Post Office

much. Then I’d drink the rest of the beer, sitting up in bed, staring at the walls. With the last can I’d be asleep. And when I awakened, there was just time to toilet, bathe, eat, arid drive back on in.

And you didn’t adjust, you simply got more and more tired. I always picked up my 6 pack on the way in, and one morning I was really done. I climbed the stairway (there was no elevator) and put the key in. The door swung open. Somebody had changed all the furniture around, put in a new rug. No, the furniture was new too.

There was a woman on the couch. She looked all right. Young. Good legs. A blonde.

“Hello,” I said, “care for a beer?”

“Hi!” she said. “All right, I’ll have one.”

“I like the way this place is fixed up,” I told her.

“I did it myself.”

“But why?”

“I just felt like it,” she said.

We each drank at the beer.

“You’re all right,” I said. I put my beercan down and gave her a kiss. I put my hand on one of her knees. It was a nice knee. Then I had another swallow of beer. “Yes,” I said, “I really like the way this place looks. It’s really going to lift my spirits.”

“That’s nice. My husband likes it too.”

“Now why would your husband… What? Your husband? Look, what’s this apartment number?”

“309.”

“309? Great Christ! I’m on the wrong floor! I live in 409. My key opened your door.”

“Sit down, sweety,” she said.

“No, no…”

I picked up the 4 remaining beers.

“Why rush right off?” she asked.

“Some men are crazy,” I said, moving toward the door.

“What do wou mean?”

“I mean, some men are in love with their wives.”

She laughed. “Don’t forget where I’m at.”

I closed the door and walked up one more flight. Then I opened my door. There was nobody in there. The furniture was old and ripped, the rug almost colorless. Empty beercans on the floor. I was in the right place.

I took off my clothes, climbed into bed alone and cracked another beer.

7

While working Dorsey station I heard some of the old timers needling Big Daddy Greystone about how he’d had to buy a tape recorder in order to learn his schemes. Big Daddy had read the scheme sheet breaks onto the tape and listened to it as it played back. Big Daddy was called Big Daddy for obvious reasons. He’d put 3 women in the hospital with that thing. Now he’d found some roundeye. A fag named Carter. He’d even ripped Carter up. Carter had gone to a hospital in Boston. The joke was that Carter had to go all the way to Boston because there wasn’t enough string on the West Coast to sew him up after Big Daddy finished with him. True or not, I decided to try the tape recorder. My worries were over. I could leave it on while I was sleeping. I had read somewhere that you could learn with your subconscious while sleeping. That seemed the easiest way out. I bought a machine and some tape.

I read the scheme sheet onto the tape, got into bed with my beer and listened:

“NOW, HIGGINS BREAKS 42 HUNTER, 67 MARKLEY, 71 HUDSON, 84 EVERGLADES! AND NOW, LISTEN, LISTEN, CHINASKI, PITTSFIELD BREAKS 21 ASHGROVE, 33 SIMMONS, 46 NEEDLES! LISTEN, CHINASKI, LISTEN, WESTHAVEN BREAKS 11 EVERGREEN, 24 MARKHAM, 55 WOODTREE! CHINASKI, ATTENTION, CHINASKI! PARCHBLEAK BREAKS…”

It didn’t work. My voice put me to sleep. I couldn’t get past the 3rd beer.

After a while I didn’t play the recorder or study the scheme sheet. I just drank my 6 tall cans of beer and went to sleep. I couldn’t understand it. I even thought about going to see a psychiatrist. I envisioned the thing in my mind:

“Yes, my boy?”

“Well, it’s like this.”

“Go ahead. You need the couch?”

“No, thanks. I’d fall asleep.”

“Go ahead, please.”

“Well, I need my job.”

“That’s rational.”

“But I have to study and pass 3 more schemes in order to keep it.”

“Schemes? What are these ‘schemes’?”

“That’s when people don’t put down zone numbers. Somebody has to stick that letter. So we have to study these scheme sheets after working 12 hours a night.”

“And?”

“I can’t pick the sheet up. If I do, it falls from my hand.”

“You can’t study these schemes?”

“No. And I have to throw 100 cards in a glass cage in 8 minutes to at least an accuracy of 95 percent or I’m out. And I need the job.”

“Why can’t you study these schemes?”

“That’s why I’m here. To ask you. I must be crazy. But there are all these streets and they all break in different ways. Here look.” And I would hand him the 6 page scheme, stapled together at the top, small print on both sides.

He would flip through the pages.

“And you are supposed to memorize all this?”

“Yes, Doctor.”

“Well, my boy,” handing the sheets back, “you’re not crazy for not wanting to study this. I’d be more apt to say that you were crazy if you wanted to study this. That’ll be $25.”

So I analyzed myself and kept the money.

But something had to be done.

Then I had it. It was about 9:10 a.m. I phoned the Federal Building, Personnel Department, “Miss Graves. I’d like to speak to Miss Graves, please.”

“Hello?” There she was. The bitch. I fondled myself as I spoke to her. “Miss Graves. This is Chinaski. I filed an answer to your charge that I had a bad record. I don’t know if you remember me?”

“We remember you, Mr. Chinaski.”

“Has any decision been rendered?”

“Not yet. We’ll let you know.”

“All right, then. But I have a problem.”

“Yes, Mr. Chinaski?”

“I am now studying the CP1.” I paused.

“Yes?” she asked.

“I find it very difficult, I find it almost impossible to study this scheme, to put in all that extra time when it might be of no avail. I mean, I may be removed from the postal service at any moment. It is not fair to ask me to study the scheme under these conditions.”

“All right, Mr. Chinaski. I’ll phone the scheme room and instruct them to take you off the scheme until we have reached a decision.”

“Thank you, Miss Graves.”

“Good day,” she said, and hung up.