4th. There was a doorway down by the men’s crapper. I looked at the sign.
It was a con. I was wiser than those mothers. They just put the sign up to keep clever guys like Chinaski from going down to the cafeteria. I opened the door and went on down. The door closed behind me. I walked down to the second floor. Turned the knob. What the fuck! The door wouldn’t open! It was locked. I walked back up. Past the 3rd floor door. I didn’t try it. I knew it was locked. As the first floor door was locked. I knew the post office well enough by then. When they laid a trap, they were thorough. I had one slim chance. I was at the 4th floor. I tried the knob. It was locked.
At least the door was near the men’s crapper. There was always somebody going in and out of the men’s crapper. I waited. 10 minutes. 15 minutes. 20 minutes! Didn’t ANYBODY want to shit, piss or goof-off? 25 minutes. Then I saw a face. I tapped on the glass.
“Hey, buddy! HEY, BUDDY!”
He didn’t hear me, or he pretended not to hear me. He marched into the crapper. 5 minutes. Then another face came by. I rapped hard. “HEY, BUDDY! HEY. YOU COCKSUCKER!” I guess he heard me. He looked at me from behind the wired glass. I said, “OPEN THE DOOR! CAN’T YOU SEE ME IN HERE? I’M LOCKED IN, YOU FOOL! OPEN THE DOOR!” He opened the door. I went in. The guy was in a trance-like state.
I squeezed his elbow.
“Thanks, kid.”
I walked back to the magazine case.
Then the soup walked past. He stopped and looked at me. I slowed down.
“How are you doing, Mr. Chinaski?”
I growled at him, waved a magazine in the air as if I were going insane, said something to myself, and he walked on.
9
Fay was pregnant. But it didn’t change her and it didn’t change the post office either.
The same clerks did all the work while the miscellaneous crew stood around and argued about sports. They were all big black dudes—built like professional wrestlers. Whenever a new one came into the service he was tossed into the miscellaneous crew.
This kept them from murdering the supervisors. If the miscellaneous crew had a supervisor you never saw him. The crew brought in truckloads of mail that arrived via freight elevator.
This was a 5 minute on the hour job. Sometimes they counted the mail, or pretended to. They looked very calm and intellectual, making their counts with long pencils behind one ear. But most of the time they argued the sports scene violently. They were all experts—they read the same sports writers.
“All right, man, what’s your all time outfield?”
“Well, Willie Mays, Ted Williams, Cobb.”
“What? What?”
“That’s right, baby!”
“What about the Babe? Whatta ya gonna do with the Babe?”
“O.K., O.K., who’s your all star outfield?”
“All time, not all star!”
“O.K., O.K., you know what I mean, baby, you know what I mean!”
“Well, I’ll take Mays, Ruth and Di Maj!”
“Both you guys are nuts! How about Hank Aaron, Baby? How about Hank?”
At one time, all miscellaneous jobs were put on bid. Bids were filled mostly on a basis of seniority. The miscellaneous crew went about and ripped the bids out of the order books. Then they had nothing to do. Nobody filed a complaint. It was a long dark walk to the parking lot at night.
10
I began getting dizzy spells. I could feel them coming. The case would begin to whirl. The spells lasted about a minute. I couldn’t understand it. Each letter was getting heavier and heavier. The clerks began to have that dead grey look. I began to slide off my stool. My legs would barely hold me up. The job was killing me.
I went to my doctor and told him about it. He took my blood pressure.
“No, no, your blood pressure is all right.”
Then he put the stethoscope to me and weighed me.
“I can find nothing wrong.”
Then he gave me a special blood test. He took blood from my arm three times at intervals, each time lapse longer than the last.
“Do you care to wait in the other room?”
“No, no, I’ll go out and walk around and come back in time.”
“All right but come back in time.”
I was on time for the second blood extraction. Then there was a longer wait for the 3rd one, 20 or 25 minutes. I walked out on the street. Nothing much was happening. I went into a drugstore and read a magazine. I put it down, looked at the clock and went outside. I saw this woman sitting at the bus stop. She was one of those rare ones. She was showing plenty of leg. I couldn’t keep my eyes off her. I crossed the street and stood about 20 yards away.
Then she got up. I had to follow her. That big ass beckoned me. I was hypnotized. She walked into a post office and I walked in behind her. She stood in a long line and I stood behind her. She got 2 postcards. I bought 12 airmail postcards and two dollars worth of stamps.
When I came out she was getting on the bus. I saw the last of that delicious leg and ass get on the bus and the bus carried her away.
The doctor was waiting.
“What happened? You’re 5 minutes late!”
“I don’t know. The clock must have been wrong.”
“THIS THING MUST BE EXACT!”
“Go ahead. Take the blood anyhow.”
He stuck the needle into me…
A couple of days later, the tests said there was nothing wrong with me. I didn’t know if it was the 5 minutes difference or what. But the dizzy spells got worse. I began to clock out after 4 hours work without filling out the proper forms.
I’d walk in around 11 p.m. and there would be Fay. Poor pregnant Fay.
“What happened?”
“I couldn’t take any more,” I’d say, “too sensitive…”
11
The boys on Dorsey station didn’t know my problems.
I’d enter through the back way each night, hide my sweater in a tray and walk in to get my timecard:
