We’ve got a couple of Music’s Box stories up today. The first is by my good fried J. Hewitt. Of the literary writers of my generation, he’s the one I admire most and the one you don’t really know. And any day that I can bring a fellow writer that inspires me to the forefront, I’m happy to do it.

The song he chose was “Stan” by Eminem featuring Dido. It’s the song that steered me towards Eminem’s work, because it gave him dimension, packed layers onto an already complicated character and person. Here, J. Hewitt creates a dual story line, the microcosm of a relationship on the rocks through correspondence and the macrocosm of an obsessed fan. The way he connects them is brilliant. Please enjoy.

“Put Your Picture on My Wall”

By J. Hewitt

“Man,” he typed, “I love your tits.”

“Thanx babe,” she responded. Then, “When U come 2 see me?”

“IDK”

“Wife.”

Del shook his head reading that last word. He’d told her, back when they started, he had told her he was married. But she said she didn’t care. She wasn’t like that. She didn’t need a boyfriend or anything.

“I told U I was married.”

His concentration on his phone was broken when he heard the slap of magazines on the counter.

“Got the usual I see?” Delmar smiled while Tim chewed a nail.

“Yeah.” Tim stuttered a bit as he spoke.

Delmar glanced over them–Cosmo, Rolling Stone, People, etc. He swiped each one while Tim continued to pry loose a particularly stubborn pinkie nail. He could feel his phone buzzing in his pocket. He swiped a quick look–it just said “But I want U”

“She really loves her some Bianca Stratton,” Delbert said, tossing the magazines in the bag. Tim smiled at him.

“I know,” Tim said. Then, after a bit of an awkward pause, “I hear about her non-stop. Every afternoon, what’s she’s doing, who she’s dating, when her next album is coming out. I could probably tell you more about Bianca than my own mother.”

“Well, I got ya. My daughter is crazy about her too.”

Tim smiled and looked sheepishly away, “Who isn’t?”

“Yeah, me and my wife spend a small fortune on all those albums and DVD’s and all that. Speaking of, when you going to get yourself a wife or something, man?”

“I don’t know. Why are you interested?”

“Well, you know what they say about misery loving company.” Delbert smiled with his statement. Tim laughed at the joke.

“Well, it’s just hard right now.”

“I know what you mean–spending all that time helping your neighbor. But you keep buying these magazines, people gonna think you got you a young one.“ They both laughed at Delbert’s joke. “It’s pretty awesome–you taking care of her like that.”

Tim smiled a small, crooked smile, “I guess.”

“You know what I mean–We never have enough people just helping people.” Delbert watched as Tim swiped his card, then pulled off the receipt and placed it in the bag with the magazines. “You gonna make some lady very lucky.”

“Thanks! See you next week, Del.”

As soon as Tim left, Delbert turned his attention back to his phone, back to the message she had sent.

“Sry, customer.” He responded.
‘u don’t want me.”

“NO–U R the best thing I got. Just can’t leave Janine.”

He paused for a minute, then added, “Not yet.”

He looked around the store–nobody in. Course, it was a Tuesday mid-afternoon. Tim was usually the only customer he had at this time. But it had been such a slow month, worst since he opened the stand. Damn internet. After 12 years, it was getting to a point nobody was buying anything tangible anymore. All right there on their eReaders and iPads and phones and.

His phone hadn’t buzzed.

Shit. Maybe he’d messed it all up.

Suddenly, he felt it, that vibration that allowed him to start taking in breath again. He looked down at his screen.

“Luv u. Who was the customer?”

Del smiled.

“Dude that takes care of some old lady in his apartment. Buys her mags and reads to her.”

“That’s so sweet!” She’d put one of those cartoon faces with two hearts where the eyes were supposed to be.

“Yah.”

“Married?”

“Nah.”

“You should loan him a side chick.”

Del couldn’t help to smile at that last comment.

Two Months Later

Del got off the bus, his mind fractured like a branch fed through a wood chipper. Delilah’s demands were getting more and more, Janine had been acting strange, Seneca’s grades weren’t where they should be…

No, it was the stand. Third bad month in a row. Never had anything like this. If something didn’t turn around soon, he was going to have to shut it down. Get a real job. Seneca would be college age soon–she’d need that fund and he couldn’t borrow from it to help out and the savings he’d compiled from those boom years were almost completely gone.

