The Daily Route

Mr. Acker’s house was at the end of Miller road. It was shadowed in the large trees the old man refused to trim and the yard was covered in weeds he never mowed. There was an old and decaying treehouse in the fat oak tree stationed in the front yard. Bill visited the house daily, but only because he had to. Today, his route manager, Roderick, impatiently reminded him that he had yet to collect Mr. Acker’s two-week dispatch subscription fee. Bill knew this, of course. He was always on top of his deliveries and fees…but Mr. Acker was different. Mr. Acker had a goat, and Bill hated goats.

“Whatever,” Bill muttered, shoving the kickstand down on his bike. He secured his coin dispenser around his belt and plucked a copy of The Annapolis Capital out of the messenger bag slung over the back of his bike. The headline read “Navy quickly dispatched to Camp Doha early September morning.” In the middle of the article was a photo of the SEALs team—his father being among them. At least he didn’t have to find out like this, Bill thought, through a newspaper headline. The memory of his mother from the day before crossed his mind, her wet cheeks and dirty apron in the kitchen when he got home from school. She informed him of his father’s abrupt departure, that he was already gone and hated leaving without saying goodbye.

He squeezed the newspaper in his hand as tightly as he could. Mr. Acker was going to give him the subscription fee, and his stupid goat was gonna stay out of his way.

The only thing that Mr. Acker kept up to date was the heavy-duty gate surrounding his yard. Wrapping all the way around the house, it looked out of place in the middle of the suburbs. Bill couldn’t complain though, considering it kept that filthy goat-beast locked on the property, away from the rest of the community. He entered the yard slowly, noticing the random tires half-buried into the ground, the igloo dog house in the corner of the yard. There was no sign of life, no sign of the goat. Somehow, he made his way safely to the front door, but not without several paranoid glances of his surroundings.

Knocking several times, he said, “Collect for the Capital!” Nothing. “Mr. Acker, you have to pay your fees!” Silence. Bill wondered if the old man was even alive, but knew someone had to be moving around inside, considering the newspapers Bill usually tossed onto the porch from the other side of the gate were always gone the next day. The last time Bill tried to collect from Acker, he tossed a frying pan out the door at Bill’s head. In all his thirteen years of life, Bill had never met anyone so stubborn.

Walking across the creaky porch, Bill smeared some dust from the window and peeked inside the dark house. Contrary to the outside of the house, the inside was fairly well-kept. “Mr. Acker?” The dining table to set up neatly with a table cloth and a teapot in the center. There was a china cabinet on the right of the table full of delicate dishes. Bill tried to imagine Mr. Acker’s fry-pan-throwing hands wiping them clean of dust. Two other rooms, the living room, and the kitchen were only partly visible from where the paperboy was standing. “Mr. Acker!!”

“What you hollering for, boy?” a hoarse voice exclaimed. Bill jolted away from the window to find the old man standing behind his screen door. The young boy moved to glare into the aging man’s grey eyes. Today he wore denim overalls over an oversized white shirt. One of his eyes were wider than the other and his nose was a little crooked. His fingers shook slightly, Bill noticed, and there was a band on his left ring finger. Bill remembers a conversation he had with his mother once. He had been complaining about the old man when she told him to take it easy on Mr. Acker, something about his wife and daughter dying tragically. Either way, the Acker man was mean and crass, and Bill was convinced he had it out for him.

“You need to pay your fees,” Bill ordered, willing himself to sound as powerful as his father. Mr. Acker practically growled.

“I don’t gotta do anything. If it wasn’t for my contribution to this community, you’d have no education. Now, leave my newspaper on that bench and get off my porch!”

Bill stomped his foot. “I’m told to hold all papers from you until you pay up, old man!”

“Watch your tone with me, son, I know your father.”

Bill scowled. “So? Haven’t you seen the news?”

“I gotta TV, don’t I? Now get off my property!”

The old man slammed the door. Dust shimmied off the top of the doorframe and the house shook. Bill stomped down the steps in frustration, muttering things his mother would not approve of, but froze when he heard a low snort. Standing in front of the gate was a black, 125-pound pygmy goat. Neither one of them moved, broke eye contact, or breathed. The goat stood like a statue, which reminded Bill of a bronze statue at the Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium. It’s the United States Naval Academy mascot, which happens to be a goat named Bill. Being a heavy military family, Bill’s parents thought it would be an honor to be named after the mascot for the branch your father serves in. Bill, the human, thought differently. Who wants to be named after the mascot for the Academy that turned their dad into a fading figure of their life?

