Fay was pregnant. But it didn’t change her and it didn’t change the post office either.

The same clerks did all the work while the miscellaneous crew stood around and argued about sports. They were all big black dudes—built like professional wrestlers. Whenever a new one came into the service he was tossed into the miscellaneous crew.

This kept them from murdering the supervisors. If the miscellaneous crew had a supervisor you never saw him. The crew brought in truckloads of mail that arrived via freight elevator. This was a 5 minute on the hour job. Sometimes they counted the mail, or pretended to. They looked very calm and intellectual, making their counts with long pencils behind one ear. But most of the time they argued the sports scene violently. They were all experts—they read the same sports writers.

“All right, man, what’s your all time outfield?”

“Well, Willie Mays, Ted Williams, Cobb.”

“What? What?”

“That’s right, baby!”

“What about the Babe? Whatta ya gonna do with the Babe?”

“O.K., O.K., who’s your all star outfield?” “All time, not all star!”

“O.K., O.K., you know what I mean, baby, you know what I mean!”

“Well, I’ll take Mays, Ruth and Di Maj!”

“Both you guys are nuts! How about Hank Aaron, Baby? How about Hank?”

At one time, all miscellaneous jobs were put on bid. Bids were filled mostly on a basis of seniority. The miscellaneous crew went about and ripped the bids out of the order books. Then they had nothing to do. Nobody filed a complaint. It was a long dark walk to the parking lot at night.