The Collector by Lee Mandel (best short novels TXT) 📕

“Oh goody, it’s here,” Jeannie said racing toward the front door to greet the Postman.
“Good morning, Jeannie,” he said, handing her a short stack of envelopes and a miniature square box.
“Thanks, George,” she returned. “I’ve been waiting for this.” Her eyes widened as she took the mail from his hand.
“Somethin’ good, I hope,” he said.
Without looking up from the box, she said, “It’s something my dad has always wanted. I found it on-line and I’m going to surprise him for his birthday.”

She closed the door and took a moment to gaze at the small box. She imagined the look on her father’s face when she gave it to him. She smiled and then walked toward the kitchen. She passed several family pictures: some of her mother, her two brothers at different stages of their lives, various aunts and uncles at special occasions and one solitary photo of her father. She stopped in front of it and addressed it. “Oh Daddy, you will be surprised, won’t you?”
Knowing she wouldn’t be getting an answer from the stern two-dimensional likeness of her father, she proceeded to the kitchen. She put the box on the table and tossed the envelopes. Instead of landing next to the box, they slid across the bare oak plane and stopped just before falling off the table’s edge. Standing in front of the box as if in a gleeful trance, she wrung her hands and mumbled, “Goody, goody, goody.” She felt like a child ready to open a carefully wrapped gift.
With a sharp rip of the packing tape, she tossed the interior travel cushion into the trashcan. Gently, she reached down into the box. She lifted the small spool of fishing wire into the light. “Hello, my little friend,” she greeted, cradling the small treasure. “Yes, yes, Daddy will be surprised indeed.”
A knock at the front door interrupted her trance. Quickly scanning the room to make sure she was alone, she replaced the spool in its package and stashed the box under the sink. Another knock on the door caused her to shout, “I’m on my way.”
Peeking through the eyepiece, Jeanie was relieved to see her brother Charles.
“Hey, kiddo. I was in the neighborhood and thought I’d stop by to check in on my baby sister.”
“Hi, Charles. C’mon in. Want something to drink?”
“Nah, I’m not staying.”
“You know I’m fine and you don’t have to keep checking in on me.”
He held the bottom of her chin in his hand and said, “Yeah, I know, but I worry about you living here all by yourself, so far away from the rest of the family.”
Jeannie tried to change the subject. “Are you sure you don’t want something?”
“I have to pick up my kids from their mother’s. I’m taking them for new sneakers today. She only lets me see them when they need something and she can’t pay for it.”
Changing the subject again, Jeannie said, “Wanna see what I got Dad for his birthday?”
“You bought him a birthday present?”
“Yeah. Wait ‘til you see.” She walked to the sink and pulled out the package from its hiding spot. She pulled out the fishing wire.
“You’re giving him a spool of thread?” Charles asked with confusion.
“Not a spool of thread; a spool of that fishing wire that he’s always talking about. The strong kind that he says never fails to catch the biggest fish. I was going to give it to him Saturday, when we take him for lunch.”
“Well, I’m not getting that old bastard anything.”
“Charles, that isn’t nice. He’s your father.”
Charles looked at Jeannie with a serious expression. “After all that rotten son-of-a-bitch put us through, he’s lucky I don’t get him a coffin for his 75th birthday.”
Jeannie was not surprised by Charles’s hatred for their father. “I know he has put us through some horrible things, Charles, but he is still our father.”
“Jeannie, he’s a monster. He hides behind alcohol and thought it was okay to beat his wife and children. And when he wasn’t hitting us, he would say cruel things. He screwed up all of our lives, Jeannie. Do you think Joey wanted his future as a football superstar thrown away? He was only sixteen when dad fractured his spine. I certainly didn’t want to have to rely on a therapist to get me through every waking moment of my life. And what about you? I’m sure you didn’t want him to ruin your chances at having a family of your own. I know Mom said that we were supposed to do what he said, he was the father – the man of the house, but I don’t live under his roof or his rules any more. In fact, I don’t want to have anything to do with him any more. You know I only go to these occasional events because you ask me to.” Charles stood up and pushed the chair away with the back of his legs. “I’ve gotta go,” he said walking toward the door.
“Charles, don’t go. We don’t have to talk about him any more. Let’s talk about something else. I’ll make coffee,” Jeannie pleaded. But Charles was already out the front door. Without looking back he closed the door behind him, leaving Jeannie in solitude once again.
She felt distraught, but held back her tears. She learned a long time ago that crying wouldn’t solve any of her problems. Her mind catapulted back to when she was a little girl. Joey held her small collection of Barbie dolls hostage. Most of them were hand-me-downs from her cousin, but they were the only dolls she had, and she loved them. Seven in total, Joey dangled her three favorites from Mom’s clothesline.
“Look, the trapeze,” he teased.
“Don’t, Joey! Give them back!” Jeannie shouted out the dinning room window as Joey clipped each of the dolls on the line with clothespins. Jeannie reached out the window, trying desperately to catch “the girls.”
Jeannie thought her father was coming to rescue the dolls for her. Instead, he grabbed them in exchange for a fierce slap across Joey’s face, before sentencing him to the room the three children shared for the rest of the day. But, he wasn’t finished. He walked back to the house and found himself another target – Jeannie. He blamed her stupidity and fatuousness for causing the incident in the first place. Jeannie listened to his wrath as tears stained her small, alabaster cheeks. He finished with a matching slap across her face to match her brother’s. The blow was so hard it caused her to loose her balance. She stumbled backward toward the stairs that led to the basement. As she tried to grasp the doorframe, she missed and fell, awkwardly plunging downward.
Almost an hour later, she woke to find herself lying in a pool of water in the basement. The bottom step was hard on her back. No one had come to help her. She winced as she tried to stand up. The pain was sharp. Quietly, she got on her feet and made it up the stairs. She peered from the door into the dining room, afraid that her father would see her. She saw that her entire collection of dolls were scattered on the kitchen floor. They were in horrible condition. They had all been stabbed with a knife, which her father left on the floor alongside the plastic massacre.
Jeannie’s mother came racing in. She tried to keep Jeannie calm so that her husband’s attention wouldn’t waiver from the television set. Jeannie could barely move and parts of her were already turning purple from the bruises. Jeannie’s mother helped her into the car and drove straight to the hospital.
After several x-rays and tests, Jeannie was told that she would need surgery and that she would be a slave to a colostomy bag for the rest of her life. The doctor also informed that her that she would never be able to have children, at least not naturally.
Inside Jeannie’s anger grew. Not only did her father rob her of playing sports or living without the use of a ‘shit bag’ but he forced her into an emotional corner. He paralyzed her abilities, both physically and mentally. His reaction was, “Good, now I won’t have to worry about her coming home pregnant.”

