out of the can. The couple just never seemed serious enough, about anything. A single spray, slashing across the door.
    Click-click-click
    The Collector’s at our house. I resist the urge to peek through the curtains, but I can feel him bending over to pick up the envelope, then standing up straight as he weighs it in his hands.
    There’s no reason to doubt myself—I double and triple-checked it, just like I do every month—but doubt gnaws at me, nonetheless, the ‘What ifs’ rearing their ugly heads at me. The silence drags on and I find I can’t breathe, until finally—
    Click-click-click
    —he moves on. I let out a sigh relief along with my wife, who I just now realize was holding her breath, too.
    Jerome, a young bachelor that always found an excuse to knock on Katie’s door, asking for this or that.
    Click-click-click
    No mark on the Russo’s house this month.
    Click-click-click
    And already I’m thinking about next month, because it’ll come quicker than last.

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