Rupert Wale's Arc

Chapter 3 of 4

Rupert did not clean the dark smear that morning. He laid a folded sheet over it and went downstairs for air. On the sidewalk across from his door stood a tall man in a grey postal uniform, black hair to his shoulders, dark rings under his eyes. He carried no bag. He was not walking a route. He was watching the rowhouse. Rupert knew him by rumor. The postman who never delivered. Neighbors two streets over said he stood outside a narrow stucco house every night for a week, still as a fence post. Now he had moved. Now he stood here. Rupert went back inside and counted. The man had been out there since dawn. A propane tank, a second compressor, and a steel table were due to be dropped at the curb before noon. If the postman saw Rupert haul that gear upstairs, the sealed room and everything under the folded sheet would stop being a secret. He needed the man gone before the delivery. He had one idea and no time to test it. He crossed the street with his hands empty. Up close the postman smelled of old rain. His eyes tracked Rupert without moving his head. "There's a broken payphone on the corner," Rupert said. "Someone left the receiver off. It's been ringing into the line all morning. Post office wants to know who's tying it up." The postman said nothing. "They asked me to flag the next uniform I saw." Rupert kept his voice flat. He wrote the man's blink rate in his head. Four in thirty seconds. "That's you." The postman turned his head then, slow, toward the corner. A rusted shell of a payphone leaned against a collapsed bus bench where a skeleton sat propped in old ads. From this distance you could not tell if the receiver was on or off. "I'll wait," the postman said. His voice was softer than Rupert expected. Tired. He walked toward the corner without hurry. Rupert did not wait to see him reach it. He went inside, dragged a tarp to the door, and stood at the front window. The delivery truck came eight minutes later. He met the driver on the step, tarped each piece as it came off, and had the compressor, the tank, and the table inside within four minutes. He did not look at the corner once. When he finally did, the postman was walking back. He stopped at his old spot on the sidewalk. He faced the rowhouse again. He did not look at the door, or the fresh scuff marks on the step, or the tarp corner Rupert had not fully pulled inside. He looked up. At the third floor window. The sealed one. He had not been watching Rupert at all. Rupert stepped back from the glass. Upstairs, under the folded sheet, the dark smear had reached the wall.