“come on, push!” he said.
there was a long board
about 2½ feet wide and
8 feet long;
nailed to the ends and in the middle
were roller skates.
he was pulling in front
two long ropes attached to the board
and she was in back
guiding and also pushing.
all their possessions were tied to the
board:
pots, pans, bedquilts, and so forth
were roped to the board
tied down;
and the skatewheels were grinding.
he was white, red-necked, a
southerner—
thin, slumped, his pants about to
fall from his
ass—
his face pinked by the sun and
cheap wine,
and she was black
and walked upright
pushing;
she was simply beautiful
in turban
long green ear rings
yellow dress
from
neck to
ankle.
her face was gloriously
indifferent.
“don’t worry!” he shouted, looking back
at her, “somebody will
rent us a place!”
she didn’t answer.
then they were gone
although I still heard
the skatewheels.
they’re going to make it,
I thought.
I’m sure they
did.
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 two 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 shackjob 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 third or fourth 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.
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 seven 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.
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 30 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 30 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?”
“Three 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.
—POST OFFICE
hot
she was hot, she was so hot
I didn’t want anybody else to have her,
and if I didn’t get home on time
she’d be gone, and I couldn’t bear that—
I’d go mad …
it was foolish I know, childish,
but I was caught in it, I was caught.
I delivered all the mail
and then Henderson put me on the night pickup run
in an old army truck,
the damn thing began to heat halfway through the run
and the night went on
me thinking about my hot Miriam
and jumping in and out of the truck
filling mailsacks
the engine continuing to heat up
the temperature needle was at the top
HOT HOT
like Miriam.
I leaped in and out
3 more pickups and into the station
I’d be, my car
waiting to get me to Miriam who sat on my blue couch
with scotch on the rocks
crossing her legs and swinging her ankles
like she did,
2 more stops …
the truck
stalled at a traffic light, it was hell
kicking it over
again …
I had to be home by 8, 8 was the deadline for Miriam.
I made the last pickup and the truck stalled at a signal
½ block from the station …
it wouldn’t start, it couldn’t start …
I locked the doors, pulled the key and ran down to the
station …
I threw the keys down.... signed out …
your god damned truck is stalled at the signal,
I shouted,
Pico and Western …
… I ran down the hall, put the key into the door,
opened it.... her drinking glass was there, and a note:
sun of a bitch:
I wated until 5 after ate
you don’t love me
you sun of a bitch
somebody will love me
I been wateing all day
Miriam
I poured a drink and let the water run into the tub
there were 5,000 bars in town
and I’d make 25 of them
looking for Miriam
her purple teddy bear held the note
as he leaned against a pillow
I gave the bear a drink, myself a drink
and got into the hot
water.
“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, hungover. 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.
—POST OFFICE
the worst and the best
in the hospitals and jails
it’s the worst
in madhouses
it’s the worst
in penthouses
it’s the worst
in skid row flophouses
it’s the worst
at poetry readings
at rock concerts
at benefits for the disabled
it’s the worst
at funerals
at weddings
it’s the worst
at parades
at skating rinks
at sexual orgies
it’s the worst
at midnight
at 3 a.m.
at 5:45 p.m.
it’s the worst
falling through the sky
firing squads
that’s the best
thinking of India
looking at popcorn stands
watching the bull get the matador
that’s the best
boxed lightbulbs
an old dog scratching
peanuts in a celluloid bag
that’s the best
spraying roaches
a clean pair of stockings
natural guts defeating natural talent
that’s the best
in front of firing squads
throwing crusts to seagulls
slicing tomatoes
that’s the best
rugs with cigarette burns
cracks in sidewalks
waitresses still sane
that’s the best
my hands dead
my heart dead
silence
adagio of rocks
the world ablaze
that’s the best
for me.
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 sinned 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.
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 two or three 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.
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.