Jeannie’s father had belittled Charles so often in front of anyone who was around that Charles suffered two major emotional breakdowns. His ex-wife left him because she couldn’t take his bouts of depression and self-loathing.
Joey, the second oldest, became wheelchair bound when their father broke his spine. Their father was not pleased with how Joey raked the leaves one autumn. Joey was bitter and avoided the family as much as possible. Who could blame him?
As for Jeannie, she could never keep a relationship long enough to celebrate a month’s anniversary. Sometimes it was because she was honest enough to tell the young man that she would never be able to give him children, other times it was because Jeannie couldn’t commit emotionally. She lost the little confidence she had and became accustomed to the solitude of single life.
But the evil didn’t stop with her father. It was a trait that ran through his family’s blood. Her aunts and uncles on his side, all seemed to posses the same cruel ability to verbally mutilate all they encountered. The rest of Jeannie’s paternal family displayed their evilness on a regular basis as well. Her Aunt Marie always criticized Jeannie on her choices in life. “Look at you. How are you ever going to get a man looking like that? Don’t you care what people are saying about you?”
Aunt Marie was even responsible for scaring away the one boyfriend Jeannie wanted to continue having a relationship for more than a month. Aunt Marie blurted out Jeannie’s lack of knowledge on how to please a man. She offered to show him a good time instead. Jeannie’s boyfriend was uncomfortable and disgusted with Marie’s advances and he left the house, never to return. Later in the evening, Jeannie checked her answering machine. He left her a message saying that he didn’t want to be a part of her ‘sick and twisted’ family.
Jeannie shrugged off the dreadful images from her past and began humming a light tune to change her mood. She went to the closet and searched for some wrapping paper.


The next day Jeannie answered the telephone. It was Joey. “Hey sis, how’s it going?”
“Joey? How are you?”
“Doin’ great, but listen, I have to tell you something. I’m not going to join you guys for Dad’s birthday lunch on Saturday,” he said gently, trying not to hurt her feelings.
“But why?” Jeannie asked disappointed.
“Well, because, I…well, its because I hate him, Jeannie. I don’t want to have anything to do with him. He’s sadistic and a drunk. I thought he’d change when Mom died, but he hasn’t. I thought he’d break his