Post Office

1

It began as a mistake.

It was Christmas season and I learned from the drunk up the hill, who did the trick every Christmas, that they would hire damned near anybody, and so I went and the next thing I knew I had this leather sack on my back and was hiking around at my leisure. What a job, I thought. Soft! They only gave you a block or 2 and if you managed to finish, the regular carrier would give you another block to carry, or maybe you’d go back in and the soup would give you another, but you just took your time and shoved those Xmas cards in the slots.

I think it was my second day as a Christmas temp that this big woman came out and walked around with me as I delivered letters. What I mean by big was that her ass was big and her tits were big and that she was big in all the right places. She seemed a bit crazy but I kept looking at her body and I didn’t care.

She talked and talked and talked. Then it came out. Her husband was an officer on an island far away and she got lonely, you know, and lived in this little house in back all by herself.

“What little house?” I asked.

She wrote the address on a piece of paper.

“I’m lonely too,” I said, “I’ll come by and we’ll talk tonight.”

I was shacked but the shack job was gone half the time, off somewhere, and I was lonely all right. I was lonely for that big ass standing beside me.

“All right,” she said, “see you tonight.”

She was a good one all right, she was a good lay but like all lays after the 3rd or 4th night I began to lose interest and didn’t go back. But I couldn’t help thinking, god, all these mailmen do is drop in their letters and get laid. This is the job for me, oh yes yes yes.

2

So I took the exam, passed it, took the physical, passed it, and there I was—a substitute mail carrier. It began easy. I was sent to West Avon Station and it was just like Christmas except I didn’t get laid. Every day I expected to get laid but I didn’t. But the soup was easy and I strolled around doing a block here and there. I didn’t even have a uniform, just a cap. I wore my regular clothes. The way my shackjob Betty and I drank there was hardly money for clothes.

Then I was transferred to Oakford Station.

The soup was a bullneck named Jonstone. Help was needed there and I understood why. Jonstone liked to wear dark-red shirts—that meant danger and blood. There were 7 subs—Tom Moto, Nick Pelligrini, Herman Stratford, Rosey Anderson, Bobby Hansen, Harold Wiley and me, Henry Chinaski. Reporting time was 5 a.m. and I was the only drunk there. I always drank until past midnight, and there we’d sit, at 5 a.m. in the morning, waiting to get on the clock, waiting for some regular to call in sick. The regulars usually called in sick when it rained or during a heatwave or the day after a holiday when the mail load was doubled.

There were 40 or 50 different routes, maybe more, each case was different, you were never able to learn any of them, you had to get your mail up and ready before 8 a.m. for the truck dispatches, and Jonstone would take no excuses. The subs routed their magazines on corners, went without lunch, and died in the streets. Jonstone would have us start casing the routes 30 minutes late—spinning in his chair in his red shirt—“Chinaski take route 539!” We’d start a halfhour short but were still expected to get the mail up and out and be back on time. And once or twice a week, already beaten, fagged and fucked we had to make the night pickups, and the schedule on the board was impossible —the truck wouldn’t go that fast. You had to skip four or five boxes on the first run and the next time around they were stacked with mail and you stank, you ran with sweat jamming it into the sacks. I got laid all right. Jonstone saw to that.

3

The subs themselves made Jonstone possible by obeying his impossible orders. I couldn’t see how a man of such obvious cruelty could be allowed to have his position. The regulars didn’t care, the union man was worthless, so I filled out a thirty page report on one of my days off, mailed one copy to Jonstone and took the other down to the Federal Building. The clerk told me to wait. I waited and waited and waited. I waited an hour and thirty minutes, then was taken in to see a little grey-haired man with eyes like cigarette ash. He didn’t even ask me to sit down. He began screaming at me as I entered the door.

“You’re a wise son of a bitch, aren’t you?”

“I’d rather you didn’t curse me, sir!”

“Wise son of a bitch, you’re one of those sons of bitches with a vocabulary and you like to lay it around!”

He waved my papers at me. And screamed: “MR. JONSTONE IS A FINE MAN!”

“Don’t be silly. He’s an obvious sadist,” I said.

“How long have you been in the Post Office?”

“3 weeks.”

“MR. JONSTONE HAS BEEN WITH THE POST OFFICE FOR 30 YEARS!”

“What does that have to do with it?”

“I said, MR. JONSTONE IS A FINE MAN!”

I believe the poor fellow actually wanted to kill me. He and Jonstone must have slept together.

“All right,” I said, “Jonstone is a fine man. Forget the whole fucking thing.” Then I walked out and took the next day off. Without pay, of course.

4

When Jonstone saw me the next 5 a.m. he spun in his swivel and his face and his shirt were the same color. But he said nothing. I didn’t care. I had been up to 2 a.m. drinking and screwing with Betty. I leaned back and closed my eyes.

At 7 a.m. Jonstone swiveled again. All the other subs had been assigned jobs or been sent to other stations that needed help.

“That’s all, Chinaski. Nothing for you today.” He watched my face. Hell, I didn’t care. All I wanted to do was go to bed and get some sleep.

“O.K., Stone,” I said. Among the carriers he was known as “The Stone,” but I was the only one who addressed him that way. I walked out, the old car started and soon I was back in bed with Betty.

“Oh, Hank! How nice!”

“Damn right, baby!” I pushed up against her warm tail and was asleep in 45 seconds.

5

But the next morning it was the same thing:

“That’s all, Chinaski. Nothing for you today.”

It went on for a week. I sat there each morning from 5 a.m. to 7 a.m. and didn’t get paid. My name was even taken off the night collection run. Then Bobby Hansen, one of the older subs—in length of service—told me, “He did that to me once. He tried to starve me.”

“I don’t care. I’m not kissing his ass. I’ll quit or starve, anything.”

“You don’t have to. Report to Prell Station each night. Tell the soup you aren’t getting any work and you can sit in as a special delivery sub.”

“I can do that? No rules against it?”

“I got a paycheck every two weeks.”

“Thanks, Bobby.”

