My father owned elephants. I had counted 37 on the day of his death. I’m sure over the course of his 53 years, he had owned a significant number more. I remembered them from when I was young, decorative ceramics painted fantastically like the collectible cows found at the county fair. I was never supposed to touch them; he swore they’d hold their value. I didn’t know anything about that. I played with them the same when he wasn’t around, which was 7:00 am through 6:30 pm, Monday through Saturday. My father would always be home for evening supper at the table, however. He’d eat, discuss my day, then immediately after he’d be in his office working, only to emerge after mom tucked me into bed each night. He stayed just long enough for a firm hug and hardy goodnight. He loved me, he just never knew how to get along with me.  

My father had owned the colorful elephants since his circus days before I was born. Before he was forced by mom to find a real job. It was a Tuesday when he moved from the ring to an office. It was a Wednesday when they moved him from his office to the ambulance. In the 27 years between then and his death, diabetes had taken his mobility, depression had taken his smile, and mom had birthed three children, one of which with another man, her second ex-husband. Before his passing, life had left my father living alone in a single bedroom apartment with a cast iron tub that had to be filled with water from the kitchen faucet. Even his fish seemed to ignore him, turning belly up from joy after his passing.

The apartment sat on the fourth story of a brick building that was tucked between a 24/7 convenience store, a small dirt-and-gravel lot for eighteen wheelers, and the areas homeless shelter. The entire area smelled like vinegar, piss, and diesel exhaust that left people passing by feeling like they were chewing on sand. Officially the elevator was in service, no one used it. Neither did I when I made my way through the drab lobby and to the stairwell. The door which required a key was left ajar for me by the old lady ahead of me who was nice enough to slide the hallway trash can into the opening before it slammed shut behind her.

I walked up the stairs at a pace matching that of the old white-haired woman. Her third leg slowed her while the Dish Pack box I’d brought to gather some of my father’s things slowed me. We hobbled up the stairs, looking like two penguins waddling, one ahead of the other, climbing slowly, trying to avoid the watchful eyes of the walruses: roughneck predators that crowded together in the stairwells. The old woman left the stairwell on the second floor, leaving me by myself with the walruses, their eyebrows raised slightly, their noses twitched, their teeth chattered. I clutched my box tighter to my side and continued my hike up, picking up my pace some as I went.

It smelled even more heavily of piss and vinegar in the stairwell as if the builders had captured the outside air in a mason jar and forgotten the air holes. I couldn’t help but think about the moths and butterflies my brother and I used to capture in jars. Early on, when we’d capture them, we’d just let them die of starvation, or thirst, or whatever kills insects after so much time has passed. We quickly started adding cotton balls soaked in rubbing alcohol, sometimes turpentine to kill the bugs faster. If we didn’t, the insects would break their wings struggling to escape. What good is a bug with a broken wing? We always thought it was a more efficient way to kill, Kirby City Contractors seemed to agree.

The click of the door as it shut behind me triggered a breath of relief. The stairwell let out into the hallway near rooms 406 and 408, my father lived in 426. It was a small walk down the hall, a right turn, and a hop past the Pepsi vending machine that dispensed Coke products. It was a Wednesday when my father died. It was Friday now and the yellow notice declaring that all items left in the room after Monday would be put into trash bags and discarded was staring back at me. It had been nailed to the door by Jackeline, the building's supervisor—whore.

I tested the door handle; my father had always left his door unlocked, always telling me and my brother we needn’t even knock if we ever happened by - we never did. My brother still hadn’t as far as I knew. I didn’t think that would change. The door didn’t open. Someone had been there. Someone had locked the door behind them, possibly Jackeline. I set the box on the ground and dug in my pocket for the key my father had given me. It wasn’t there. It would be a walk back past the vending machine, back down the stairwell with the roughnecks, back out the door that was left ajar for me by the old Jewish woman, and back to the counter where Jackeline would be sitting, reading Vogue and chomping on gum. She would have an extra key to the apartment. How unfortunate.

I decided to leave the box by the door. I’d be able to jog my way down and back up without it. I jogged to the vending machine, then decided against jogging any farther. I slowed to a fast walk and continued from there. When I opened the door to the stairwell, Kirby’s concoction of choice assaulted my sense of smell. Again, vinegar and bodily fluids filled my lungs. When I stepped through and the door had closed behind me, the hairs stood at the back of my neck. More eerily, the stairwell was now quiet. The roughnecks were no longer arguing below. I smiled.