The goat charged at him. Without a plan, Bill reached forward and grabbed the goat’s horns. They were solid and strong. The goat pushed and shook, trying to break loose from the kid's grasp. Pushing him backward, Bill tripped on his own foot and fell down to the weeds. For a moment he didn’t know where the animal went until a rock-like object slammed into the side of his head. It was the goat's head. The goat head-butted him. He just got head-butted by a goat.

Bill stood quickly, got dizzy, and slumped against a tree. The animal was coming at him again and it was pure luck that Bill reached around the tree, felt a ladder, and started to climb it. The treehouse was even smaller than it looked from the outside. The floor was flooded with leaves, twigs, dirt, and dead bugs. There was a hole in the roof where the tree had barged in. The structure gave a shaky jolt every time the goat slammed its head into the bottom of the tree, which was several times a minute.

“Hey!” he called down to the goat, who was still whacking away at the tree like a lumberjack. “Hey, knock it off, you stupid goat! Stop it!” Something tickled his temple. He reached up and felt warm, sticky blood trickling down from his hairline. “Hey, stupid goat, look what you did!” The goat paused and looked around. Bill thought it was going to walk away, but instead, it just started eating the weeds around the tree. From this height, he was able to see into one of the upstairs windows, and there was Mr. Acker, lounging in a recliner. The TV was turned on and showed smoke in NYC.

“MR. ACKER!” Bill cried. The old man looked around, caught Bill's eye through the glass, and walked towards the window. When he opened it, Bill shouted, “Call off your beast!”

The old man was actually grinning, which was more terrifying than his scowl. “Bad luck is always in search of followers.” And with that, he shut the window and closed the curtains.

“No way…” Bill muttered, stunned that the old man had the audacity to leave him there. He tried hollering some more, tried hollering for anyone, but everyone was either at work or asleep. He checked his watch, the one his dad got him so they could be matching. It was already 7:30. He had school at 8:30. His mom was home, he knew that, but he still had papers to deliver. She wouldn’t go looking for him until later. He realized he still had Mr. Acker’s newspaper in his hand. His dad’s picture stared back at him. This wouldn’t be happening if he hadn’t gotten deployed. When he was home, his dad drove him around during his deliveries. He wouldn’t have to worry about this stupid goat, this stupid treehouse, his route manager’s anger when he would soon find out he still hasn’t gotten Acker’s fees.

Bill sat down on the splintery wood floor and glared at the goat. It stared back, chewing on grass. Its eyes were black and bland, but there was something there, some kind of recognition.

“Hope you’re enjoying your breakfast,” Bill said sarcastically. Its chewing ceased and there were no sounds other than the soft September breeze ruffling branches against the treehouse. He stared at the goat's black, stony eyes impassively and thought of the first time his dad was deployed. It happened late at night. His dad woke him up, fully clothed and ready to leave. Bill told him he needed to go with him, to protect him. His dad didn’t let him of course, and Bill now realizes how silly he sounded. How naïve and young. Nothing can stop his dad from leaving, not even him.

Without realizing his actions, he started ripping up the newspaper. Diagonal rips, horizontal and vertical. The paper rained down on the goat-like confetti. It shook its head to free itself from it. If the world wasn’t so mean, maybe his world wouldn’t feel so incomplete.

Bill glanced around the treehouse. The wood was decaying before his eyes, but as he looked closely for the first time, he noticed writing. Random drawings cluttered the treehouse, cartoon dogs, butterflies, birds, people. The biggest drawing was of a goat, which had text underneath that read Voldemort. Right by the entrance was more text; Amy Acker owns this treehouse. Bill stared absently at the curtains Mr. Acker closed. He had never heard of an Amy Acker and quickly understood why. He was trapped in a dead girl’s treehouse.

Bill found a pile of dirt in the corner of the wooden house and packed the split on his head with it. It was gross and weird, but he imagined that he was out on the field with his dad, no first aid supplies, no backup, only each other. They had to survive off the land and steer clear of the enemies. They would watch out for each other, always coming out on top, the best duo the military had ever seen. And they were never apart. Bill tried to focus on his dad, stay in that positive place of his imagination but he kept imagining Amy Acker using rocks to carve goats into the treehouse, marking her territory. He imagined a young Mr. Acker securing the steps on the tree, of a Mrs, Acker calling the two of them to clean up before dinner.

