Our 30 minutes was now devoted to scheme training. They gave us each a deck of cards to learn and stick into pur cases. To pass the scheme you had to throw 100 cards in 8 minutes or less with at least 95 per cent accuracy. You were given 3 chances to pass, and if you failed the 3rd time, they let you go. I mean, you were fired.

“Some of you won’t make it,” the Italiano said. “So maybe you were meant for something else. Maybe you will end up President of General Motors.”
Then we were rid of Italiano and we had our nice little scheme instructor who encouraged us.

“You can do it, fellows, it’s not as hard as it looks.”

Each group had its own scheme instructor and they were graded too, upon the percentage of their group that passed. We had the guy with the lowest percentage. He was worried.

“There’s nothing to it, fellows, just put your minds to it.”

Some of the fellows had thin decks. I had the fattest deck of them all.
I just stood there in my fancy new clothes. Stood there with my hands in my pockets.

“Chinaski, what’s the matter?” the instructor asked. “I know you can do it.”

“Yeh. Yeh. I’m thinking right now.”

“What are you thinking about?”

“Nothing.”

And then I walked away.

A week later I was still standing there with my hands in my pockets and a sub walked up to me.

“Sir, I think that I am ready to throw my scheme now.”

“Are you sure?” I asked him.

“I’ve been throwing 97, 98, 99 and a couple of 100's in my practice schemes.”

“You must understand that we spend a great deal of money training you. We want you to have this thing down to the ace!”

“Sir, I truly believe that I am ready!”

“All right,” I reached out and shook his hand, “go to it then, my boy, and the best of luck.”

“Thank you, sir!”

He ran off towards the scheme room, a glass-enclosed fishbowl they put you in to see if you could swim their waters. Poor fish. What a comedown from being a small-town villain. I walked into the practice room, took the rubber band off of the cards and looked at them for the first time.

“Oh, shit!” I said.

A couple of the guys laughed. Then the scheme instructor said, "Your 30 minutes are up. You will now return to the workfloor.”

Which meant back to the 12 hours.

They couldn’t keep enough help to get the mail out, so those who did remain had to do it all. On the schedule board they had us working two weeks straight but then we would get 4 days off. That kept us going. 4 days rest. The last night before our 4 days off, the intercom came on.

“ATTENTION! ALL SUBS IN GROUP 409! ...”

I was in group 409.

“. . . YOUR FOUR OFF DAYS HAVE BEEN CANCELED. YOU ARE SCHEDULED TO REPORT FOR WORK ON THESE 4 DAYS!”