The Benefactor

Completely restored version of a story that I entered into a writing competition. It had to be under 500 words. It ended up being terrible and I lost so here it is completely restored.

I ignored them when they were coming $10, and $20, but when they started to climb I began to take notice...

I don't know when they began to come, but when they did it was almost the same way. A black envelope with no return address, you'd throw them away if you didn't know what was in them, heck I was doing the same thing but one day I took a chance and opened one. I thought it was empty at first, but then I noticed it. A check from someone calling themselves The Benefactor for 10 bucks. I looked it over, and it was real enough, and when I looked at the envelope and it was addressed to me, but I still figured it for some kind of gimmick. After all, at that time the long distance companies would pay you anything to switch to them. So I tore it up, figuring that I would cash it and a week down the line the benefactor would call me up confirming that my long distance had been switched to AT&T, MCI or some other long distance company. A week later though the benefactor had sent me another check this time for $30, and by that time my wife had left me, the kids had left with her, and I was living in a house that my job couldn't possibly support. So needless to say the benefactor was the last thing on my mind I looked at the check only briefly before I threw it out.

    The checks were not really grabbing my attention then, so when the next black envelope came I wrote 'return to sender' on it and popped it back into the mailbox, just to see what happened. After all the checks had to be coming from somewhere. But three weeks after returning that check the car insurance was due on a car that badly needed new brakes, the mortgage company was breathing down my neck, and the next check was looking a lot more interesting. They had gotten up to $800 dollars in the weeks that passed, and the only thing I had left to my name was a dog that my wife didn't want. It was better than nothing, and together with what I had left I could pay the mortgage, maybe even scrounge up enough to fix the car. So I took a chance, and pretty soon the bank account that me and my wife tried to share for five years, had a nice and tidy eight hundred dollar balance, and much to my surprise the bank gave me no trouble when I cashed a check that was only signed the benefactor.

Of course I wouldn't be telling you this if it ended there.

    Like I said before my wife left me, and when she did she left with everything but the dog. He was a late wedding present from a friend of mine who had missed our wedding, and he bought us the dog to make up for it. We decided on our honeymoon to name him Bailey and by the time our other two kids came along he was more than a part of our family, he was the thing that represented everything that he tried to build together.

     We would stop trying to fool ourselves into thinking that we cared for one another five years from then and a year before that I would walk in to the house to find my wife in bed with the same man who missed our wedding five years before. I never knew how long the affair had been going on, but when I asked her if it was over, she said she wanted a divorce. Our marriage had been dying for years, but finding her with another man was just the nail in the coffin. She would pack up and leave after that, and I had no wish to know where she was or who she was with. It was over and done, so when I walked into the house and saw Bailey laying on the carpet, I just figured that it was another part of the past that had died.

    I didn't know how Iong Bailey was dead, but when I touched his corpse it was cold as ice. The joints were already beginning to stiffen, and my first thought was that it seemed that he had at least been dead for an entire day, but I knew that wasn't true. I figured that it was his time, and that this was just one less painful memory. The dog that had been the symbol of my first marriage spent his last days above ground in our garage, and the next day he was unceremoniously buried beneath a tree in our backyard.

Of course if I had gotten the mail first I may have thought twice about what I did with him.

    After burying Bailey I went to the mail, this time the benefactor didn't wait a week. The next check came the next day in it's customary black envelope. Eight hundred dollars signed sealed and delivered into my mailbox. Undisturbed and unopened I looked around, and saw no one, and no note. I figured maybe it was the same check as before. But when I dug out the receipt from yesterday's deposit, the numbers didn't match. This was a new check, and when I checked my account the money was still there. No questions asked. I sat down and thought for a moment, and remembered a friend that owed me a favor. We hadn't spoken in a while and he was a nice enough guy, a cop as a matter of fact. I would need someone who had access to some real info. After all how could I thank my mysterious benefactor if I had no idea who he was.

    “Maybe it's someone from your family,” Joe was saying. It had been a week since I took him the mysterious check, and the dead dog in my backyard was the last thing on my mind. The Benefactor had sent me three more checks by then, all of them eight-hundred dollars a piece. No long-distance company called to inquire about my wanting to switch, and the bills that my wife had left me with were piling up. Lawyers weren't cheap, and I already owed money to two of them. I was burning with curiosity, and running out of cash. The job that I had been working for the past four years was paying less than expected and living alone in a house meant for a family was taking it's toll. I couldn't afford a move right now, and no matter how I looked at it Joe was my last hope for an answer. “Whoever it is has to be someone that you know,” He was saying it as if I were some paranoid school girl, and I didn't like it. He was examining the latest check the way that someone looks at a fake id, except this one wasn't fake, and it came from someone that I didn't know. Joe had left off looking at the check and was looking at me from across the table. “If it was someone from my family they would use their name. Why keep it a secret?” I was leaning over the table and looking him dead in the face, I wanted answers, something that explained why a complete stranger would suddenly cut me a check. It's not that I didn't appreciate the gesture though, the checks were coming right when I needed them and bringing a world of possibilities with them. Joe was eyeballing me with a “Why are you turning down free money?” look that almost made me punch him in the face. I didn't though, and I kept myself in check long enough to respond to his gaze with something that I learned in grade school. “Well nothing is free.” I said, and swiped the checks up in my free hand. Joe had a face that spoke everything he was about to do before he did it, and right now that face said “Im out of here”. I beat him to it though and trotted out of the diner. After all, there was no sense in beating a dead horse.