An hour went by and Bill remained in the tree. Acker never returned to the window. Sometimes the goat would watch him, sometimes it ate grass, sometimes it head-butted the tree. It never left though. It remained at the bottom of the tree, daring Bill to exit the tree. Laying on his stomach, Bill had resorted to dropping twigs on the goat's head. This would just piss the goat off more, but he had stopped caring.

“Do you even understand anything?” Bill asked. His head still hurt. “Do you understand the things that are happening right now? Do you even know?” He wondered what it would be like to live oblivious to the world’s ugliness. The goat made a noise and started smacking the tree again. The treehouse shook.

“Stop it!” The boy shrieked. The shaking continued. Bill sat up and held his head with his fists. Squeezing his eyes shut, his insides became hot. “Stopstopstopstopstopstop!”

Bill kept screaming but nothing worked. He screamed until there were tears on his cheeks and his throat was raw and his head throbbed. In the distance, he heard his name being called but didn’t think it was real so he continued yelling and yelling and yelling.

Moments later Mr. Acker was wrapping a lead around the goat's head and pulling him away. Another man came into view, one in a uniform, and for a second Bill thought it was his dad until he saw that it was a policeman. The officer helped him down from the tree and steadied him when he got to the ground. A woman wrapped her arms around his body and pulled him to her chest. She smelled like cherries. She was crying. She was his mother.

“I took your route and couldn’t find you,” his mother said. “So I called Roderick and he said you hadn’t come back.”

After telling them the events of his morning, the officer told Bill’s mom to take him to the ER for his head, and then he tried speaking to Mr. Acker. The goat stood next to the old man, still held by the lead.

“Voldemort wouldn’t have hurt the kid,” Acker said, grumpy about being woken from his nap. “He’s just protective.”

“Your goat's name is Voldemort and you’re trying to convince us that it’s harmless?” Bill’s mother snapped.

Acker’s face went red with rage and his eyes glistened with something else. “My Amy named this goat and I’ll be damned if I let any of you take him from me.”

“Sir, if the animal is a danger to the community, it might have to be—“

“No!” Bill was surprised by his own outburst but even more surprised by what he was hearing. “The goat…I mean, Voldemort…shouldn’t be taken away.”

His mother leaned down and looked him in the eyes. “But Bill, honey, look what it did to you.”

Bill made eye contact with Mr. Acker, who was clenching and unclenching his face muscles like he was ready to put up a fight but was also holding back tears. He imagined how the next couple of minutes would go if he did say the goat was dangerous, how Mr. Acker, the meanest and most hardheaded person he’d ever met, would fight and shout to keep the only creature that means anything to him in this world. The state of the next few minutes is resting in Bill's dirty hands.

“I went after it first,” Bill told them. Mr. Acker’s grey eyes held his fiercely like he was waiting for the catch. “I never liked it, so when I saw it, I threw a stick at it.”

“Well,” said the officer, who looked weary. “I guess as long as it can’t get out of the yard—"

“He can’t,” Acker deadpanned, still watching Bill suspiciously.

Mr. Acker said nothing to Bill, but he watched him leave, his expression clear of all signs of emotion. His mother helped him into the car, buckled his seat belt, and reclined the seat a little. The officer, who offered to return Bill’s bike later in the day, continued to question Acker, but this time about his newspaper fees. Bill's mom started the car and turned in the direction of the hospital. Bill, tired and dizzy, stared at the goat, who still stood next to its owner. It stared back, unfazed by the situation, oblivious to the world.

“When is dad coming home?” Bill asked his mom, keeping an eye on the goat until it was out of view. He knew she didn’t know the answer to his question, and frankly, he didn’t know why he asked. He asked it every time his dad left, almost like he wanted to make sure she never forgot how crushed he was that he wasn’t there. The only difference was that this was the first time he felt bad about asking it.

“I’m not sure, sweetie.” The radio played the news channel, which spoke about the incident. “Planes hit, topple World Trade Center…explosions rock Pentagon, spreading fear…fate of 50,000 in NYC unknown…”

His mother turned the radio off suddenly, engulfing the car in a silence Bill had never experienced before. “Bill, honey…” his mom said. “Do you understand the things that are happening right now?”