Post Office (12 page)

I’m sure they wouldn’t have let me into that glass cage if they had known what I was thinking as I looked at all those cards. They all looked like old friends to me.

Still, I got some of my orgies crossed. I threw a 94 the first time.

Ten days later, when I came back, I knew who was doing what to whom.

I threw 100 percent in five minutes.

And got a form letter of congratulations from the City Postmaster.

Soon after that I made regular and that gave me an eight-hour night, which beat 12, and pay for holidays. Of the 150 or 200 that had come in, there were only two of us left.

Then I met David Janko on the station. He was a young white in his early twenties. I made the mistake of talking to him, something about classical music. I happened to be up on my classical music because it was the only thing I could listen to while drinking beer in bed in the early morning. If you listen morning after morning you are bound to remember things. And when Joyce had divorced me I had mistakenly packed two volumes of
The Lives of the Classical and Modern Composers
into one of my suitcases. Most of these men’s lives were so tortured that I enjoyed reading about them, thinking, well, I am in hell too and I can’t even write music.

But I had opened my mouth. Janko and some other guy were arguing and I settled it by giving them Beethoven’s birthdate, when he had penned the Third Symphony, and a generalized (if confused) idea of what the critics said about the Third.

It was too much for Janko. He immediately mistook me for a learned man. Sitting on the stool next to me he began to complain and rant, night after long night, about the misery buried deep in his twisted and pissed soul. He had a terribly loud voice and he wanted everybody to hear. I flipped the letters in, I listened and listened and listened, thinking what will I do now? How will I get this poor mad bastard to shut up?

I went home each night dizzy and sick. He was murdering me with the sound of his voice.

I began at 6:18 p.m. and Dave Janko did not begin until 10:36 p.m., so it could have been worse. Having a 10:06 thirty-minute lunch, I was usually back by the time he got in. In he’d come, looking for a stool next to mine. Janko, besides playing at the great mind also played at the great lover. According to him, he was trapped in hallways by beautiful young women, followed down the streets by them. They wouldn’t let him rest, poor fellow. But I never saw him speak to women down at work, nor did they to him.

In he’d come: “HEY, HANK! MAN, I REALLY CAUGHT A HEAD JOB TODAY!”

He didn’t speak, he screamed. He screamed all night.

“JESUS CHRIST, SHE REALLY ATE ME UP! AND YOUNG TOO! BUT SHE WAS REALLY A PRO!”

I lit a cigarette.

Then I had to hear all about how he met her—

“I HAD TO GO OUT FOR A LOAF OF BREAD, SEE?”

Then—down to the last detail—what she said, what he said, what they did, etc.

At that time, a law was passed requiring the post office to pay substitute clerks time and one half. So the post office shifted the overtime to the regular clerks.

Eight or ten minutes before my regular quitting time of 2:48 a.m. the intercom would come on:

“Your attention, please! All regular clerks who reported at 6:18 p.m., are required to work one hour overtime!”

Janko would smile, lean forward and pour more of his poison into me.

Then, eight minutes before my ninth hour was up, the intercom would come on again.

“Your attention, please! All regular clerks who reported at 6:18 p.m., are required to work two hours overtime!”

Then eight minutes before my 10th hour:

“Your attention, please! All regular clerks who reported at 6:18 p.m., are required to work three hours overtime!”

Meanwhile Janko never stopped.

“I WAS SITTING IN THIS DRUGSTORE, YOU SEE. TWO CLASS BROADS CAME IN. ONE OF THEM SAT ON EACH SIDE OF ME …”

The boy was murdering me but I couldn’t find any way out. I remembered all the other jobs I had worked at. I had drawn the nut each time. They liked me.

Then Janko put his novel on me. He couldn’t type and had the thing typed up by a professional. It was enclosed in a fancy black leather notebook. The title was very romantic. “LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT IT,” he said.

“Yeh,” I said.

I took it home, opened the beer, got into bed and began.

It started well. It was about how Janko had lived in small rooms and starved while trying to find a job. He had trouble with the employment agencies. And there was a guy he met in a bar—he seemed like a very learned type-but his friend kept borrowing money from him which he never paid back.

It was honest writing.

Maybe I have misjudged this man, I thought.

