Fire Station (1970) Post Office (1971)

1 BY CHARLES BUKOWSKIF lower, Fist and Bestial Wail (1960) poems and Drawings (1962)Longshot Pomes for Broke Players (1962)Run with the Hunted (1962)It Catches My Heart in Its Hands (1963)Crucifix in a Deathhand (1965)Cold Dogs in the Courtyard (1965)Confessions of a Man Insane Enough to Live with Beasts(1965)The Genius of the Crowd (1966) All the Assholes in theWorld and Mine (1966) 2byBukowski (1967) The CurtainsAre Waving (1967) At Terror Street and Agony Way(1968) poems Written Before Jumping Out of an 8 StoryWindow (1968)Notes of a Dirty Old Man (1969)A Bukowski Sampler (1969)The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills (1969)Fire Station (1970) post Office (1971)Mockingbird Wish Me Luck (1972)Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions and General Tales ofOrdinary Madness (1972)Me and Your Sometimes Love poems (1972)While the Music Played (1973)South of No North (1973)Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame (1974)Africa, Paris, Greece (1975)Factotum (1975)Scarlet (1976)Maybe Tomorrow (1977)Love is a Dog from Hell (1977)You Kissed Lilly (1978)We'll Take Them (1978)Women (1978)Play the Piano (1979)copyright 1971by Charles BukowskiEleventh PrintingBlack Sparrow PressP.

2 O. Box 3993 Santa Barbara, CA93105 ISBN 0-87685-086-7 (paper)ISBN 0-87685-087-5 (cloth)Several of these chapters appearedas short stories in Knight, Adamand Nola by p rduc 2002 This is presented as a work of fiction and dedicated to nobodyPOST OFFICEO ffice of Postmaster United States post Office January 1,1970 MemoLos Angeles, California742 CODE OF ETHICSThe attention of all employees is directed to the Code of Ethicsfor postal employees as set forth in Part 742 of the PostalManual, and Conduct of Employees as outlined in Part 744 of thePostal employees have, over the years, established a finetradition of faithful service to the Nation, unsurpassed by othergroups.

3 Each employee should take great pride in this traditionof dedicated service. Each of us must strive to make his contribu-tion worthwhile in the continued movement of the Postal Servicetoward future progress in the public postal personnel must act with unwavering integrity andcomplete devotion to the public interest. Postal personnel areexpected to maintain the highest moral principles, and to upholdthe laws of the United States and the regulations and policiesof the post Office Department. Not only is ethical conduct requir-ed, but officials and employees must be alert to avoid actionswhich would appear to prevent fulfillment of postal duties must be discharged conscientiously and effective-ly.

4 The Postal Service has the unique privilege of having dailycontact with the majority of the citizens of the Nation, and is,in many instances, their most direct contact with the FederalGovernment. Thus, there is an especial opportunity and responsi-bility for each postal employee to act with honor and integrityworthy of the public trust; thereby reflecting credit and distinc-tion on the Postal Service and on the entire Federal employees are requested to review Part 742, Postal Manual,Basic Standards of Ethical Conduct, Personal Behavior of Em-ployees, Restrictions on Political Activity, in ChargeI1It began as a was Christmas season and I learned from the drunk up the hill,who did the trick every Christmas, that they would hire damnednear anybody, and so I went and the next thing I knew I had thisleather sack on my back and was hiking around at my a job, I thought.

5 Soft! They only gave you a block or 2and if you managed to finish, the regular carrier would give youanother block to carry, or maybe you'd go back in and the soupwould give you another, but you just took your time and shovedthose Xmas cards in the think it was my second day as a Christmas temp that this bigwoman came out and walked around with me as I delivered I mean by big was that her ass was big and her tits werebig and that she was big in all the right places. She seemed a bitcrazy but I kept looking at her body and I didn't talked and talked and talked. Then it came out. Herhusband was an officer on an island far away and she got lonely,you know, and lived in this little house in back all by herself.

6 "What little house?" I wrote the address on a piece of paper."I'm lonely too," I said, "I'll come by and we'll talk tonight."I was shacked but the shack job was gone half the time, offsomewhere, and I was lonely all right. I was lonely for that big assstanding beside me."All right," she said, "see you tonight."She was a good one all right, she was a good lay but like alllays after the 3rd or 4th night I began to lose interest and didn't I couldn't help thinking, god, all these mailmen do is drop intheir letters and get laid. This is the job for me, oh yes yes I took the exam, passed it, took the physical, passed it, andthere I was a substitute mail carrier.

7 It began easy. I was sentto West Avon Station and it was just like Christmas except Ididn't get laid. Every day I expected to get laid but I didn't. Butthe soup was easy and I strolled around doing a block here andthere. I didn't even have a uniform, just a cap. I wore my regularclothes. The way my shackjob Betty and I drank there washardly money for I was transferred to Oakford soup was a bullneck named Jonstone. Help was neededthere and I understood why. Jonstone liked to wear dark-redshirts that meant danger and blood. There were 7 subs TomMoto, Nick Pelligrini, Herman Stratford, Rosey Anderson,Bobby Hansen, Harold Wiley and me, Henry Chinaski. Reportingtime was 5 and I was the only drunk there.

8 I always drankuntil past midnight, and there we'd sit, at 5 in the morning,waiting to get on the clock, waiting for some regular to call insick. The regulars usually called in sick when it rained or duringa heatwave or the day after a holiday when the mail load were 40 or 50 different routes, maybe more, each casewas different, you were never able to learn any of them, you hadto get your mail up and ready before 8 for the truck dis-patches, and Jonstone would take no excuses. The subs routedtheir magazines on corners, went without lunch, and died in thestreets. Jonstone would have us start casing the routes 30 min-utes late spinning in his chair in his red shirt "Chinaski takeroute 539!

9 " We'd start a halfhour short but were still expectedto get the mail up and out and be back on time. And once ortwice a week, already beaten, fagged and fucked we had to makethe night pickups, and the schedule on the board was impossible the truck wouldn't go that fast. You had to skip four or fiveboxes on the first run and the next time around they werestacked with mail and you stank, you ran with sweat jamming itinto the sacks. I got laid all right. Jonstone saw to subs themselves made Jonstone possible by obeying hisimpossible orders. I couldn't see how a man of such obviouscruelty could be allowed to have his position. The regulars didn'tcare, the union man was worthless, so I filled out a thirty pagereport on one of my days off, mailed one copy to Jonstone andtook the other down to the Federal Building.

10 The clerk told meto wait. I waited and waited and waited. I waited an hour andthirty minutes, then was taken in to see a little grey-haired manwith eyes like cigarette ash. He didn't even ask me to sit began screaming at me as I entered the door."You're a wise son of a bitch, aren't you?"10"I'd rather you didn't curse me, sir!""Wise son of a bitch, you're one of those sons of bitches with avocabulary and you like to lay it around!"He waved my papers at me. And screamed: "MR. JONSTONEIS A FINE MAN!""Don't be silly. He's an obvious sadist," I said."How long have you been in the post Office ?""3 weeks.""MR. JONSTONE HAS BEEN WITH THE post Office FOR 30 YEARS!