Post Office (7 page)

“Oh god
damn
Picasso!” she’d say.

I’d get out of bed, naked, with this big thing in front of me.

“Look, you’ve left him out in the yard again! I
told
you not to leave him out in the yard in the daytime!”

Then I’d go out into the backyard, naked, too tired to dress. It was fairly well sheltered. And there would be poor Picasso, overrun with 500 flies, flies crawling all over him in circles. I’d run out with the thing (going down then) and curse those flies. They were in his eyes, under the hair, in his ears, on his privates, in his mouth … everywhere. And he’d just sit there and smile at me. Laugh at me, while the flies ate him up. Maybe he knew more than any of us. I’d pick him up and carry him into the house.

“God damn it, Joyce! I’ve told you and told you and told you.”

“Well,
you
were the one who housebroke him. He’s got to go out there to crap!”

“Yes, but when he’s through, bring him in. He doesn’t have sense enough to come in himself. And wash away the crap when he’s finished. You’re creating a fly-paradise out there. “

Then as soon as I fell asleep, Joyce would begin stroking me again. That couple of million was a long time coming.

I was half asleep in a chair, waiting for a meal.

I got up for a glass of water and as I walked into the kitchen I saw Picasso walk up to Joyce and lick her ankle. I was barefooted and she didn’t hear me. She had on high heels. She looked at him and her face was pure small-town hatred, white hot. She kicked him hard in the side with the point of her shoe. The poor fellow just ran in little circles, whimpering. Piss dripped from his bladder. I walked in for my glass of water. I held the glass in my hand and then before I could get the water into it I threw the glass at the cupboard to the left of the sink. Glass went everywhere. Joyce had time to cover her face. I didn’t bother. I picked up the dog and walked out. I sat in the chair with him and petted the little shitsnot. He looked up at me and his tongue came out and licked my wrist. His tail wagged and flapped like a fish dying in a sack.

I saw Joyce on her knees with a paper sack, gathering glass. Then she began to sob. She tried to hide it. She turned her back to me but I could see the jolts of it, shaking her, tearing her.

I put Picasso down and walked into the kitchen. “Baby. Baby,
don’t!”

I picked her up from behind. She was limp.

“Baby, I’m sorry … I’m
sorry.”

I held her up against me, my hand flat on her belly. I rubbed her belly easily and gently, trying to stop the convulsions.

“Easy, baby, easy now. Easy …”

She quieted a little. I pulled her hair back and kissed her behind the ear. It was warm back there. She jerked her head away. The next time I kissed her there she didn’t jerk her head away. I could feel her inhale, then she let out a little moan. I picked her up and carried her to the other room, sat down in a chair with her in my lap. She wouldn’t look at me. I kissed her throat and ears. One hand around her shoulders and the other above the hip. I moved the hand above her hip up and down with her breathing, trying to work the bad electricity out.

Finally, with the faintest of smiles, she looked at me. I reached out and bit the point of her chin.

“Crazy bitch!” I said.

She laughed and then we kissed, our heads moving back and forth. She began to sob again.

I pulled back and said, “DON’T!”

We kissed again. Then I picked her up and carried her to the bedroom, placed her on the bed, got my pants and shorts and shoes off
fast
, pulled her pants down over her shoes, got one of the shoes off, and then with one shoe off and one on, I gave her the best ride in months. Every geranium plant shook off the boards. When I finished, I nursed her back slowly, playing with her long hair, telling her things. She purred. Finally she got up and went to the bathroom.

She didn’t come back. She went into the kitchen and began washing dishes and singing.

For Christ’s sake, Steve McQueen couldn’t have done better.

I had two Picassos on my hands.

After dinner or lunch or whatever it was—with my crazy 12-hour night I was no longer sure what was what—I said, “Look, baby, I’m sorry, but don’t you realize that this job is driving me crazy? Look, let’s give it up. Let’s just lay around and make love and take walks and talk a little. Let’s go to the zoo. Let’s look at animals. Let’s drive down and look at the ocean. It’s only 45 minutes. Let’s play games in the arcades. Let’s go to the races, the Art Museum, the boxing matches. Let’s have friends. Let’s laugh. This kind of life is like everybody else’s kind of life: it’s killing us. “

“No, Hank, we’ve got to show them, we’ve got to show them …”

It was the little small-town Texas girl speaking.

