the necessity of facing negative feelings and fears, he preferred not to dwell on such subjects. It was a shallow and easy way out, but rather than seriously confront his own feelings, he chose to joke, to laugh, to go on with his life as if nothing had happened.
He found himself thinking of the mailman now, though. Imagining how he must have looked with the top of his head blown off, blood and wet brains splattered on the tile behind him. Death, in any form, was a difficult subject to deal with, but violent suicide was messy and gruesome as well.
He looked down at the letters in his hand and thought of the new mailman.
The coincidence of receiving so much good mail in a single day was wonderful, but it was also a little creepy. If Ronda had delivered these letters, Doug would have been ecstatic, although he would probably not even have noticed the coincidence. But knowing what the new mailman looked like, imagining those pale hot hands slipping the envelopes into the mailbox and then carefully closing the door, he could not help feeling that they had been tainted somehow, and though nothing had actually happened to affect his mood, he was not as happy as he had been a moment before. He looked over at Billy. 'What time did the mailman come by?' he asked nonchalantly.
'Didn't notice,' Billy said, not taking his eyes from the TV.
Doug recalled the mailman's mocking smile, his arrogant attitude. He found himself wondering what type of car the mailman drove. He found himself wondering the mailman's name.
Doug stopped first at the store for bread, charcoal, tomatoes, lettuce, and peanut butter, then dropped by the post office on his way home. He arrived between the noon andmidaftemoon rushes and had no trouble finding a parking spot. The tiny lot was virtually empty. There were two old-timers sitting on the bench outside the post office as he walked up the steps, but there were no customers inside. Howard, as usual, was at the counter, wrapping a package. He looked haggard, his face red and blotchy, eyes teary, and Doug guessed that he had probably spent the night before drinking. The sight of the postmaster filled him with an uncomfortable feeling, but he forced himself to smile as he approached the counter. 'How goes it, Howard?'
The postmaster looked up distractedly. 'Fine,' he said, but there was no conviction in his voice. It was a stock answer, an automatic reply, and meant nothing. 'Can I help you?'
'Actually, I just came by to drop off a letter, but I thought I'd see how you were doing while I was at it.'
The shadow of a frown crossed the postmaster's face. 'I'm fine. I just wishpeople'd stop treating me like I just got out of a mental hospital. I'm not that fragile. I'm not going to have a breakdown or nothing. Jesus, you'd think I was a little kid.'
Doug smiled. 'People around here care. You know that.'
'Yeah, well, I wish they'd care a little less.' He must have heard the annoyance in his voice, for he suddenly stopped wrapping the package before him and shook his head, smiling sheepishly. 'I'm sorry, I guess I haven't been myself lately.' He shot Doug a warning glance. 'But I don't want any sympathy.'
Doug laughed. 'You won't get any from me.'
'Good.'
'So who's the new mailman?'
Howard placed the package on the scale, putting on his steel-framed glasses and squinting through the thick lenses to read the weight. 'His name's John Smith.'
_John Smith?_
'Got here pretty quick, didn't he?'
'Yeah, that surprised me, too. I'd never had to go through this before, but I heard it took four or five weeks for them to transfer someone. I put in a request down to the main office on Monday, though, and he was here on Wednesday.'
'He's from Phoenix?'
'I'm not sure. He don't talk much. But I'm sure I'll find out soon enough.
I told him he could stay with me until he found a place of his own.Murial's room is vacant while she's gone, and I told him he could sleep there so long as he makes the bed and picks up after himself. It's cheaper than a hotel, and it'll give him some time to pick out a place. Usually, postmen end up taking the first place that comes along because they can't afford to stay in a hotel any longer. The Postal Service don't give you no moving allowance, and God knows they don't pay carriers enough to stay holed up in a hotel for weeks at a time.'
He wrote down a number on a small slip of paper, stamped it with a red seal, and took the package off the scale. He stamped FIRST CLASS on the top of the package.
'So what's he like? What do you think of him?'
Howard shrugged. 'Too early to tell. He seems nice enough.'
Doug looked suspiciously at the postmaster as he dropped the package into a large cart. It wasn't like Howard to be so circumspect. He was usually quick and bold in his judgments; this cautiousness and taciturnity seemed out of character for him. Either he liked someone or he didn't, and he did not hesitate to make his opinions known.
But Doug said nothing. The man had just lost his best friend. Who was he to judge behavior in such a situation? 'Trish was serious,' he said. 'We want you to come over.'
Howard nodded. 'I'd like that,' he said honestly.
'How about the weekend, then? Friday or Saturday?'
'Sounds good.'
'I'll tell Trish. She'll probably call you about it. She doesn't trust me to handle these things.' He opened the post-office door. 'See you.'
'Later,' the postmaster said.
John Smith, Doug thought as he walked down the steps, taking his keys from his pocket. A likely story.
Doug was halfway home before he realized that he had forgotten to buy a lottery ticket. He had been half- joking when he'd said that to Trish, but he had also been half-serious. He was not a gambler by any stretch of the imagination, but he did buy an occasional lottery ticket when he remembered. And though he was ostensibly a rational intelligent man, he was not entirely immune to superstition. He didn't really believe in luck -- good or bad -- but it wasn't something he ruled out as being entirely impossible. Besides, he wouldn't mind winning a few million. It would be nice to be fabulously wealthy. It was something to which he would gladly adjust.
He turned the car around and headed to the Circle K. He bought a ticket, letting the machine pick the numbers, and read over his choices as he walked back out to the car. He was about to open the door when he saw, near the mailbox by the curb, the mailman. The postal carrier was kneeling on the ground, the door to the mailbox open, key and chain hanging from the lock, and was taking out the deposited mail. Only he wasn't simply emptying the bin the way Doug had seen Ronda do; he was carefully examining each envelope, sorting through them.
Some he placed carefully in a plastic tray beside him. Others he shoved unthinkingly into a brown paper sack.
There was something odd about that, Doug thought. From the careful way he handled the one group of envelopes and the casually rough way in which he dealt with the others, it seemed as though he was planning to hide some of those envelopes from Howard, as though he had plans for them other than delivery.
The mailman looked up and stared directly at him.
Doug glanced away, pretending as though he had been scanning the street and his gaze had accidentally landed for a second on the mailman as he'd looked around. But in the brief moment that their eyes locked, he had the unmistakable feeling that the mailman had known he was watching and that that was precisely why he had looked up at that moment.
You're being stupid, Doug told himself. The man had glanced in his direction. That was all. It was a perfectly ordinary occurrence, a simple random event. There was nothing strange or sinister about it. But when he looked again at the mailman, he saw that the man was still staring at him and that there was a disdainful half-smile on the pale thin lips.
Doug quickly opened the car door and got inside, feeling vulnerable, exposed, and slightly guilty, as if he had been caught watching someone undress.
He wasn't sure why the mailman's gaze made him feel that way, but he didn't want to stay here and analyze it. He started the car and backed up. The only exit from the Circle K lot was right next to the mailbox, and he hurriedly sped across the asphalt, hoping to pull immediately onto the road. No such luck. The highway was filled