6

I forget the beginning time. 6 or 7 p.m. Something like that.

All you did was sit with a handful of letters, take a streetmap and figure your run. It was easy. All the drivers took much more time than was needed to figure their runs and I played right along with them. I left when everybody left and came back when everybody came back.

Then you made another run. There was time to sit around in coffeeshops, read newspapers, feel decent. You even had time for lunch. Whenever I wanted a day off, I took one. On one of the routes there was this big young gal who got a special every night. She was a manufacturer of sexy dresses and nightgowns and wore them. You’d run up her steep stairway about 11 p.m., ring the bell and give her the special. She’d let out a bit of a gasp, like, “OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOhhhhhhhhhHHHH!”, and she’d stand close, very, and she wouldn’t let you leave while she read it, and then she’d say, “OOOOOoopoh, goodnight, thank YOU!”

“Yes, mam,” you’d say, trotting off with a dick like a bull’s. But it was not to last. It came in the mail after about a week and a half of freedom.

I was back on the cross again.

7

“Chinaski! Take route 539!” The toughest in the station. Apartment houses with boxes that had scrubbed-out names or no names at all, under tiny lightbulbs in dark halls. Old ladies standing in halls, up and down the streets, asking the same question as if they were one person with one voice: “Mailman, you got any mail for me?” And you felt like screaming, “Lady, how the hell do I know who you are or I am or anybody is?” The sweat dripping, the hangover, the impossibility of the schedule, and Jonstone back there in his red shirt, knowing it, enjoying it, pretending he was doing it to keep costs down. But everybody knew why he was doing it. Oh, what a fine man he was! The people. The people. And the dogs. Let me tell you about the dogs. It was one of those 100 degree days and I was running along, sweating, sick, delirious, hung-over. I stopped at a small apartment house with the box downstairs along the front pavement. I popped it open with my key. There wasn’t a sound. Then I felt something jamming its way into my crotch. It moved way up there. I looked around and there was a German Shepherd, full-grown, with his nose halfway up my ass. With one snap of his jaws he could rip off my balls. I decided that those people were not going to get their mail that day, and maybe never get any mail again. Man, I mean he worked that nose in there. SNUFF! SNUFF! SNUFF!

I put the mail back into the leather pouch, and then very slowly, very, I took a half step forward. The nose followed. I took another half step with the other foot. The nose followed. Then I took a slow, very slow full step. Then another. Then stood still. The nose was out. And he just stood there looking at me. Maybe he’d never smelled anything like it and didn’t quite know what to do.

I walked quietly away.

8

There was another German Shepherd. It was hot summer and he came BOUNDING out of a back yard and then LEAPED through the air. His teeth snapped, just missing my jugular vein.

“OH JESUS!” I hollered, “OH JESUS CHRIST! MURDER! MURDER! HELP! MURDER!”

The beast turned and leaped again. I socked his head good in mid-air with the mail sack, letters and magazines flying out. He was ready to leap again when two guys, the owners, came out and grabbed him. Then, as he watched and growled, I reached down and picked up the letters and magazines that I would have to re-route on the front porch of the next house.

“You sons of bitches are crazy,” I told the two guys, “that dog’s a killer. Get rid of him or keep him off the street!”

I would have fought them both but there was that dog growling and lunging between them. I went over to the next porch and re-routed my mail on hands and knees.

As usual, I didn’t have time for lunch, but I was still forty minutes late getting in.

The Stone looked at his watch. “You’re 40 minutes late.”

“You never arrived,” I told him.

“That’s a write-up.”

“Sure it is, Stone.”

He already had the proper form in the typer and was at it. As I sat casing up the mail and doing the go-backs he walked up and threw the form in front of me. I was tired of reading his write-ups and knew from my trip downtown that any protest was useless. Without looking I threw it into the wastebasket.

9

Every route had its traps and only the regular carriers knew of them. Each day it was another god damned thing, and you were always ready for a rape, murder, dogs, or insanity of some sort. The regulars wouldn’t tell you their little secrets. That was the only advantage they had—except knowing their case by heart. It was gung ho for a new man, especially one who drank all night, went to bed at 2 a.m., rose at 4:30 a.m. after screwing and singing all night long, and, almost, getting away with it.

One day I was out on the street and the route was going well, though it was a new one, and I thought, Jesus Christ, maybe for the first time in two years I’ll be able to eat lunch.

I had a terrible hangover, but still all went well until I came to this handful of mail addressed to a church. The address had no street number, just the name of the church, and the boulevard it faced. I walked, hungover, up the steps. I couldn’t find a mailbox in there and no people in there. Some candles burning. Little bowls to dip your fingers in. And the empty pulpit looking at me, and all the statues, pale red and blue and yellow, the transoms shut, a stinking hot morning.

Oh Jesus Christ, I thought.

And walked out.

I went around to the side of the church and found a stairway going down. I went in through an open door. Do you know what I saw? A row of toilets. And showers. But it was dark. All the lights were out. How in hell can they expect a man to find a mailbox in the dark? Then I saw the light switch. I threw the thing and the lights in the church went on, inside and out. I walked into the next room and there were priests’ robes spread out on a table. There was a bottle of wine.

For Christ’s sake, I thought, who in hell but me would ever get caught in a scene like this?

I picked up the bottle of wine, had a good drag, left the letters on the robes, and walked back to the showers and toilets. I turned off the lights and took a shit in the dark and smoked a cigarette. I thought about taking a shower but I could see the headlines: MAILMAN CAUGHT DRINKING THE BLOOD OF GOD AND TAKING A SHOWER, NAKED, IN ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH.

So, finally, I didn’t have time for lunch and when I got in Jonstone wrote me up for being twenty-three minutes off schedule.

I found out later that mail for the church was delivered to the parish house around the corner. But now, of course, I’ll know where to shit and shower when I’m down and out.

