The rainy season began. Most of the money went for drink so my shoes had holes in the soles and my raincoat was torn and old. In any steady downpour I got quite wet, and I mean wet-down to soaked and soggy shorts and stockings. The regular carriers called in sick, they called in sick from stations all over the city, so there was work everyday at Oakford Station, at all the stations. Even the subs were calling in sick. I didn’t call in sick because I was too tired to think properly. This particular morning I was sent to Wently Station. It was one of those 5 day storms where the rain comes down in one continuous wall of water and the whole city gives up, everything gives up, the sewers can’t swallow the water fast enough, the water comes up over the curbings, and in some sections, up on the lawn and into the houses.

I was sent off to Wently Station.

“They said they need a good man,” the Stone called after me as I stepped out into a sheet of water.

The door closed. If the old car started, and it did, I was off to Wently. But it didn’t matter—if the car didn’t run, they threw you on a bus. My feet were already wet.
The Wently soup stood me in front of this case. It was already stuffed and I began stuffing more mail in with the help of another sub. I’d never seen such a case! It was a rotten joke of some sort. I counted 12 tie-outs on the case. That case must have covered half the city. I had yet to learn that the route was all steep hills. Whoever had conceived it was a madman.

We got it up and out and just as I was about to leave the soup walked over and said, “I can’t give you any help on this.”

“That’s all right,” I said.

All right, hell. It wasn’t until later that I found out he was Jonstone’s best buddy.
The route started at the station. The first of twelve swings, I stepped into a sheet of water and worked my way downhill. It was the poor part of town—small houses and courts with mail-boxes full of spiders, mailboxes hanging by one nail, old women inside rolling cigarettes and chewing tobacco and humming to their canaries and watching you, an idiot lost in the rain.

When your shorts get wet they slip down, down down they slip, down around the cheeks of your ass, a wet rim of a thing held up by the crotch of your pants. The rain ran the ink on some of the letters; a cigarette wouldn’t stay lit. You had to keep reaching into the pouch for magazines. It was the first swing and I was already tired. My shoes were caked with mud and felt like boots. Every now and then I’d hit a slippery spot and almost go down.

A door opened and an old woman asked the question heard a hundred times a day:

“Where’s the regular man, today?”

“Lady, PLEASE, how would I know? How in the hell would I know? I’m here and he’s someplace else!”

“Oh, you are a gooney fellow!”

“A gooney fellow?”

“Yes.”

I laughed and put a fat water-soaked letter in her hand, then went on to the next. Maybe uphill will be better, I thought.

Another Old Nelly, meaning to be nice, asked me, “Wouldn’t you like to come in and have a cup of tea and dry off?”

“Lady, don’t you realize we don’t even have time to pull up our shorts?”

“Pull up your shorts?”

“YES, PULL UP OUR SHORTS!” I screamed at her and walked off into the wall of water.

I finished the first swing. It took about an hour. Eleven more swings, that’s eleven more hours. Impossible, I thought. They must have hung the roughest one on me first.

Uphill was worse because you had to pull your own weight.

Noon came and went. Without lunch. I was on the 4th or 5th swing. Even on a dry day the route would have been impossible. This way it was so impossible you couldn’t even think about it.

Finally I was so wet I thought I was drowning. I found a front porch that only leaked a little and stood there and managed to light a cigarette. I had about 3 quiet puffs when I heard a little old lady’s voice behind me:

“Mailman! Mailman!” “Yes, mam?” I asked.

“YOUR MAIL IS GETTING WET!”

I looked down at my pouch and sure enough, I had left the leather flap open. A drop or two had fallen in from a hole in the porch roof.

I walked off. That does it, I thought, only an idiot would go through what I am going through. I am going to find a telephone and tell them to come get their mail and jam their job. Jonstone wins.

The moment I decided to quit, I felt much better. Through the rain I saw a building at the bottom of the hill that looked like it might have a telephone in it. I was halfway up the hill. When I got down I saw it was a small cafe. There was a heater going. Well, shit, I thought, I might as well get dry. I took off my rain– coat and my cap, threw the mailpouch on the floor and ordered a cup of coffee.

It was very black coffee. Remade from old coffeegrounds. The worst coffee I had ever tasted, but it was hot. I drank 3 cups and sat there an hour, until I was completely dry. Then I looked out: it had stopped raining! I went out and walked up the hill and
began delivering mail again. I took my time and finished the route. On the 12th swing I was walking in twilight. By the time I returned to the station it was night.

The carrier’s entrance was locked.

I beat on the tin door.

A little warm clerk appeared and opened the door.

“What the hell took you so long?” he screamed at me.

I walked over to the case and threw down the wet pouch full of go-backs, miscased mail and pickup mail. Then I took off my key and flipped it against the case. You were supposed to sign in and out for your key. I didn’t bother. He was standing there.

I looked at him.

“Kid, if you say one more word to me, if you so much as sneeze, so help me God, I am going to kill you!”

The kid didn’t say anything. I punched out.

The next morning I kept waiting for Jonstone to turn and say something. He acted as if nothing had happened. The rain stopped and all the regulars were no longer sick. The Stone sent 3 subs home without pay, one of them me. I almost loved him then.
I went on in and got up against Betty’s warm ass.