I came out.
“Vi.”
“Yes?”
“Don’t be too pissed. It wasn’t you. It was the booze. It has happened before.”
“All right, then, you shouldn’t drink so much. No woman likes to come in second to a bottle.”
“Why don’t you bet me to place then?”
“Oh, stop it!”
“Listen, you need any money, babe?”
I reached into my wallet and took out a twenty. I handed it to her.
“My, you are sweet!”
Her hand touched my cheek, she kissed me gently along the side of the mouth.
“Drive carefully now.”
“Sure, babe.”
I drove carefully all the way to the racetrack.
15
They had me in the counselor’s office in one of the back rooms of the second floor.
“Let me see how you look, Chinaski.”
He looked at me.
“Ow! You look bad. I better take a pill.”
Sure enough, he opened a bottle and took one.
“All right, Mr. Chinaski, we’d like to know where you’ve been the last two days?”
“Mourning.”
“Mourning? Mourning about what?”
“Funeral. Old friend. One day to pack in the stiff. One day to mourn.”
“But you didn’t phone in, Mr. Chinaski.”
“Yeh.”
“And I want to tell you something, Chinaski, off the record.”
“All right.”
“When you don’t phone in, you know what you are saying?”
“No.”
“Mr. Chinaski, you are saying, ‘Fuck the post office!’ ”
“I am?”
“And, Mr. Chinaski, you know what that means?”
“No, what does it mean?”
“That means, Mr. Chinaski, that the post office is going to fuck youl” Then he leaned back and looked at me. “Mr. Feathers,” I told him, “you can go to hell.”
“Don’t get fresh, Henry. I can make it tough on you.”
“Please address me by my full name, sir. I ask for a simple bit of respect from you.”
“You ask respect for me but…”
“That’s right. We know where you park, Mr. Feathers.”
“What? Is that a threat?”
“The blacks love me here, Feathers. I have fooled them.”
“The blacks love you?”
“They give me water. I even fuck their women. Or try to.”
“All right. This is getting out of hand. Please report back to your assignment.”
He handed me my travel slip. He was worried, poor fellow. I hadn’t fooled the blacks. I hadn’t fooled anybody but Feathers. But you couldn’t blame him for worrying. One supervisor had been pushed down the stairway. Another slashed across the ass. Another knifed in the belly as he was waiting in the crosswalk for the signal to change at 3 a.m. Right in front of the central post office. We never saw him again.
Feathers, soon after I spoke to him, bid out of the central office. I don’t know exactly where he went. But it was out of the central office.
16
One morning about 10 a.m. the phone rang. “Mr. Chinaski?”
I recognized the voice and began to fondle myself.
“Ummmm,” I said. It was Miss Graves, that bitch. “Were you asleep?”
“Yes, yes, Miss Graves, but go on. It’s all right, it’s all right.”
“Well, you’ve made clearance.”
“Ummm, ummm.”
“So therefore we have notified the scheme room.”
“Ummhmm.”
“And you are scheduled to throw your CP1 two weeks from today.”
“What? Now wait a minute…”
“That’s all, Mr. Chinaski. Good day.” She hung up.
17
Well, I took the scheme sheet and I related everything to sex and age. This guy lived in this house with 3 women. He belt-whipped one (her name was the name of the street and her age the break number); he ate another (ditto), and he simply screwed the third old-fashioned (ditto). There were all these fags and one of them (his name was Manfred Ave.) was 33 years old… etc., etc., etc.
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 5 minutes.
And got a form letter of congratulation from the City Postmaster.
18
Soon after that I made regular and that gave me an 8 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 2 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 3rd Symphony, and a generalized (if confused) idea of what the critics said about the 3rd.
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.
19
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 a 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, 8 minutes before my 9th 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 8 minutes before my 10th hour: “Your attention, please! All regular clerks who reported at 6:18 p.m., are required to work 3 hours overtime!” Meanwhile Janko never stopped.