10

The rainy season began. Most of the money went for drink so my shoes had holes in the soles and my raincoat was torn and old. In any steady downpour I got quite wet, and I mean wet— down to soaked and soggy shorts and stockings. The regular carriers called in sick, they called in sick from stations all over the city, so there was work everyday at Oakford Station, at all the stations. Even the subs were calling in sick. I didn’t call in sick because I was too tired to think properly. This particular morning I was sent to Wently Station. It was one of those 5 day storms where the rain comes down in one continuous wall of water and the whole city gives up, everything gives up, the sewers can’t swallow the water fast enough, the water comes up over the curbings, and in some sections, up on the lawn and into the houses.

I was sent off to Wently Station. “They said they need a good man,” the Stone called after me as I stepped out into a sheet of water.

The door closed. If the old car started, and it did, I was off to Wently. But it didn’t matter—if the car didn’t run, they threw you on a bus. My feet were already wet.

The Wently soup stood me in front of this case. It was already stuffed and I began stuffing more mail in with the help of another sub. I’d never seen such a case! It was a rotten joke of some sort. I counted 12 tie-outs on the case. That case must have covered half the city. I had yet to learn that the route was all steep hills. Whoever had conceived it was a madman.

We got it up and out and just as I was about to leave the soup walked over and said, “I can’t give you any help on this.”

“That’s all right,” I said.

All right, hell. It wasn’t until later that I found out he was Jonstone’s best buddy.

The route started at the station. The first of twelve swings, I stepped into a sheet of water and worked my way downhill. It was the poor part of town—small houses and courts with mailboxes full of spiders, mailboxes hanging by one nail, old women inside rolling cigarettes and chewing tobacco and humming to their canaries and watching you, an idiot lost in the rain.

When your shorts get wet they slip down, down down they slip, down around the cheeks of your ass, a wet rim of a thing held up by the crotch of your pants. The rain ran the ink on some of the letters; a cigarette wouldn’t stay lit. You had to keep reaching into the pouch for magazines. It was the first swing and I was already tired. My shoes were caked with mud and felt like boots. Every now and then I’d hit a slippery spot and almost go down.

A door opened and an old woman asked the question heard a hundred times a day:

“Where’s the regular man, today?”

“Lady, PLEASE, how would I know? How in the hell would I know? I’m here and he’s someplace else!”

“Oh, you are a gooney fellow!”

“A gooney fellow?”

“Yes.”

I laughed and put a fat water-soaked letter in her hand, then went on to the next. Maybe uphill will be better, I thought. Another Old Nelly, meaning to be nice, asked me, “Wouldn’t you like to come in and have a cup of tea and dry off?”

“Lady, don’t you realize we don’t even have time to pull up our shorts?”

“Pull up your shorts?”

“YES, PULL UP OUR SHORTS!” I screamed at her and walked off into the wall of water.

I finished the first swing. It took about an hour. Eleven more swings, that’s eleven more hours. Impossible, I thought. They must have hung the roughest one on me first.

Uphill was worse because you had to pull your own weight.

Noon came and went. Without lunch. I was on the 4th or 5th swing. Even on a dry day the route would have been impossible. This way it was so impossible you couldn’t even think about it.

Finally I was so wet I thought I was drowning. I found a front porch that only leaked a little and stood there and managed to light a cigarette. I had about 3 quiet puffs when I heard a little old lady’s voice behind me:

“Mailman! Mailman!”

“Yes, mam?” I asked.

“YOUR MAIL IS GETTING WET!”

I looked down at my pouch and sure enough, I had left the leather flap open. A drop or two had fallen in from a hole in the porch roof.

I walked off. That does it, I thought, only an idiot would go through what I am going through. I am going to find a telephone and tell them to come get their mail and jam their job. Jonstone wins.

The moment I decided to quit, I felt much better. Through the rain I saw a building at the bottom of the hill that looked like it might have a telephone in it. I was halfway up the hill. When I got down I saw it was a small cafe. There was a heater going. Well, shit, I thought, I might as well get dry. I took off my raincoat and my cap, threw the mailpouch on the floor and ordered a cup of coffee.

It was very black coffee. Remade from old coffeegrounds. The worst coffee I had ever tasted, but it was hot. I drank 3 cups and sat there an hour, until I was completely dry. Then I looked out: it had stopped raining! I went out and walked up the hill and began delivering mail again. I took my time and finished the route. On the 12th swing I was walking in twilight. By the time I returned to the station it was night.

The carrier’s entrance was locked.

I beat on the tin door.

A little warm clerk appeared and opened the door.

“What the hell took you so long?” he screamed at me.

I walked over to the case and threw down the wet pouch full of go-backs, miscased mail and pickup mail. Then I took off my key and flipped it against the case. You were supposed to sign in and out for your key. I didn’t bother. He was standing there.

I looked at him.

“Kid, if you say one more word to me, if you so much as sneeze, so help me God, I am going to kill you!” The kid didn’t say anything. I punched out. The next morning I kept waiting for Jonstone to turn and say something. He acted as if nothing had happened. The rain stopped and all the regulars were no longer sick. The Stone sent 3 subs home without pay, one of them me. I almost loved him then.

I went on in and got up against Betty’s warm ass.

11

But then it began raining again. The Stone had me out on a thing called Sunday Collection, and if you’re thinking of church, forget it. You picked up a truck at West Garage and a clipboard. The clipboard told you what streets, what time you were to be there, and how to get to the next pickup box. Like 2:32 p.m., Beecher and Avalon, L3 R2 (which meant left three blocks, right two) 2:35 p.m., and you wondered how you could pick up one box, then drive 5 blocks in 3 minutes and be finished cleaning out another box. Sometimes it took you over 3 minutes to clean out a Sunday box. And the boards weren’t accurate. Sometimes they counted an alley as a street and sometimes they counted a street as an alley. You never knew where you were.

It was one of those continuous rains, not hard, but it never stopped. The territory I was driving was new to me but at least it was light enough to read the clipboard. But as it got darker it was harder to read (by the dashboard light) or locate the pickup boxes. Also the water was rising in the streets, and several times I had stepped into water up to my ankles.