I gave it up.

Each night as I got ready to go on in, Joyce had my clothing laid out on the bed. Everything was the most expensive money could buy. I never wore the same pair of pants, the same shirt, the same shoes two nights in a row. There were dozens of different outfits. I put on whatever she laid out for me. Just like mama used to do.

I haven’t come very far, I thought, and then I’d put the stuff on.

They had this thing called Training Class, and so for 30 minutes each night, anyhow, we didn’t have to stick mail.

A big Italiano got up on the lecture platform to tell us where it was.

“… now there’s nothing like the smell of good clean sweat but there’s nothing worse than the smell of stale sweat …”

Good god, I thought, am I hearing right? This thing is government sanctioned, surely. This big oaf is telling me to wash under the armpits. They wouldn’t do this to an engineer or a concertmaster. He’s downgrading us.

“… so take a bath everyday. You will be graded upon appearance as well as production.”

I think he wanted to use the word “hygienics” somewhere but it simply wasn’t in him.

Then he went to the back of the lecture platform and pulled down a big map. And I mean big. It covered half the stage. A light was shone upon the map. And the big Italiano took a pointer with the little rubber nipple on the end of it like they used in grammar school and he pointed to the map:

“Now, you see all this GREEN? Well, there’s a hell of a lot of it. Look!”

He took the pointer and rubbed it back and forth along the green.

There was quite a bit more anti-Russian feeling then than there is now. China had not yet begun to flex her muscles. Vietnam was just a little firecracker party. But I still thought, I must be crazy! I can’t be hearing right? But nobody in the audience protested. They needed jobs. And according to Joyce, I needed a job.

Then he said, “Look here. That’s
Alaska!
And there
they
are! Looks almost as if they could jump across, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah,” said some brainwash job in the front row.

The Italiano flipped the map. It leaped crisply up into itself, crackling in war fury.

Then he walked to the front of the stage, pointed his rubber-titted pointer at us.

“I want you to understand that we’ve got to hold down the budget! I want you to understand that EACH LETTER YOU STICK—EACH SECOND, EACH MINUTE, EACH HOUR, EACH DAY, EACH WEEK-EACH EXTRA LETTER YOU STICK BEYOND DUTY HELPS DEFEAT THE RUSSIANS! Now, that’s all for today. Before you leave, each of you will receive your scheme assignment. “

Scheme assignment. What was that?

Somebody came along handing out these sheets.

“Chinaski?” he said.

“Yeh?”

“You have zone 9.”

“Thank you,” I said.

I didn’t realize what I was saying. Zone 9 was the largest station in the city. Some guys got tiny zones. It was the same as the two-foot tray in 23 minutes—they just rammed it into you.

The next night as they moved the group from the main building to the training building, I stopped to talk to Gus the old newsboy. Gus had once been third-ranked welterweight contender but he never got a look at the champ. He swung from the left side, and, as you know, nobody ever likes to fight a lefty—you’ve got to train your boy all over again. Why bother? Gus took me inside and we had a little nip from his bottle. Then I tried to catch the group.

The Italiano was waiting in the doorway. He saw me coming. He met me halfway in the yard. “Chinaski?”

“Yeh?”

“You’re late.”

I didn’t say anything. We walked toward the building together.

“I’ve got half a mind to slap your wrist with a warning slip,” he said.

“Oh,
please
don’t do that, sir!
Please
don’t!” I said as we walked along.

“All right,” he said, “I’ll let you go this time.”

“Thank you, sir,” I said, and we walked in together.

Want to know something? The son of a bitch had body odor.

Our 30 minutes was now devoted to scheme training. They gave us each a deck of cards to learn and stick into our cases. To pass the scheme you had to throw 100 cards in eight minutes or less with at least 95 percent accuracy. You were given three chances to pass, and if you failed the third time, they let you go. I mean, you were fired.

“Some of you won’t make it,” the Italiano said. “So maybe you were meant for something else. Maybe you will end up President of General Motors.”

Then we were rid of Italiano and we had our nice little scheme instructor who encouraged us.

