Oh Jesus Christ, I thought, and not a spider within 5 miles!
As I stood there, the 10,000 flies began to come back down out of the sky, settling down in the grass, along the fence, the ground, in my hair, on my arms, everywhere. One of the bolder ones bit me.
I cursed, ran out and bought the biggest fly sprayer you ever saw. I fought them for hours, raging we were, the flies and I, and hours later, coughing and sick from breathing the fly killer, I looked around and there were as many flies as ever. I think for each one I killed they got down in the grass and bred two. I gave it up.
The bedroom had this room-break encircling the bed. There were pots and the pots had geraniums in them. When I went to bed with Joyce the first time and we worked out, I noticed the boards begin to wave and shake.
Then plop.
“Oh oh!” I said.
“What’s the matter now?” asked Joyce. “Don’t stop! Don’t stop!”
“Baby, a pot of geraniums just fell on my ass.”
“Don’t stop! Go ahead!”
“All right, all right!”
I stoked up again, was going fairly well, then—
“Oh, shit!”
“What is it? What is it?”
“Another pot of geraniums, baby, hit me in the small of the back, rolled down my back to my ass, then dropped off.”
“God
“Oh, all right…” All through the workout these pots kept falling down on me.
It was like trying to screw during an aerial attack. I finally made it. Later I said, “Look, baby, we’ve got to do something about those geraniums.”
“No, you leave them there!”
“Why, baby, why?”
“It adds to it.”
“It adds to it?”
“Yes.”
She just giggled. But the pots stayed up there. Most of the time.
7
Then I started coming home unhappy.
“What’s the matter, Hank?”
I had to get drunk every night.
“It’s the manager, Freddy. He has started whistling this song. He’s whistling it when I come in in the morning and he never stops, and he’s whistling it when I go home at night. It’s been going on for two weeks!”
“What’s the name of the song?”
“Well, get another job.”
“I will.”
“But keep working there until you find another job. We’ve got to prove to them that…”
“All right. All right!”
8
I met an old drunk on the street one afternoon. I used to know him from the days with Betty when we made the rounds of the bars. He told me that he was now a postal clerk and that there was nothing to the job.
It was one of the biggest fattest lies of the century. I’ve been looking for that guy for years but I’m afraid somebody else has gotten to him first.
So there I was taking the civil service exam again. Only this time I marked the paper “clerk” instead of “carrier.” By the time I got the notice to report for the swearing-in ceremonies, Freddy had stopped whistling
“O.K., Hank.”
Little did I know how long that lunch would be.
9
There was a gang of us down there. 150 or 200. There were tedious papers to fill out. Then we all stood up and faced the flag. The guy who swore us in was the same guy who had sworn me in before.
After swearing us in, the guy told us: “All right now, you’ve got a good job. Keep your nose clean and you’ve got the security the rest of your life.”
Security? You could get security in jail. 3 squares and no rent to pay, no utilities, no income tax, no child support. No license plate fees. No traffic tickets. No drunk driving raps. No losses at the race track. Free medical attention. Comradeship with those with similar interests. Church. Roundeye. Free burial.
Nearly 12 years later, out of these 150 or 200, there would only be 2 of us left. Just like some guys can’t taxi or pimp or hustle dope, most guys, and gals too, can’t be postal clerks. And I don’t blame them. As the years went by, I saw them continue to march in in their squads of 150 or 200 and two, three, or four remain out of each group—just enough to replace those who were retiring.
10
The guide took us all over the building. There were so many of us that they had to break us up into groups. We used the elevator in shifts. We were shown the employee’s cafeteria, the basement, all those dull things.
God o mighty, I thought, I wish he’d hurry up. My lunch is over two hours late now. Then the guide handed us all timecards. He showed us the timeclocks.
“Now here is how you punch in.”
He showed us how. Then he said, “Now, you punch in.”
Twelve and one half hours later we punched out. That was one hell of a swearing-in ceremony.
11
After nine or ten hours people began getting sleepy and falling into their cases, catching themselves just in time. We were working the zoned mail. If a letter read zone 28 you stuck it to hole no. 28. It was simple.
One big black guy leaped up and began swinging his arms to keep awake. He staggered about the floor.
“God damn! I can’t
