The Mailbox

1:27 pm

His appearance would not have raised an alarm except Will E. Scape had not seen his father since the trial. More importantly, no one had seen him since his death. In the years hence, DNA testing improved and would have convicted him of the murder, but that was 1975. The murderer was back.

"Son, listen to me. Everything depends on you". 

For years he wondered why his father did it. The wondering deteriorated him. Whiskey swished his liver, women left his bed, and age cracked his skin. 

At first, he wasn't sure this person was his dad. The last time he saw him Tim E. Scape's hair was salt and pepper. The salt seasoned his temples with sprinkles on the crown. The edge of his eyes lined, not worn. His teeth stained his stature strong. His voice boomed the rasp of discarded Malboro's. 

He did not recognize the defined muscles, the tight saltless afro, the polished ivory teeth. The man he knew wore suits exclusively. This man sported a black turtle neck and blue jeans. Even his voice lacked the graveled maturity to come. 

1:35 pm

Tim got to the point. 

"I don't have time for your confusion. We are in one helluva mess. You are the only one I trust."

Will's mouth opened, his pulse quickened, and his eyes grew as big as the park he sat in. The man who did this horrible thing needed his help. He could not comprehend.

"How did you -? You should be in jail, but hell would do."

Will saw the transition in his father's eyes. He knew what came next - duck. He lowered his head just in time to avoid the open-hand smack with the left hand. He did not see the right hook. He'd felt his father's anger before, but that was the heat of an older man. This was the fire and strength of a young man. His right eye swelled and his right ear rang.

"Listen to me. I am a member of The Railroad. Long story, but it is an organization started in the 1830s."

He told his son the organization helped to win the Civil War and fought Jim Crow. The Railroad received its first funds from the North Star newspaper. 

"The Railroad is the most covert organization in the world. Not even those alphabet organizations know of our existence."

1:45 pm

He explained the criteria for membership; black astrophysicists from Ivy League schools. This explained why The Railroad selected him during his junior year at MIT. He also told him that in the summer of 1946, The Railroad moved their meetings to Roswell, New Mexico. A year later, during the summer, they witnessed a crash. The Roswell Morning Dispatch reported one flying disk. Nobody knew about the second craft. The disk crashed near The Railroad's headquarters, miles from the other crash site. The men rushed to the site and began to work on the craft.

"We figured out the mysteries of spacetime travel. Stuff Einstein didn't know. Couldn't know."

"English please," A surprised and angry Will said.

"Time travel boy. Our goal, nobel at first, to stop slavery. We wanted to prevent the hurt our people experienced. The middle passage, the rape, the Black Codes, and Jim Crow. All of it. We wanted it erased from history. I was selected to go back to 1619 and destroy the first slave ships. I did it. It was a success. We celebrated. That would have been January of 1968. Then things, strange things began to happen. We lived a nightmare. Members of the group disappeared, not just them, but their entire families. Then we tracked entire cities disappear. There was no record of them ever existing. For some reason, we still had memories of them. The why doesn't matter, hell we don't know, just know my actions began a domino effect. Space and time are folding in."

Will blocked all of this out. He studied his dad's face, movement, and sound. It was him, but this talk of 1619, slave ships, and spacetime made no sense. He was a medical doctor, not someone who contemplated the laws of physics. He believed in the sanctity of life, therefore, he wanted his father to pay for what he did.

"Why did you kill my son? Why did you do it?" He asked with resentment and a sore ear. The figment in front of him was not the man he knew, but it was his father. His eyes filled with tears, stationary on the lids, he explained his logic.

"Kill him? He's not dead. I failed you as a parent. Listen, he is the key to all of this. I had to kill him to save him, save us."

His father told him to listen carefully and that he needed to write down everything he said. To fix what Tim broke Will needed to mail a letter to an address that would not exist for ten years. A member of The Railroad will deliver that letter to your son. 

"Does he have a time machine? My son is dead! And you killed him." 

"Keep your voice down. The less you know the better. This next part is critical. You must begin the note with 'This note serves as my last will and testament to time and space'. That is the code to initiate the operation."

The conversation, surreal for the son, real for his father took place November 6, 1995, on a bench in Central Park. The air by the fountain was crip then. Not cold, crisp. The leaves, burnt orange, some red. Runners making final preparations for the marathon on the twelfth. Locals sought to blend with tourists and tourists craved to stand out like locals. The bench, at the Bethesda Fountain in Central Park overlooked them. The Angel of the Waters sculpture with its raised wings peered over the fountain and the park, protecting it. Now, on this day he asked his son to be the angel. They sat facing the fountain. The same one years before Tim pondered equations with his son beside him. Equations he hoped his grandson could solve if Will delivered the letter.

His father looked down at what looked like a watch but had no hands or numbers on it; just a series of equations.

"I love you son. I hate that things have come to this, but I believed our mission was right. I was wrong. History is in the process of being erased. Whole families are wiped from existence. In ninety minutes, that's 3:30 pm, your great-grandparents be erased. At that point, all of this is over. You have to mail this letter. And one more thing."

"What is that?" Will said with his hand on his head.

"The fact I am here means you are in danger. Enemies of The Railroad know you are the key, but they don't know your son. Do not go back to your apartment. Find a place to write the letter and send it to the address I told you to send it to."

He made Will repeat everything back to him twice. Will had questions.

"You have enemies? Danger? From who?" He turned his head to the steps and then to the trees.

2:00 pm

His father didn't answer. The bench looked as it did when he sat down - empty. Will looked around and felt the eyes of onlookers piercing him. They observed a man converse with himself.

Now in his mid-sixties, a gut that protruded over his belt and speaking to the killer he thought dead for ten years, the son of a member of The Railroad walked briskly to the public library. He thought if any place would have envelopes, paper, and a pencil, it would be the library. He took two of each.

2:52 pm

He closed his eyes to remember each word his father told him. The letters completed, he sealed it and stood from the desk. He wrote it twice, one for the mailbox and one for him. He walked to the stairs and noticed two men in long beige coats closing in. This was the opposition his father spoke of. They looked like twins. They shared features and they shared the urgency his father had. They flanked him. Will moved quickly to descend the stairs but in a blink, like his father's appearance, they were on him. The men grabbed his arms and walked him down the stairs. Onlookers saw a man who looked overserved as he negotiated the stairs. The one on the right lodged his thumb under his bicep. He felt the blood leaving his arm.

Walking in the opposite direction up the stairs he spotted a security guard and yelled for him. 

"What's the problem?" The guard asked.

"These men are robbing me!"

The security guard looked at him and chucked.

"Stay off the dope. There is nobody here."

3:28 pm

Will slipped the guard an envelope as he apologized. The men let him loose and followed the guard. He went downstairs and out the front door. His eyes adjusted to the brilliance of sunlight. He squinted as he searched for a blue mailbox. He spotted one on the corner about five hundred feet to his left. Between him and the blue box were tourists taking pictures and New Yorkers, well, New Yorking. 

He sprinted to the mailbox. He used every muscle in his frail frame. His toes struck the pavement and his mouth agape as he ran to the blue structure. He pulled the letter from his pant pocket. He extended his right arm to the mailbox. Two men in brown coats appeared in his peripheral vision. They would be on him soon. He took in a deep breath opened his eyes wide and leaped toward the mailbox. 

3:30 pm