Jackeline was at the desk. This time Italy’s Real Estate was opened, a waterfront home complete with a manicured lawn and a Frenchman spread across its cover. She was still chomping gum.

“Jackeline.” She didn’t look up. Softer, less confident this time, “Jackeline.” No answer. I dropped my shoulders and rolled my eyes upward, “Ms. Skeward.” The magazine lowered.

“Yes?” She asked it fakely, she looked fake.

“Do you happen to have a spare key to my father’s room?”

“Ol’ Benny?”

“Yeah,” I answered softly, my cheeks turning red. She knew who I was, she didn’t need to clarify.

She smacked her lips and turned her chair around. Behind her was a bulletin board with all the rooms keys on it. At night she would close the two wooden doors and lock it with a bronze Master lock. She plucked a key for 426, turned back around and handed it to me. She winked as I took it and said hoarsely, “let me know what’s left.” She laughed and patted my hand.

I didn’t know what she meant. I didn’t bother to ask. After a raise of my eyebrows and a hearty, “okay,” I walked back toward the stairwell. Using my father’s key to open the door, I stepped in. This time, when the door closed behind me, I breathed a sigh of relief. Jackeline was not a “fun” person. She was 67 years-old. She had smoked 49 of those years. She was short, pudgy, had red hair like Reba, the same haircut too. She was always in sundresses. Her nails were always painted red. And, she always wore pearls. She was also intolerable.

The walk up the stairwell was again quiet. I could hear the roughnecks, but they were farther up, hassling some poor fellow for his backpack. I considered calling the police, I had also considered having eggs for breakfast that morning, I did neither. Once back at apartment number 4-2-6, I picked up my box. Nobody had bothered it. I slid the key in the brass knob and turned it to the right. The knob turned with it and the door pushed open. I dropped my box. There was dust covering everything except the spots where my father’s televisions, computers, laptops, and other such valuables had been occupying - had been.

I immediately rushed inside. Everything of value from my father’s apartment was missing. I walked around the small apartment, carefully scrutinizing the scene as if I was a detective and had any idea what I was looking for. I searched and searched and searched until I came upon a box just beside the couch. The box had a large blanket inside and a large yellow note on it like the one stapled to the door. I picked it up, there was writing in pen. I turned the paper over. It was an eviction notice. I giggled.

I turned the paper back over and read what it said: Matt, I flew in early yesterday and “cleaned up.” I did leave you something though! So, don’t say I never did anything for you. - Jimmy. I put the note from my brother on the couch beside me and frowned. Asshole, I thought. I looked at the blanket. It wasn’t anything special. A large white fleece. It was nice, but it couldn’t have cost more than 30 or 40 dollars from the nearby truck stop. I frowned again then stood up. I closed my eyes and balled my fists. Then, without thinking, I kicked the box. It toppled, and the top of the blanket, along with a small ceramic elephant fell out. I looked at it for at least a full minute before I moved again.

I picked up the elephant and studied it. It was a purple one with a golden saddle and white war paint down its trunk and under its eyes. Its ears were pierced with large gold hoops. It was a beautiful elephant.  I put it on the couch then turned my attention to the box. I picked it up and looked inside: all of my father’s elephants were there. I smiled.

I took the small box of elephants and placed it inside my own box. I then went through the apartment and gathered what my brother hadn’t taken: pictures of us and our father, him and our mother - my father’s old trucker caps, his spectacles, his cane, his straight razor collection (the non-valuable ones left behind by my brother), a bag of marbles, and a magnet he brought back from Vietnam.

I closed the box and taped the top shut with some scotch tape I found while digging through his kitchen drawers. I picked the box up and left the apartment, leaving the door unlocked behind me. I walked slowly down the hall with the vending machine, back toward rooms 406 and 408, back into the kill-stairwell, back down the four flights of concrete stairs, past the roughnecks who were now harassing a young couple for their wallet - I told myself if my hands weren’t full I’d do something this time - and back out the door that locked when it closed. Jackeline dropped her magazine and smiled as I walked by.

“So?” she asked amused.

“He left me some elephants.”

“Elephants?” she said stupidly. “What an asshole.” She picked her magazine back up and went back to chomping her gum, a new piece by now I was sure.

I smiled, “Yeah, I know.”