Charles Bukowski - Post Office

“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 smalltown 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 concert-master. 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 3rd-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,” 1 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 pur cases. To pass the scheme you had to throw 100 cards in 8 minutes or less with at least 95 per cent accuracy. You were given 3 chances to pass, and if you failed the 3rd 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.