Office of Postmaster—United States Post Office—January 1, 1970 The attention of all employees is directed to the Code of Ethics for postal employees as set forth in Part 742 of the Post...
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 ...
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 exc...
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 ...
When Jonstone saw me the next 5 a.m. he spun in his swivel and his face and his shirt were the same color. But he said nothing. I didn’t care. I had been up to 2 a.m. drinking and screw...
But the next morning it was the sa… “That’s all, Chinaski. Nothing fo… It went on for a week. I sat ther… Then Bobby Hansen, one of the old… “I don’t care. I’m not kissing hi…
I forget the beginning time. 6 or 7 p.m. Something like that. All you did was sit with a handful of letters, take a streetmap and figure your run. It was easy. All the drivers took much...
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 t...
There was another German Shepherd. It was hot summer and he came BOUNDING out of a back yard and then LEAPED through the air. His teeth snapped, just missing my jugular vein. “OH JESUS!...
Every route had its traps and only the regular carriers knew of them. Each day it was another god damned thing, and you were always ready for a rape, murder, dogs, or insanity of some s...
The rainy season began. Most of the money went for drink so my shoes had holes in the soles and my raincoat was torn and old. In any steady downpour I got quite wet, and I mean wet-down...
But then it began raining again. The Stone had me out on a thing called Sunday Collection, and if you’re thinking of church, forget it. You picked up a truck at West Garage and a clipbo...
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 ...
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?” “He...
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 ...
I was hungover again, another heat spell was on—a week of 100 degree days. The drinking went on each night, and in the early mornings and days there was The Stone and the impossibility ...
I was casing next to G.G. early one morning. That’s what they called him: G.G. His actual name was George Greene. But for years he was simply called G.G. and after a while he looked lik...
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 ...
Meanwhile, things went on. I had a long run of luck at the racetrack. I began to feel confident out there. You went for a certain profit each day, somewhere between 15 and 40 bucks. You...
The next thing I knew, I had a young girl from Texas on my lap. I won’t go into details of how I met her. Anyway, there it was. She was 23. I was 36. She had long blonde hair and was go...
Her father really hated me. He thought I was after his money. I didn’t want his god damned money. And I didn’t even want his god damned precious daughter. The only time I ever saw him w...
Then Joyce wanted to go back to the city. For all the draw– backs, that little town, haircuts or not, beat city life. It was quiet. We had our own house. Joyce fed me well.) Plenty of m...
So gramps wrote Joyce a big check and there we were. We rented a little house up on a hill, and then Joyce got this stupid moralistic thing. “We both ought to get jobs,” Joyce said, “to...
There was death in that place on the hill. I knew it the first day I walked out the screen door and into the backyard. A zing– ing binging buzzing whining sound came right at me: 10,000...
“It’s the manager, Freddy. He has started whistling this song. He’s whistling it when I come in in the morning and he never stops, and he’s whistling it when I go home at night. It’s be...
I met an old drunk on the street one afternoon. I used to know him from the days with Betty when we made the rounds of the bars. He told me that he was now a postal clerk and that there...
There was a gang of us down there. 150 or 200. There were tedious papers to fill out. Then we all stood up and faced the flag. The guy who swore us in was the same guy who had sworn me ...
The guide took us all over the building. There were so many of us that they had to break us up into groups. We used the elevator in shifts. We were shown the employee’s cafeteria, the b...
After nine or ten hours people began getting sleepy and falling into their cases, catching themselves just in time. We were working the zoned mail. If a letter read zone 28 you stuck it...
Then the supervisor moved us to a new aisle. We had been there ten hours. “Before you begin,” the soup said, "I want to tell you some– thing. Each tray of this type of mail must be stuc...
