“I’ll never make it,” he told me.
They either melted or they got fat, huge, especially around the ass and the belly. It was the stool and the same motion and the same talk. And there I was, dizzy spells and pains in the arms, neck, chest, everywhere. I slept all day resting up for the job. On weekends I had to drink in order to forget it. I had come in weighing 185 pounds. Now I weighed 223 pounds. All you moved was your right arm.
2
I walked into the counselor’s office. It was Eddie Beaver sitting behind the desk. The clerks called him “Skinny Beaver.” He had a pointed head, pointed nose, pointed chin. He was all points. And out for them too.
“Sit down, Chinaski.”
Beaver had some papers in his hand. He read them.
“Chinaski, it took you 28 minutes to throw a 23 minute tray.”
“Oh, knock off the bullshit. I’m tired.”
“What?”
“I said, knock off the bullshit! Let me sign the paper and go back. I don’t want to hear it all.”
“I’m here to counsel you, Chinaski!”
I sighed. “O.K., go ahead. Let’s hear it.”
“We have a production schedule to meet, Chinaski.”
“Yeh.”
“And when you fall behind on production that means that somebody else is going to stick your mail for you. That means overtime.”
“You mean I am responsible for those 3 and one half hours overtime they call almost every night?”
“Look, you took 28 minutes on a 23 minute tray. That’s all there is to it.”
“You know better. Each tray is 2 feet long. Some trays have 3, even 4 times as many letters than others. The clerks grab iwhat they call the ‘fat’ trays. I don’t bother. Somebody has to stick with the tough mail. Yet all you guys know is that each tray is two feet long and that it must be stuck in 23 minutes. But we’re not sticking trays in those cases, we’re sticking letters.”
“No, no, this thing has been time-tested!”
“Maybe it has. I doubt it. But if you’re going to time a man, don’t judge him on one tray. Even Babe Ruth struck out now and then. Judge a man on ten trays, or a night’s work. You guys just use this thing to hang anybody who gets in your craw.”
“All right, you’ve had your say, Chinaski. Now, I’m telling YOU: you stuck a 28 minute tray. We go by that. NOW, if you are caught on another slow tray you will be due for ADVANCED COUNSELING!”
“All right, just let me ask you one question?”
“All right.”
“Suppose I get an easy tray. Once in a while I do. Sometimes I finish a tray in 5 minutes or in 8 minutes. Let’s say I stick a tray in 8 minutes. According to the time-tested standard I have saved the post office 15 minutes. Now can I take these 15 minutes and go down to the cafeteria, have a slice of pie with ice cream, watch t.v. and come back?”
“NO! YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO GRAB A TRAY IMMEDIATELY AND START STICKING MAIL!”
I signed a paper saying that I had been counseled. Then Skinny
Beaver signed my travel form, wrote the time on it and sent me back to my stool to stick more mail.
3
But, there were still bits of action. One guy was caught on the same stairway that I had been trapped on. He was caught there with his head under some girl’s skirt. Then one of the girls who worked in the cafeteria complained that she hadn’t been paid, as promised, for a bit of oral copulation she had supplied to a general foreman and 3 mailhandlers. They fired the girl and the 3 mailhandlers and busted the general foreman down to supervisor.
Then, I set the post office on fire.
I had been sent to fourth class papers and was smoking a cigar, working a stack of mail off of a hand truck when some guy came by and said, “HEY, YOUR MAIL IS ON FIRE!”
I looked around. There it was. A small flame was starting to stand up like a dancing snake. Evidently part of a burning cigar ash had fallen in there earlier.
“Oh shit!”
The flame grew rapidly. I took a catalogue and, holding it flat, I beat the shit out of it. Sparks flew. It was hot. As soon as I put out one section, another caught up.
I heard a voice:
“Hey! I smell fire!”
“YOU DON’T SMELL FIRE,” I yelled, “YOU SMELL SMOKE!”
“I think I’m going to get out of here!”
“God damn you, then,” I screamed, “GET OUT!” The flames were burning my hands. I had to save the United States mail, 4th class junkmail!
Finally, I got it under control. I took my foot and pushed the whole pile of papers onto the floor and stepped on the last bit of red ash.
The supervisor walked up to say something to me. I stood there with the burned catalogue in my hand and waited. He looked at me and walked off.
Then I resumed casing the 4th class junkmail. Anything burned, I put to one side.
My cigar had gone out. I didn’t light it again.
My hands began to hurt and I walked over to the water fountain, put them under water. It didn’t help.
I found the supervisor and asked him for a travel slip to the nurse’s office.
It was the same one who used to come to my door and ask me, “Now what’s the matter, Mr. Chinaski?”
When I walked in, she said the same thing again.
“You remember me, eh?” I asked.
“Oh yes, I know you’ve had some real sick nights.”
“Yeh,” I said.
“Do you still have women up at your apartment?” she asked.
“Yeh. Do you still have men up at yours?”
“All right, Mr. Chinaski, now what’s your problem?”
“I burned my hands.”
“Come over here. How did you burn your hands?”
“Does it matter? They’re burned.”
She was dabbing my hands with something. One of her breasts brushed me.
“How did it happen, Henry?”
“Cigar. I was standing next to a truck of 4th class. Ash must have gotten in there. Flames came up.”
The breast was up against me again.
“Hold your hands still, please!”
Then she laid her whole flank against me as she spread some ointment on my hands. I was sitting on a stool.
“What’s the matter, Henry? You seem nervous.”
“Well… you know how it is, Martha.”
“My name is not Martha. It’s Helen.”
“Let’s get married, Helen.”
“What?”
“I mean, how soon will I be able to use my hands again?”
“You can use them right now if you feel like it.”
“What?”
“I mean, on the work floor.”
She wrapped on some gauze.
“It does feel better,” I told her.
“You mustn’t burn the mails.”
“It was junk.”
“All mail is important.”
“All right, Helen.”
She walked over to her desk and I followed her. She filled out the travel form. She looked very cute in her little white hat. I’d have to find a way to get back there.
She saw me looking at her body.
“All right, Mr. Chinaski, I think you better leave now.”
“Oh yes… Well, thanks for everything.”
“It’s just part of the job.”