Post Office Read Online Free PDF Page B

shook in spasms. He wouldn’t stop.
    I ran down the steps, past all the carriers, and up to The Stone’s desk.
    “Hey, hey, Stone! Jesus Christ, Stone!”
    “What is it?” he asked.
    “G.G. has flipped out! Nobody cares! He’s upstairs crying! He needs help!”
    “Who’s manning his route?”
    “Who gives a damn? I tell you, he’s
sick!
He needs help!”
    “I gotta get somebody to man his route!” The Stone got up from his desk, circled around looking at his carriers as if there might be an extra one somewhere.
    Then he hustled back to his desk.
    “Look, Stone, somebody’s got to take that man home. Tell me where he lives and I’ll drive him home myself—off the clock. Then I’ll carry your damned route.”
    The Stone looked up:
    “Who’s manning your case?”
    “Oh, God damn the case!”
    “GO MAN YOUR CASE!”
    Then he was talking to another supervisor on the phone: “Hello, Eddie? Listen, I need a man out here …”
    There’d be no candy for the kids that day. I walked back. All the other carriers were gone. I began sticking in the circulars. Over on G.G.’s case was his tie-up of unstuck circs. I was behind schedule again. Without a dispatch. When I came in late that afternoon, The Stone wrote me up.
    I never saw G.G. again. Nobody knew what happened to him. Nor did anybody ever mention him again. The “good guy.” The dedicated man. Knifed across the throat over a handful of circs from a local market—with its special: a free box of a brand name laundry soap, with the coupon, and any purchase over $3.

17
    After three years I made “regular.” That meant holiday pay (subs didn’t get paid for holidays) and a 40-hour week with two days off. The Stone was also forced to assign me as relief man to five different routes. That’s all I had to carry—five different routes. In time, I would learn the cases well plus the shortcuts and traps on each route. Each day would be easier. I could begin to cultivate that comfortable look.
    Somehow, I was not too happy. I was not a man to deliberately seek pain, the job was still difficult enough, but somehow it lacked the old glamour of my sub days—the not-knowing-what-the-hell was going to happen next.
    A few of the regulars came around and shook my hand.
    “Congratulations,” they said.
    “Yeh,” I said.
    Congratulations for what? I hadn’t done anything. Now I was a member of the club. I was one of the boys. I could be there for years, eventually bid for my own route. Get Xmas presents from my people. And when I phoned in sick, they would say to some poor bastard sub, “Where’s the
regular
man today? You’re late. The regular man is never late.”
    So there I was. Then a bulletin came out that no caps or equipment were to be placed on top of the carrier’s case. Most of the boys put their caps up there. It didn’t hurt anything and saved a trip to the locker room. Now after three years of putting my cap up there I was ordered not to do so.
    Well, I was still coming in hungover and I didn’t have things like caps on my mind. So my cap was up there, the day after the order came out.
    The Stone came running with his write-up. It said that it was against rules and regulations to have any equipment on top of the case. I put the write-up in my pocket and went on sticking letters. The Stone sat swiveled in his chair, watching me. All the other carriers had put their caps in their lockers. Except me and one other—one Marty. And The Stone had gone up to Marty and said, “Now, Marty, you read the order. Your cap isn’t supposed to be on top of the case.”
    “Oh, I’m sorry, sir. Habit, you know. Sorry.” Marty took his cap off the case and ran upstairs to his locker with it.
    The next morning I forgot again. The Stone came with his write-up.
    It said that it was against rules and regulations to have any equipment on top of the case.
    I put the write-up in my pocket and went on sticking letters.
       The next morning, as I walked in, I