Then the dashboard light went out. I couldn’t read the clipboard. I had no idea where I was. Without the clipboard I was like a man lost in the desert. But the luck wasn’t all bad—yet. I had two boxes of matches and before I made for each new pickup box, I would light a match, memorize the directions and drive on. For once, I had outwitted Adversity, that Jonstone up there in the sky, looking down, watching me.

Then I took a corner, leaped out to unload the box and when I got back the clipboard was GONE!

Jonstone in the Sky, have Mercy! I was lost in the dark and the rain. Was I some kind of idiot, actually? Did I make things happen to myself? It was possible. It was possible that I was subnormal, that I was lucky just to be alive.

The clipboard had been wired to the dashboard. I figured it must have flown out of the truck on the last sharp turn. I got out of the truck with my pants rolled up around my knees and started wading through a foot of water. It was dark. I’d never find the god damned thing! I walked along, lighting matches—but nothing, nothing. It had floated away. As I reached the corner I had sense enough to notice which way the current was moving and follow it. I saw an object floating along, lit a match, and there it WAS! The clipboard. Impossible! I could have kissed the thing. I waded back to the truck, got in, rolled my pantlegs down and really wired that board to the dash. Of course, I was way behind schedule by then but at least I’d found their dirty clipboard. I wasn’t lost in the backstreets of Nowhere. I wouldn’t have to ring a doorbell and ask somebody the way back to the post office garage.

I could hear some fucker snarling from his warm frontroom: “Well, well. You’re a post office employee, aren’t you? Don’t you know the way back to your own garage?”

So I drove along, lighting matches, leaping into whirlpools of water and emptying collection boxes. I was tired and wet and hungover, but I was usually that way and I waded through the weariness like I did the water. I kept thinking of a hot bath, Betty’s fine legs, and—something to keep me going—a picture of myself in an easychair, drink in hand, the dog walking up, me patting his head.

But that was a long way off. The stops on the clipboard seemed endless and when I reached the bottom it said “Over” and I flipped the board and sure enough, there on the backside was another list of stops.

With the last match I made the last stop, deposited my mail at the station indicated, and it was a load, and then drove back toward the West Garage. It was in the west end of town and in the west the land was very flat, the drainage system couldn’t handle the water and anytime it rained any length of time at all, they had what was called a “flood.” The description was accurate.

Driving on in, the water rose higher and higher. I noticed stalled and abandoned cars all around. Too bad. All I wanted was to get in that chair with that glass of scotch in my hand and watch Betty’s ass wobble around the room. Then at a signal I met Tom Moto, one of the other Jonstone subs.

“Which way you going in?” Moto asked.

“The shortest distance between 2 points, I was taught, is a straight line,” I answered him.

“You better not,” he told me. “I know that area. It’s an ocean through there.”

“Bullshit,” I said, “all it takes is a little guts. Got a match?”

I lit up and left him at the signal.

Betty, baby, I’m coming!

Yeah.

The water got higher and higher but mail trucks are built high off the ground. I took the shortcut through the residential neighborhood, full speed, and water flew up all around me. It continued to rain, hard. There weren’t any cars around. I was the only moving object.

Betty baby. Yeah.

Some guy standing on his front porch laughed at me and yelled, “THE MAIL MUST GO THROUGH!”

I cursed him and gave him the finger.

I noticed that the water was rising above the floorboards, whirling around my shoes, but I kept driving. Only 3 blocks to go!

Then the truck stopped.

Oh. Oh. Shit.

I sat there and tried to kick it over. It started once, then stalled. Then it wouldn’t respond. I sat there looking at the water. It must have been 2 feet deep. What was I supposed to do? Sit there until they sent a rescue squad?

What did the Postal Manual say? Where was it? I had never known anybody who had seen one.

Balls.

I locked the truck, put the ignition keys in my pocket and stepped into the water—nearly up to my waist—and began wading toward West Garage. It was still raining. Suddenly the water rose another 3 or 4 inches. I had been walking across a lawn and had stepped off the curbing. The truck was parked on somebody’s front lawn.

For a moment I thought that swimming might be faster, then I thought, no, that would look ridiculous. I made it to the garage and walked up to the dispatcher. There I was, wet as wet could get and he looked at me.

I threw him the truck keys and the ignition keys.

Then I wrote on a piece of paper: 3435 Mountview Place.

“Your truck’s at this address. Go get it.”

“You mean you left it out there?”

“I mean I left it out there.”

I walked over, punched out, then stripped to my shorts and stood in front of a heater. I hung my clothes over the heater. Then I looked across the room and there by another heater stood Tom Moto in his shorts.

We both laughed.

“It’s hell, isn’t it?” he asked.

“Unbelievable.”

“Do you think The Stone planned it?”

“Hell yes! He even made it rain!”

“Did you get stalled out there?”

“Sure,” I said.

“I did too.”

“Listen, baby,” I said, “my car is 12 years old. You’ve got a new one. I’m sure I’m stalled out there. How about a push to get me started?”

“O.K.”

We got dressed and went out. Moto had bought a new model car about 3 weeks before. I waited for his engine to start. Not a sound. Oh Christ, I thought.

The rain was up to the floorboards.

Moto got out.

“No good. It’s dead.”

I tried mine without any hope. There was some action from the battery, some spark, though feeble. I pumped the gas, hit it again. It started up. I really let it roar. VICTORY! I warmed it good. Then I backed up and began to push Moto’s new car. I pushed him for a mile. The thing wouldn’t even fart. I pushed him into a garage, left him there, and picking the highland and the drier streets, made it back to Betty’s ass.

12

The Stone’s favorite carrier was Matthew Battles. Battles never came in with a wrinkled shirt on. In fact, everything he wore was new, looked new. The shoes, the shirts, the pants, the cap. His shoes really shined and none of his clothing appeared to have ever been laundered even once. Once a shirt or a pair of pants became the least bit soiled he threw them away.

The Stone often said to us as Matthew walked by:

“Now, there goes a carrier!”

And The Stone meant it. His eyes damn near shimmered with love.