I was hoping for him as I read. Then the novel fell apart. For some reason the moment he started writing about the post office, the thing lost reality.

The novel got worse and worse. It ended up with him being at the opera. It was intermission. He had left his seat in order to get away from the coarse and stupid crowd. Well, I was with him there. Then, rounding a pillar, it happened. It happened very quickly. He crashed into this cultured, dainty, beautiful thing. Almost knocked her down.

The dialogue went like this: “Oh, I’m
so
sorry!”

“It’s quite all right …”

“I didn’t mean to … you know … I’m sorry …!”

“Oh, I assure you, it’s all right!”

“But I mean, I didn’t see you … I didn’t mean to …”

“It’s all right. It’s quite all right …” The dialogue about the bumping went on for a page and a half.

The poor boy was truly mad.

It turned out this broad, although she’s wandering around among the pillars alone, well, she’s really married to this doctor, but the doc didn’t comprehend opera, or for that matter, didn’t even care for such simple things as Ravel’s
Bolero
. Or even
The Three-Cornered Hat Dance
by de Falla. I was with the doc there.

From the bumping of these two true sensitive souls, something developed. They met at concerts and had a quickie afterwards. (This was
implied
rather than stated, for both of them were too delicate to simply
fuck.)

Well, it ended. The poor beautiful creature loved her husband and she loved the hero (Janko). She didn’t know what to do, so, of course, she committed suicide. She left both the doc and Janko standing in their bathrooms alone.

   I told the kid, “It starts well. But you’ll have to take out that bumping-around-the-pillar dialogue. It’s very bad …”

“NO! EVERYTHING STAYS!”

   The months went by and the novel kept coming back.

“JESUS CHRIST!” he said, “I CAN’T GO TO NEW YORK AND SHAKE THE HANDS OF THE PUBLISHERS!”

“Look, kid, why don’t you quit this job? Go to a small room and write. Work it out.”

“A GUY LIKE YOU CAN DO THAT,” he said, “BECAUSE YOU LOOK LIKE A WINO. PEOPLE WILL HIRE YOU BECAUSE THEY FIGURE YOU CAN’T GET A JOB ANYWHERE ELSE AND YOU’LL STAY. THEY WON’T HIRE ME BECAUSE THEY LOOK AT ME AND THEY SEE HOW INTELLIGENT I AM AND THEY THINK, WELL, AN INTELLIGENT MAN LIKE HIM WON’T STAY WITH US, SO THERE’S NO USE HIRING HIM.”

“I still say, go to a small room and write.”

“BUT I NEED ASSURANCE!”

“It’s a good thing a few others didn’t think that way. It’s a good thing Van Gogh didn’t think that way.”

“VAN GOGH’S BROTHER GAVE HIM FREE PAINTS!” the kid said to me.

Then I developed a new system at the racetrack. I pulled in $3,000 in a month and a half while only going to the track two or three times a week. I began to dream. I saw a Little house down by the sea. I saw myself in fine clothing, calm, getting up mornings, getting into my imported car, making the slow easy drive to the track. I saw leisurely steak dinners, preceded and followed by good chilled drinks in colored glasses. The big tip. The cigar. And women as you wanted them. It’s easy to fall into this kind of thinking when men hand you large bills at the cashier’s window. When in one six-furlong race, say in a minute and nine seconds, you make a month’s pay.

So I stood in the tour superintendent’s office. There he was behind his desk. I had a cigar in my mouth and whiskey on my breath. I felt like money. I looked like money.

“Mr. Winters,” I said, “the post office has treated me well. But I have outside business interests that simply must be taken care of. If you can’t give me a leave of absence, I must resign.”

“Didn’t I give you a leave of absence earlier in the year, Chinaski?”

“No, Mr. Winters, you turned down my request for a leave of absence. This time there can’t be any turndown. Or I will resign.”

“All right, fill out the form and I’ll sign it. But I can only give you 90 working days off.”

“I’ll take ‘em,” I said, exhaling a long trail of blue smoke from my expensive cigar.

The track had moved down the coast a hundred miles or so. I kept paying the rent on my apartment in town, got in my car and drove down. Once or twice a week I would drive back to the apartment, check the mail, maybe sleep overnight, then drive back down.

It was a good life, and I started winning. After the last race each night I would have one or two easy drinks at the bar, tipping the bartender well. It looked like a new life. I could do no wrong.