“You can do it, fellows, it’s not as hard as it looks.”

Each group had its own scheme instructor and they were graded too, upon the percentage of their group that passed. We had the guy with the lowest percentage. He was worried.

“There’s nothing to it, fellows, just put your minds to it.”

Some of the fellows had thin decks. I had the fattest deck of them all.

I just stood there in my fancy new clothes. Stood there with my hands in my pockets.

“Chinaski, what’s the matter?” the instructor asked. “I know
you
can do it.”

“Yeh. Yeh. I’m thinking right now.”

“What are you thinking about?”

“Nothing.”

And then I walked away.

A week later I was still standing there with my hands in my pockets and a sub walked up to me.

“Sir, I think that I am ready to throw my scheme now.”

“Are you sure?” I asked him.

“I’ve been throwing 97, 98, 99 and a couple of 100s in my practice schemes.”

“You must understand that we spend a great deal of money training you. We want you to have this thing down to the ace!”

“Sir, I truly believe that I am ready!”

“All right,” I reached out and shook his hand, “go to it then, my boy, and the best of luck.”

“Thank you, sir!”

He ran off towards the scheme room, a glass-enclosed fishbowl they put you in to see if you could swim their waters. Poor fish. What a comedown from being a smalltown villain. I walked into the practice room, took the rubber band off of the cards and looked at them for the first time.

“Oh, shit!” I said.

A couple of the guys laughed. Then the scheme instructor said, “Your 30 minutes are up. You will now return to the workfloor.”

Which meant back to the 12 hours.

They couldn’t keep enough help to get the mail out, so those who did remain had to do it all. On the schedule board they had us working two weeks straight but then we would get four days off. That kept us going. Four days rest. The last night before our four days off, the intercom came on.

“ATTENTION! ALL SUBS IN GROUP 409! …” I was in group 409.

“… YOUR FOUR OFF DAYS HAVE BEEN CANCELED. YOU ARE SCHEDULED TO REPORT FOR WORK ON THOSE FOUR DAYS!”

Joyce found a job with the county, the county Police Department, of all things. I was living with a cop! But at least it was during the day, which gave me a little rest from those fondling hands except—Joyce bought two parakeets, and the damn things didn’t talk, they just made these sounds all day.

Joyce and I met over breakfast and dinner—it was all very brisk—nice that way. Though she still managed to rape me now and then, it beat the other, except—the parakeets.

“Look, baby …”

“Now what is it?”

“All right. I’ve gotten used to the geraniums and the flies and Picasso, but you’ve got to realize that I am working 12 hours a night and studying a scheme on the side, and you molest my remaining energy …”

“Molest?”

“All right. I’m not saying it right. I’m sorry.”

“What do you mean, ‘molest’?”

“I said, forget it! Now look, it’s the parakeets.”

“So now it’s the parakeets! Are they molesting you too?”

“Yes, they are.”

“Who’s on top?”

“Look, don’t get funny. Don’t get dirty. I’m trying to tell you something. “

“Now you’re trying to tell me how to get!”

“All right!
Shit! You’re
the one with the money! Are you going to let me talk or not? Answer me, yes or no?”

“All right, little baby: yes.”

“All right. little baby says this: ‘Mama! Mama! Those fucking parakeets are driving me nuts!’ “

“All right, tell mama how the parakeets are driving you nuts.”

“Well, it’s like this, mama, the things chatter all day, they never stop, and I keep waiting for them to say something but they never say anything and I can’t sleep all day from listening to the idiots!”

“All right, little baby. If they keep you awake, put them out.”

“Put them out, mama?”

“Yes, put them out.”

“All right, mama.”

She gave me a kiss and then wiggled down the stairway on her way to her cop job.

I got in bed and tried to sleep. How they chattered! Every muscle in my body ached. If I lay on this side, if I lay on that side, if I lay on my back, I ached. I found the easiest way was on my stomach, but that grew tiresome. It took a good two or three minutes to get from one position to another.

I tossed and turned, cursing, screaming a little, and laughing a little too, at the ridiculousness of it. On they chattered. They got to me. What did they know of pain in their little cage? Eggheads yakking! Just feathers; brains the size of a pinhead.