And Matthew would stand at his case, erect and clean, scrubbed and well-slept, shoes gleaming victoriously, and he would fan those letters into the case with joy.

“You’re a real carrier, Matthew!”

“Thank you, Mr. Jonstone!”

One 5 a.m. I walked in and sat down to wait behind The Stone. He looked a bit slumped under that red shirt. Moto was next to me. He told me: “They picked up Matthew yesterday.”

“Picked him up?”

“Yeah, for stealing from the mails. He’d been opening letters for the Nekalayla Temple and taking money out. After 15 years on the job.”

“How’d they get him, how’d they find out?”

“The old ladies. The old ladies had been sending in letters to Nekalayla filled with money and they weren’t getting any thank-you notes or response. Nekalayla told the P.O. and the P.O. put the Eye on Matthew. They found him opening letters down at the soak-box, taking money out.”

“No shit?”

“No shit. They caught him in cold daylight.”

I leaned back.

Nekalayla had built this large temple and painted it a sickening green, I guess it reminded him of money, and he had an office staff of 30 or 40 people who did nothing but open envelopes, take out checks and money, record the amount, the sender, date received and so on. Others were busy mailing out books and pamphlets written by Nekalayla, and his photo was on the wall, a large one of N. in priestly robes and beard, and a painting of N., very large too, looked over the office, watching.

Nekalayla claimed he had once been walking through the desert when he met Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ told him everything. They sat on a rock together and J.C. laid it on him. Now he was passing the secrets on to those who could afford it. He also held a service every Sunday. His help, who were also his followers, rang in and out on timeclocks.

Imagine Matthew Battles trying to outwit Nekalayla who had met Christ in the desert!

“Has anybody said anything to The Stone?” I asked.

“Are you kidding?”

We sat an hour or so. A sub was assigned to Matthew’s case. The other subs were given other jobs. I sat alone behind The Stone. Then I got up and walked to his desk.

“Mr. Jonstone?”

“Yes, Chinaski?”

“Where’s Matthew today? Sick?”

The Stone’s head dropped. He looked at the paper in his hand and pretended to continue reading it. I walked back and sat down.

At 7 a.m. The Stone turned:

“There’s nothing for you today, Chinaski.”

I stood up and walked to the doorway. I stood in the doorway. “Good morning, Mr. Jonstone. Have a good day.” He didn’t answer. I walked down to the liquor store and bought a half pint of Grandad for my breakfast.

13

The voices of the people were the same, no matter where you carried the mail you heard the same things over and over again.

“You’re late, aren’t you?”

“Where’s the regular carrier?”

“Hello, Uncle Sam!”

“Mailman! Mailman! This doesn’t go here!”

The streets were full of insane and dull people. Most of them lived in nice houses and didn’t seem to work, and you wondered how they did it. There was one guy who wouldn’t let you put the mail in his box. He’d stand in the driveway and watch you coming for 2 or 3 blocks and he’d stand there and hold his hand out.

I asked some of the others who had carried the route: “What’s wrong with that guy who stands there and holds his hand out?”

“What guy who stands there and holds his hand out?” they asked.

They all had the same voice too.

One day when I had the route, the man-who-holds-his-hand-out was a half a block up the street. He was talking to a neighbor, looked back at me more than a block away and knew he had time to walk back and meet me. When he turned his back to me, I began running. I don’t believe I ever delivered mail that fast, all stride and motion, never stopping or pausing, I was going to kill him. I had the letter half in the slot of his box when he turned and saw me.

“OH NO NO NO!” he screamed, “DON’T PUT IT IN THE BOX!” He ran down the street toward me. All I saw was the blur of his feet. He must have run a hundred yards in 9.2.

I put the letter in his hand. I watched him open it, walk across the porch, open the door and go into his house. What it meant somebody else will have to tell me.

14

Again I was on a new route. The Stone always put me on hard routes, but now and then, due to the circumstances of things, he was forced to place me on one less murderous. Route 511 was peeling off quite nicely, and there I was thinking about lunch again, the lunch that never came.

It was an average residential neighborhood. No apartment houses. Just house after house with well-kept lawns. But it was a new route and I walked along wondering where the trap was. Even the weather was nice.

By god, I thought, I’m going to make it! Lunch, and back in on schedule! Life, at last, was bearable.

These people didn’t even own dogs. Nobody stood outside waiting for their mail. I hadn’t heard a human voice in hours. Perhaps I had reached my postal maturity, whatever that was. I strolled along, efficient, almost dedicated.

I remembered one of the older carriers pointing to his heart and telling me, “Chinaski, someday it will get you, it will get you right here!”

“Heart attack?”

“Dedication to service. You’ll see. You’ll be proud of it.”

“Balls!”

But the man had been sincere.

I thought about him as I walked along.

Then I had a registered letter with return attached.

I walked up and rang the doorbell. A little window opened in the door. I couldn’t see the face. “Registered letter!”

“Stand back!” said a woman’s voice. “Stand back so I can see your face!”

Well, there it was, I thought, another nut.

“Look lady, you don’t have to see my face. I’ll just leave this slip in the mailbox and you can pick your letter up at the station. Bring proper identification.”

I put the slip in the mailbox and began to walk off the porch. The door opened and she ran out. She had on one of those see-through negligees and no brassiere. Just dark blue panties. Her hair was uncombed and stuck out as if it were trying to run away from her. There seemed to be some type of cream on her face, most of it under the eyes. The skin on her body was white as if it never saw sunlight and her face had an unhealthy look. Her mouth hung open. She had on a touch of lipstick, and she was built all the way…

I caught all this as she rushed at me. I was sliding the registered letter back into the pouch.

She screamed, “Give me my letter!”

I said, “Lady, you’ll have to…”

She grabbed the letter and ran to the door, opened it and ran in.

God damn! You couldn’t come back without either the registered letter or a signature! You even had to sign in and out with the things.

“HEY!”

I went after her and jammed my foot into the door just in time.

“HEY. GOD DAMN YOU!”

“Go away! Go away! You are an evil man!”