One night I didn’t even watch the last race. I went to the bar.

Fifty dollars to win was my standard bet. After you bet 50 win awhile it feels like betting five or 10 win.

“Scotch and water,” I told the barkeep. “Think I’ll listen to this one over the speaker.”

“Who you got?”

“Blue Stocking,” I told him “50 win.”

“Too much weight.”

“Are you kidding? A good horse can pack 122 pounds in a six thousand dollar claimer. That means, according to the conditions, that the horse has done something that no other horse in that race has done.”

Of course, that wasn’t the reason I had bet Blue Stocking. I was always giving out misinformation. I didn’t want anybody else on board.

At the time, they didn’t have closed circuit t.v. You just listened to the calls. I was $380 ahead. A loss on the last race would give me a $330 profit. A good day’s work.

We listened. The caller mentioned every horse in the race but Blue Stocking.

My horse must have fallen down, I thought.

They were in the stretch, coming down toward the wire. That track was notorious for its short stretch.

Then right before the race ended the announcer screamed, “AND HERE COMES BLUE STOCKING ON THE OUTSIDE! BLUE STOCKING IS GETTING UP! IT’S … BLUE STOCKING!”

“Pardon me,” I told the bartender, “I’ll be right back. Fix me a scotch and water, double shot.”

“Yes, sir!” he said.

I went out back where they had a small tote board near the walking ring. Blue Stocking read 9/2. Well it wasn’t eight or 10 to one. But you played the winner, not the price. I’d take the $250 profit plus change. I went back to the bar.

“Who do you like tomorrow, sir?” asked the barkeep.

“Tomorrow’s a long way off,” I told him.

I finished my drink, tipped him a dollar and walked off.

Every night was about the same. I’d drive along the coast looking for a place to have dinner. I wanted an expensive place that wasn’t too crowded. I developed a nose for those places. I could tell by looking at them from the outside. You couldn’t always get a table directly overlooking the ocean unless you wanted to wait. But you could still see the ocean out there and the moon, and let yourself get romantic. Let yourself enjoy life. I always asked for a small salad and a big steak. The waitresses smiled deliciously and stood very close to you. I had come a long way from a guy who had worked in slaughterhouses, who had crossed the country with a railroad track gang, who had worked in a dog biscuit factory, who had slept on park benches, who had worked the nickle and dime jobs in a dozen cities across the nation.

After dinner I would look for a motel. This also took a bit of driving. First I’d stop somewhere for whiskey and beer. I avoided the places with t.v. sets. It was clean sheets, a hot shower, luxury. It was a magic life. And I did not tire of it.

One day I was at the bar between races and I saw this woman. God or somebody keeps creating women and tossing them out on the streets, and this one’s ass is too big and that one’s tits are too small, and this one is mad and that one is crazy and that one is a religionist and that one reads tea leaves and this one can’t control her farts, and that one has this big nose, and that one has boney legs …

But now and then, a woman walks up, full blossom, a woman just bursting out of her dress … a sex creature, a curse, the end of it all. I looked up and there she was, down at the end of the bar. She was about drunk and the bartender wouldn’t serve her and she began to bitch and they called one of the track cops and the track cop had her by the arm, leading her off, and they were talking.

I finished my drink and followed them.

“Officer! Officer!” He stopped and looked at me. “Has my wife done something wrong?” I asked. “We believe that she is intoxicated, sir. I was going to escort her to the gate.”

“The starting gate?” He laughed. “No, sir. The exit gate.”

“I’ll take over here, officer.”

“All right, sir. But see that she doesn’t drink anymore.” I didn’t answer. I took her by the arm and led her back in.

“Thank god, you saved my life,” she said.

Her flank bumped against me.

“It’s all right. My name’s Hank.”

“I’m Mary Lou,” she said.

“Mary Lou,” I said, “I love you.”

She laughed.

“By the way, you don’t hide behind pillars at the opera house, do you?”

“I don’t hide behind anything,” she said, sticking her breasts out.

“Want another drink?”

“Sure, but he won’t serve me.”

“There’s more than one bar at this track, Mary Lou. Let’s take a run upstairs. And keep quiet. Stand back and I will bring your drink to you. What’re you drinking?”