Post Office. Chapter I: 13
The voices of the people were the same, no matter where you carried the mail you heard the same things over and over again.
“You’re late, aren’t you?” “Where’s the regular carrier?” “Hello, Uncle Sam!”
“Mailman! Mailman! This doesn’t go here!”
The streets were full of insane and dull people. Most of them lived in nice houses and didn’t seem to work, and you wondered how they did it. There was one guy who wouldn’t let you put the mail in his box. He’d stand in the driveway and watch you coming for 2 or 3 blocks and he’d stand there and hold his hand out.
I asked some of the others who had carried the route:
“What’s wrong with that guy who stands there and holds his hand out?”
“What guy who stands there and holds his hand out?” they asked.
They all had the same voice too.
One day when I had the route, the man-who-holds-his-hand-out was a half a block up the street. He was talking to a neighbor, looked back at me more than a block away and knew he had time to walk back and meet me. When he turned his back to me, I began running. I don’t believe I ever delivered mail that fast, all stride and motion, never stopping or pausing, I was going to kill him. I had the letter half in the slot of his box when he turned and saw me.
“OH NO NO NO!” he screamed, “DON’T PUT IT IN THE BOX!”
He ran down the street toward me. All I saw was the blur of his feet. He must have run a hundred yards in 9.2.
I put the letter in his hand. I watched him open it, walk across the porch, open the door and go into his house. What it meant somebody else will have to tell me.
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