“Look, lady! Try to understand! You’ve got to sign for that letter! I can’t let you have it that way! You are robbing the United States mails!”

“Go away, evil man!”

I put all my weight against the door and pushed into the room. It was dark in there. All the shades were down. All the shades in the house were down.

“YOU HAVE NO RIGHT IN MY HOUSE! GET OUT!”

“And you have no right to rob the mails! Either give me the letter back or sign for it. Then I’ll leave.”

“All right! All right! I’ll sign.” I showed her where to sign and gave her a pen. I looked at her breasts and the rest of her and I thought, what a shame she’s crazy, what a shame, what a shame.

She handed back the pen and her signature—it was just scrawled. She opened the letter, began to read it as I turned to leave.

Then she was in front of the door, arms spread across. The letter was on the floor.

“Evil evil evil man! You came here to rape me!”

“Look lady, let me by.”

“THERE IS EVIL WRITTEN ALL OVER YOUR FACE!”

“Don’t you think I know that? Now let me out of here!”

With one hand I tried to push her aside. She clawed one side of my face, good. I dropped my bag, my cap fell off, and as I held a handkerchief to the blood she came up and raked the other side. “YOU CUNT! WHAT THE HELL’S WRONG WITH YOU!”

“See there? See there? You’re evil!”

She was right up against me. I grabbed her by the ass and got my mouth on hers. Those breasts were against me, she was all up against me. She pulled her head back, away from me—

“Rapist! Rapist! Evil rapist!”

I reached down with my mouth, got one of her tits, then switched to the other.

“Rape! Rape! I’m being raped!”

She was right. I got her pants down, unzipped my fly, got it in, then walked her backwards to the couch. We fell down on top of it.

She lifted her legs high.

“RAPE!” she screamed.

I finished her off, zipped my fly, picked up my mail pouch and walked out leaving her staring quietly at the ceiling…

I missed lunch but still couldn’t make the schedule.

“You’re 15 minutes late,” said The Stone. I didn’t say anything.

The Stone looked at me. “God o mighty, what happened to your face?” he asked.

“What happened to yours?” I asked him.

“Whadda you mean?”

“Forget it.”

15

I was hungover again, another heat spell was on—a week of 100 degree days. The drinking went on each night, and in the early mornings and days there was The Stone and the impossibility of everything.

Some of the boys wore African sun helmets and shades, but me, I was about the same, rain or shine—ragged clothing, and the shoes so old that the nails were always driving into my feet. I put pieces of cardboard in the shoes. But it only helped temporarily—soon the nails would be eating into my heels again.

The whiskey and beer ran put of me, fountained from the armpits, and I drove along with this load on my back like a cross, pulling out magazines, delivering thousands of letters, staggering, welded to the side of the sun.

Some woman screamed at me:

“MAILMAN! MAILMAN! THIS DOESN’T GO HERE!”

I looked. She was a block back down the hill and I was already behind schedule. “Look, lady, put the letter outside your mailbox! We’ll pick it up tomorrow!”

“NO! NO! I WANT YOU TO TAKE IT NOW!”

She waved the thing around in the sky.

“Lady!”

“COME GET IT! IT DOESN’T BELONG HERE!”

Oh my god.

I dropped the sack. Then I took my cap and threw it on the grass. It rolled out into the street. I left it and walked down toward the woman. One half block.

I walked down and snatched the thing from her hand, turned, walked back. It was an advertisement! 4th class mail. Something about a 1/2 off clothing sale.

I picked my cap up out of the street, put it on my head. Put the sack back onto the left side of my spine, started out again. 100 degrees.

I walked past one house and a woman ran out after me.

“Mailman! Mailman! Don’t you have a letter for me?”

“Lady, if I didn’t put one in your box, that means you don’t have any mail.”

“But I know you have a letter for me!”

“What makes you say that?”

“Because my sister phoned and said she was going to write me.”

“Lady, I don’t have a letter for you.”

“I know you have! I know you have! I know it’s there!” She started to reach for a handful of letters. “DON’T TOUCH THE UNITED STATES MAILS, LADY! THERE’S NOTHING FOR YOU TODAY!”

I turned and walked off.

“I KNOW YOU HAVE MY LETTER!”

Another woman stood on her porch.

“You’re late today.”

“Yes, mam.”

“Where’s the regular man today?”

“He’s dying of cancer.”

“Dying of cancer? Harold is dying of cancer?”

“That’s right,” I said.

I handed her mail to her.

“BILLS! BILLS! BILLS!” she screamed. “IS THAT ALL YOU CAN BRING ME? THESE BILLS?”

“Yes, mam, that’s all I can bring you.” I turned and walked on. It wasn’t my fault that they used telephones and gas and light and bought all their things on credit. Yet when I brought them their bills they screamed at me—as if 7 had asked them to have a phone installed, or a $350 t.v. set sent over with no money down.

The next stop was a small two storey dwelling, fairly new, with ten or twelve units. The lock box was in the front, under a porch roof. At last, a bit of shade. I put the key in the box and opened it. “HELLO UNCLE SAM! HOW ARE YOU TODAY?” He was loud. I hadn’t expected that man’s voice behind me. He had screamed at me, and being hungover I was nervous. I jumped in shock. It was too much. I took the key out of the box and turned. All I could see was a screen door. Somebody was back in there. Air-conditioned and invisible.

“God damn you!” I said, “don’t call me Uncle Sam! I’m not Uncle Sam!”

“Oh you’re one of those wise guys, eh? For 2 cents I’d come out and whip your ass!”

I took my pouch and slammed it to the ground. Magazines and letters flew everywhere. I would have to reroute the whole swing. I took off my cap, and smashed it to the cement.

“COME OUT OF THERE, YOU SON OF A BITCH! OH, GOD O MIGHTY, I BEG YOU! COME OUT OF THERE! COME OUT, COME OUT OF THERE!”

I was ready to murder him.

