'Sure,' Paul said. 'It's a good rule.'
'Yeah.' She shrugged. 'Well, some people get pretty mean about it, but I don't make the rules, you know?'
'I know, you did the right thing.'
'But since you're her son, no problem.'
Paul nodded encouragingly.
'We should tell him we've got the mail,' I said to Paul.
He nodded. I looked at the clerk.
'You wouldn't know who he was, would you?'
'Gee, I have no idea,' she said. 'Sort of a short guy, lot of hair, combed up in front, like Elvis. Only he's real dark, like a dago or a Frenchman.'
I looked at Paul. 'Sounds like Uncle Nick,' I said.
'Yeah, Nicky's really excitable.'
'Well, I don't care if he's your uncle or not. He was mean as hell. He had some ID, he should have shown it to me.'
'He's not really my uncle,' Paul said. 'Just an old friend of my mother's.
We call him Uncle Nick.'
'Well, he's a mean one,' the clerk said.
There were four or five people forming in line behind us at the single window. One of them said something about 'social hour' to his line mate.
The clerk ignored them.
'We don't get paid enough to take abuse, you know what I'm saying.'
'I hear you,' Paul said with a straight face.
Behind us the line was shuffling and clearing its various throats. Paul glanced at his watch.
'Wow,' he said. 'It's late. I didn't realize. We better stop wasting this lady's time.'
'Hey,' the clerk said. 'No problem. We're here every day, serving the public. You're not wasting my time.'
Someone in the line said something about 'my time.'
'Well, thanks,' Paul said. 'I really appreciate it. We better just grab the mail and get rolling.' He looked at his watch again and shook his head,
Where does the time go? The clerk nodded understandingly and strolled slowly back of the partition and was gone maybe two minutes and returned with a bundle of mail held together by large rubber bands. She handed it to
Paul. He smiled. I smiled. The clerk smiled. The rest of the line shuffled a little more and shifted its feet. We took the mail and left.
Pearl was sitting in the driver's seat, as she always was when left alone.
She insinuated herself into the backseat the minute she saw us coming, and was in perfect position to lap me behind the ear when I got in the car.
'Brilliant,' I said to Paul. 'Brilliantly charming, and no hint of eagerness. Masterful.'
'I am, after all, a performer,' Paul said. 'I assume the guy that came asking was that short one we saw in Revere, the one with the huge fat pal, the ones with Vinnie Morris.'
'I assume,' I said. 'Means Vinnie is getting nowhere too.'
Paul had the mail in his lap. He handed it to me.
'I don't feel right reading her mail,' he said. 'What if there's letters there with stuff in them I don't want to see?'
'Love letters?'
'Yeah, explicit stuff. You know? `I'm still thinking about when I bleeped your bleep.' You want to read stuff like that about your mother?'
'Remember,' I said, 'I never had one.'
'Yes, I forget that sometimes.'
We were quiet for a while.
'Mothers are never only mothers,' I said.
'I know,' Paul said. 'Christ, do I know. I've had ten years of psychotherapy. I know shit like that better than I want to. I still don't want to read about my mother boinking some jerk.'
I nodded.
'I don't know why I should worry about reading it,' Paul said. 'She's probably been doing it since puberty.'
