Charles Bukowski - Post Office

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.

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.