Nobody came out. There wasn’t a sound. I looked at the screen door. Nothing. It was as if the apartment were empty. For a moment I thought of going on in. Then I turned, got down on my knees and began rerouting the letters and magazines. It’s a job without a case. Twenty minutes later I had the mail up. I stuck some letters in the lock box, dropped the magazines on the porch, locked the box, turned, looked at the screen door again. Still not a sound.

I finished the route, walking along, thinking, well, he’ll phone and tell Jonstone that I threatened him. When I get in I better be ready for the worst.

I swung the door open and there was The Stone at his desk, reading something.

I stood there, looking down at him, waiting.

The Stone glanced up at me, then down at what he was reading. I kept standing there, waiting. The Stone kept reading. “Well,” I finally said, “what about it?”

“What about what?” The Stone looked up. “ABOUT THE PHONE CALL! TELL ME ALL ABOUT THE PHONE CALL! DON’T JUST SITTHERE!”

“What phone call?”

“You didn’t get a phone call about me?”

“A phone call? What happened? What have you been doing out there? What did you do?”

“Nothing.” I walked over and checked my stuff in. The guy hadn’t phoned in. No grace on his part. He probably thought I would come back if he phoned in.

I walked past The Stone on my way back to the case.

“What did you do out there, Chinaski?”

“Nothing.”

My act so confused The Stone that he forgot to tell me I was 30 minutes late or write me up for it.

16

I was casing next to G.G. early one morning. That’s what they called him: G.G. His actual name was George Greene. But for years he was simply called G.G. and after a while he looked like G.G. He had been a carrier since his early twenties and now he was in his late sixties. His voice was gone. He didn’t speak. He croaked. And when he croaked, he didn’t say much. He was neither liked nor disliked. He was just there. His face had wrinkled into strange runs and mounds of unattractive flesh. No light shone from his face. He was just a hard old crony who had done his job: G.G. The eyes looked like dull bits of clay dropped into the eye sockets. It was best if you didn’t think about him or look at him.

But G.G., having all that seniority had one of the easiest routes, right out on the fringe of the rich district. In fact, you might call it the rich district. Although the houses were old, they were large, most of them two stories high. Wide lawns mowed and kept green by Japanese gardeners. Some movie stars lived there. A famous cartoonist. A best-selling writer. Two former governors. Nobody ever spoke to you in that area. You never saw anybody. The only time you saw anybody was at the beginning of the route where there were less expensive homes, and here the children bothered you. I mean, G.G. was a bachelor. And he had this whistle. At the beginning of his route, he’d stand tall and straight, take out the whistle, a large one, and blow it, spit flying out in all directions. That was to let the children know he was there. He had candy for the children. And they’d come running out and he’d give them candy as he went down the street. Good old G.G.

I’d found out about the candy the first time I got the route. The Stone didn’t like to give me a route that easy but sometimes he couldn’t help it. So I walked along and this young boy came out and asked me,

“Hey, where’s my candy?”

And I said, “What candy, kid?”

And the kid said, “My candy! I want my candy!”

“Look, kid,” I said, “you must be crazy. Does your mother just let you run around loose?” The kid looked at me strangely.

But one day G.G. got into trouble. Good old G.G. He met this new little girl in the neighborhood. And gave her some candy. And said, “My, you’re a pretty little girl! I’d like to have you for my own little girl!”

The mother had been listening at the window and she ran out screaming, accusing G.G. of child molestation. She hadn’t known about G.G., so when she saw him give the girl candy and make that statement, it was too much for her.

Good old G.G. Accused of child molestation.

I came in and heard The Stone on the phone, trying to explain to the mother that G.G. was an honorable man. G.G. just sat in front of his case, transfixed.

When The Stone was finished and had hung up, I told him: “You shouldn’t suck up to that woman. She’s got a dirty mind. Half the mothers in America, with their precious big pussies and their precious little daughters, half the mothers in America have dirty minds. Tell her to shove it. G.G. can’t get his pecker hard, you know that.”

The Stone shook his head. “No, the public’s dynamite! They’re dynamite!”

That’s all he could say. I had seen The Stone before—posturing and begging and explaining to every nut who phoned in about anything…

I was casing next to G.G. on route 501, which was not too bad. I had to fight to get the mail up but it was possible, and that gave one hope.

Although G.G. knew his case upsidedown, his hands were slowing. He had simply stuck too many letters in his life—even his sense-deadened body was finally revolting. Several times during the morning I saw him falter. He’d stop and sway, go into a trance, then snap out of it and stick some more letters. I wasn’t particularly fond of the man. His life hadn’t been a brave one, and he had turned out to be a hunk of shit more or less. But each time he faltered, something tugged at me. It was like a faithful horse who just couldn’t go anymore. Or an old car, just giving it up one morning.

The mail was heavy and as I watched G.G. I got death-chills. For the first time in over 40 years he might miss the morning dispatch! For a man as proud of his job and his work as G.G., that could be a tragedy. I had missed plenty of morning dispatches, and had to take the sacks out to the boxes in my car, but my attitude was a bit different.

He faltered again.

God o mighty, I thought, doesn’t anybody notice but me?

I looked around, nobody was concerned. They all professed, at one time or another, to be fond of him—“G.G.’s a good guy.” But the “good old guy” was sinking and nobody cared. Finally I had less mail in front of me than G.G.

Maybe I can help him get his magazines up, I thought. But a clerk came along and dropped more mail in front of me and I was almost back with G.G. It was going to be close for both of us. I faltered for a moment, then clenched my teeth together, spread my legs, dug in like a guy who had just taken a hard punch, and winged the mass of letters in.

Two minutes before pull-down time, both G.G. and I had gotten our mail up, our mags routed and sacked, our airmail in. We were both going to make it. I had worried for nothing. Then The Stone came up. He carried two bundles of circulars. He gave one bundle to G.G. and the other to me.

“These must be worked in,” he said, then walked off.

The Stone knew that we couldn’t work those circs in and pull-down in time to meet the dispatch. I wearily cut the strings around the circs and started to case them in. G.G. just sat there and stared at his bundle of circs. Then he put his head down, put his head down in his arms and began to cry softly.