    “The next day my first lawyer called while I was asleep, and before I could check the caller id”. I scoped up the receiver. By the time the phone got cold I was on my way to the bank with The Benefactors latest 'gifts' tucked into my shirt pocket . I took them to the bank, and the teller didn't even give me a second look as she deposited the money into my account.

    I got to admit that part of me couldn't help but feel disappointed, while the other part felt triumphant, like I had gotten away with a bank robbery. The checks had amounted to $2,400 and a day later the balance was confirmed. When I look back on it now I probably should have called Joe back and thanked him for what he'd done for me, but at that time I was still mad over our pointless little talk at the diner. I regretted it later though, because when I turned on the news that night I saw what was left of the police station that he worked at in flames. Then I saw him, I saw him on the street outside the police station, and in the trees, and on the cars. It seems that I wasn't the only old friend Joe had a grudge against. That day Joe had marched into the police station with a couple quarts of Nitroglycerin strapped to his back. The impact had ripped the little station open in a way that reminded me of someone lighting an M80 and putting it inside of a can of coke. Only the can had people in it who had left their families at home and went to work not knowing that this was the last time they would hold their wife and kids.

    At the time the shock of Joe's death had made me forget about the checks that I cashed that day, but it didn't last long. I was rummaging in my coat pockets the next day and came upon some deposit slips that casually slipped out of my pocket and floated to the floor. You may think that since I was mad at Joe I wanted him dead, and I'd be lying if I told you that you were wrong. The fact is that part of me had figured out the pattern long ago, but money was tight, and a little voice inside my head talked me into taking a trip to the bank. “After all” the voice had said, “how can you find the benefactor if the bank doesn't catch their mistake and find him first. Now as I stood staring at the receipts on the floor I couldn't help but kick myself, I knew no more about the benefactor than I did when I first got the checks, and to make matters worse I was almost completely dependent on his help.

     Money is a funny thing, it can be almost like a drug, yet if you want to survive you almost have no choice but to get hooked. The divorce from my wife had finally gone to it's final stages and I was almost completely broke. The job that had supported me in my solitude had laid me off without so much as a blink of the eye, and as I sat alone in my house I couldn't help but laugh. The checks seemed to be nothing that compared to my present situation. A week into my extended vacation the first bill arrived, and was soon joined by others. Cashing the checks were becoming an almost regular thing. I never met my mysterious provider, but with every check cashed  and every bill paid my curiosity began to wane. I told myself what Joe had said before his death was true,  my ship had come in, a rich cousin, that was probably 4 generations removed and had probably only heard my name once in her whole life, had died and stated in her will that the check should be given a little at a time. No lump sums here just small cash . Like I said  money is a funny thing, it can be almost like a drug, yet if you want to survive you almost have no choice but to get hooked. Then after scrounging and scraping for it all your life you still don't have enough. In the end you end up dying with nothing but the shoes on your feet and the clothes on your back. My habit was up to 7,000 dollars a week, and the neighbors on both sides of me were dead.

I stood on my porch and watched them cart the 69 year old woman who had given me and my wife her personal blessing by means of a huge fruit basket when we first moved into our home, being carted out of her home on a stretcher as what family she had covered her corpse with tears. I told myself it was a coincidence and that it was just her time, but in the back of my mind I knew that it was the checks. They carted the old woman from her home on Friday, and on Saturday my 30 year old neighbor was halfway into an ambulance before I even realized he was dead. I was coming from the bank and when the detective gave me a curious look I didn't return it. They were sharp and It never occurred to me that the police would begin to suspect foul play, but I knew that I already had more than enough saved for a lawyer. Going through a divorce had taught me that lesson and I learned it well. I wasn't in the house a good hour before the knock at the door came that I knew would come. I strolled across the foyer and opened the door to a plan clothes detective in a blue suit and a tie that was almost the same color. The shirt was white with magenta pinstripes that bought the whole ensemble together in a way that spoke of a married man.

 Even now as I admit it  to myself I feel a horrible thought come over me. It loomed in the darkness and declared that the life of one old woman was worth nothing compared with what I was raking in by means of the Benefactor. A new car and a paid off house was on the horizon and if that voice in my head got it's way soon I would be minus one wife.

But The Benefactor had other plans.

It turns out that the police were the least of my worries. See if this whole thing had been a game of pool what happened next would have been the easiest shot on the table. Two checks for 500,000 dollars a piece and I was flying down the highway feeling invincible. After all that kind of money doesn’t grow on trees and if it had at any point, they would have been extinct long ago. It was raining but I didn’t care I was in a suped up suv that purred like a lion and was twice as tough. Or so I thought.

I didn’t see the signs that said that the road was closed but it didn’t matter. I wouldn’t have been able to stop anyway.

Actually road closed meant bridge closed 30 foot drop ahead...
The accident was remarkably loud. Frames bending flesh and metal becoming one.
I bet you figure that the Benefactor would kill me next but you’re wrong.
The crash paralyzed me you see....
As near as I can figure it’s from the neck down. The check that I was running to cash has long since been ruined by my own blood.
I see the Benefactor constantly now he glides in with the midnight fog and bending low peers through the shattered windshield with empty eyes then, sensing life he slowly disappears with the midnight fog.

I hope someone comes to get me before he comes back I really do.

Author's Note

Thank you in advance for all of your input.

Reviews

[Suchita]

Waao... Nice work...story line is good... as well as the way yo presented is beautiful...
Ending is perfect...
I hope someone comes to get me before he comes back I really do.
In all i loved it...