Another month. Maybe two. But that was it.

He could get a loan? No–he’d started that stand debt free, he wasn’t about to go back on that promise now.

He opened the door to his small house to see Janine sitting there, the tears still drying on her cheeks. He rushed over to her, but she stood and moved from him.

“Don’t you dare touch me.”

“Honey, baby…what’s going on?”

“I know.”

Delbert felt his heart start to quiver. Prime age for a heart attack.

“Know what?” he said, his words pouring out slowly, measured.

“About her. About your little girlfriend.” Janine’s eyes burned with anger and tears so much it would not have surprised Del to see steam rising from them. “Your messages back and forth. I read them.”

“Baby…”

“Don’t you baby me! Don’t you fucking baby me!” She threw her arms in the air and flew across the room till she was standing in his face, her finger jabbing his chest like a keyboard as she spoke. “How long? How many times? I don’t want to know, but how could you do this? To me? To Seneca? How could you do this you lying ass son of a bitch!”

“Honey…”

“Don’t do that–don’t you talk down to me. You tell me, you tell me why you did this!”

“I didn’t do anything!”

“You didn’t do anything? You didn’t tell that bitch how you wanted to lick her panties? How you wanted to do things…my God, if my momma heard these words coming out of my mouth, she’d slap the shit out of me. You didn’t do anything?”

“It was just messages–just a game, you know? I didn’t do anything like for real–I was just messing around!” Del backed away, then felt his own resolve start to break. “And why you reading my messages? Who gave you that right?”

“That preacher we stood before when we said we would love one another and all that–that’s who. Tell me you didn’t do anything, it was just a game, yet there I got pictures of that young thing sending you her tits, and you sending her that picture of your…”

The last word was stopped by the slamming of Seneca’s door. She was crying too, her hands shaking.

“Baby, what’s wrong?” Janine said, instantly switching from injured wife to nurturing mother. It was one of the most amazing things about her.

“I know, Mom and I are arguing, but we do that sometimes….” Del tried to add, helpfully, but Seneca looked at him with a sadness she had never shown before. One of those sad moments that stay with a person, that becomes part of who they are.

“It’s…it’s not that,” she blubbered, not even trying to hold back the tears and snot, a teenage crying that signified the end of the world for her, or at least the end of the innocence of her. “They…someone…someone killed her.”

“What, baby?” Janine put her arm around the girl, while Del just looked at them, his two women, how much they looked alike–especially right now.

“Someone killed her!” Seneca moved over and grabbed the remote for the television. She turned it quickly to the all news channel, where a reporter stood framed by a yellow “Do Not Cross” ribbon.

“No word yet on the identity of the man who’s been arrested at this time, but details are emerging. We know he lived alone, with reports coming out that his apartment was covered with hundreds of her pictures.”

Del looked down at the crawler below, reading the words slowly like he was inhaling smoke.

“Bianca Stratton Killed”

He glanced at his daughter, who was burying her face in her mother’s shoulder. He turned back as the reporter started to speak.

‘We have been made aware of the identity of the shooter–a Timothy Williams, an accountant….”

Tim. It was Tim.

Del took a step backwards. His eyes were so that his wife momentarily forgot her anger with him.

“What’s wrong, Del?”

“That’s…That’s the guy every Tuesday. He was buying those for his neighbor–she was an invalid. That’s why he was buying them…That‘s what he said…”

All of them, every Tuesday, every magazine with her picture on it or in it. He could tell you more about Bianca than his own mother. He could….

His nervous laugh. His defensive nature about being married, or having a girlfriend…what old lady would love Bianca Stratton?

Del looked over at his wife, standing both nobly and sympathetically next to his daughter, his princess. She had a hand around her shoulders, telling the young lady that she would always be there, always, no matter what.

She was the one there. Not him.

Del walked over, and hugged his family. Later, he’d tell Janine he was going to shut the stand down and get another job.

And after he had pulled them tight, he reached into his pocket and turned his phone off.