I couldn’t believe it.

I looked around.

The other carriers weren’t looking at G.G. They were pulling down their letters, strapping them out, talking and laughing with each other.

“Hey,” I said a couple of times, “hey!”

But they wouldn’t look at G.G.

I walked over to G.G. Touched him on the arm: “G.G., “I said, “what can I do for you?”

He jumped up from his case, ran up the stairway to the men’s locker room. I watched him go. Nobody seemed to notice. I stuck a few more letters, then ran up the stairs myself.

There he was, head down in his arms on one of the tables. Only he wasn’t quietly crying now. He was sobbing and wailing. His whole body shook in spasms. He wouldn’t stop.

I ran down the steps, past all the carriers, and up to The Stone’s desk.

“Hey, hey, Stone! Jesus Christ, Stone!”

“What is it?” he asked.

“G.G. has flipped out! Nobody cares! He’s upstairs crying! He needs help!”

“Who’s manning his route?”

“Who gives a damn? I tell you, he’s sick! He needs help!”

“I gotta get somebody to man his route!” The Stone got up from his desk, circled around looking at his carriers as if there might be an extra one somewhere. Then he hustled back to his desk.

“Look, Stone, somebody’s got to take that man home. Tell me where he lives and I’ll drive him home myself—off the clock. Then I’ll carry your damned route.”

The Stone looked up:

“Who’s manning your case?”

“Oh, God damn the case!”

“GO MAN YOUR CASE!”

Then he was talking to another supervisor on the phone: “Hello, Eddie? Listen, I need a man out here…”

There’d be no candy for the kids that day. I walked back. All the other carriers were gone. I began sticking in the circulars. Over on G.G.’s case was his tie-up of unstuck circs. I was behind schedule again. Without a dispatch. When I came in late that afternoon, The Stone wrote me up.

I never saw G.G. again. Nobody knew what happened to him. Nor did anybody ever mention him again. The “good guy.” The dedicated man. Knifed across the throat over a handful of circs from a local market—with its special: a free box of a brand name laundry soap, with the coupon, and any purchase over $3.

17

After 3 years I made “regular.” That meant holiday pay (subs didn’t get paid for holidays) and a 40 hour week with 2 days off. The Stone was also forced to assign me as relief man to 5 different routes. That’s all I had to carry—5 different routes, in time, I would learn the cases well plus the shortcuts and traps on each route. Each day would be easier. I could begin to cultivate that comfortable look.

Somehow, I was not too happy. I was not a man to deliberately seek pain, the job was still difficult enough, but somehow it lacked the old glamour of my sub days—the not-knowingwhat-the-hell was going to happen next.

A few of the regulars came around and shook my hand.

“Congratulations,” they said.

“Yeh,” I said.

Congratulations for what? I hadn’t done anything. Now I was a member of the club. I was one of the boys. I could be there for years, eventually bid for my own route. Get Xmas presents from my people. And when I phoned in sick, they would say to some poor bastard sub, “Where’s the regular man today? You’re late. The regular man is never late.”

So there I was. Then a bulletin came out that no caps or equipment were to be placed on top of the carrier’s case. Most of the boys put their caps up there. It didn’t hurt anything and saved a trip to the locker room. Now after 3 years of putting my cap up there I was ordered not to do so.

Well, I was still coming in hungover and I didn’t have things like caps on my mind. So my cap was up there, the day after the order came out.

The Stone came running with his write-up. It said that it was against rules and regulations to have any equipment on top of the case. I put the write-up in my pocket and went on sticking letters. The Stone sat swiveled in his chair, watching me. All the other carriers had put their caps in their lockers. Except me and one other—one Marty. And The Stone had gone up to Marty and said, “Now, Marty, you read the order. Your cap isn’t supposed to be on top of the case.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, sir. Habit, you know. Sorry.” Marty took his cap off the case and ran upstairs to his locker with it. The next morning I forgot again. The Stone came with his write-up. It said that it was against rules and regulations to have any equipment on top of the case. I put the write-up in my pocket and went on sticking letters.

The next morning, as I walked in, I could see The Stone watching me. He was very deliberate about watching me. He was waiting to see what I would do with the cap. I let him wait awhile. Then I took the cap off my head and placed it on top of the case.

The Stone ran up with his write-up.

I didn’t read it. I threw it in the wastebasket, left my cap up there and went on sticking mail.

I could hear The Stone at his typewriter. There was anger in the sound of the keys.

I wondered how he managed to learn how to type? I thought.

He came again. Handed me a 2nd write-up.

I looked at him.

“I don’t have to read it. I know what it says. It says that I didn’t read the first write-up.”

I threw the 2nd write-up in the wastebasket.

The Stone ran back to his typewriter.

He handed me a 3rd write-up.

“Look,” I said, “I know what all these things say. The first write-up was for having my cap on top of the case. The 2nd was for not reading the first. This 3rd one is for not reading the first or 2nd write-ups.”

I looked at him, and then dropped the write-up into the wastebasket without reading it.

“Now I can throw these away as fast as you can type them. It can go on for hours, and soon one of us is going to begin looking ridiculous. It’s up to you.”

The Stone went back to his chair and sat down. He didn’t type anymore. He just sat looking at me.

I didn’t go in the next day. I slept until noon. I didn’t phone. Then I went down to the Federal Building. I told them my mission. They put me in front of the desk of a thin old woman. Her hair was grey and she had a very thin neck that suddenly bent in the middle. It pushed her head forward and she looked up over the top of her glasses at me.

“Yes?”

“I want to resign.”

“To resign?”

“Yes, resign.”

“And you’re a regular carrier?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk,” she went, making this sound with her dry lips. She gave me the proper papers and I sat there filling them out.

“How long have you been with the post office?”

“Three and one half years.”

“Tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk,” she went, “tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk.” And so there it was. I drove home to Betty and we uncapped the bottle.

Little did I know that in a couple of years I would be back as a clerk and that I would clerk, all hunched-up on a stool, for nearly 12 years.