By Ryan Bradford
Been having a lot of violent thoughts these days. Smashing faces, breaking skulls, popping eyeballs. Covered in blood, knee-deep in viscera, screaming victory.
Kind of dig it.
This is what the job does to you.
There are 385 deliveries on Route 42 and six hours of allotted street time to complete them, minus thirty-or-so minutes for lunch if you’re into that sort of thing. Convert that into minutes and it gives about 1.16 minutes per delivery. This doesn’t include driving time. Five and a half hours to make 385 deliveries. I’m going to do it in four. The regs call it running.
Slide the door up in my mail truck and behold! Letters, envelopes, magazines, advertisements. Two trays of flats and three trays of machine-sequenced envelopes. The regs call it DPS, or delivery point system—the order you’re supposed to carry the route. Just follow the mail, they say.
There’s a musty smell in the metal truck, the culmination of paper and cardboard and envelope glue and spit. Try not to think of the love and emotion that went into these notes, just the biological sacrifices.
Twenty-two houses on this swing. I clamp the letters in my hand and tuck a pile of flats in the crook of my arm.
The regs hate it when I run the route. It’s a precarious relationship between the reg and the transitional letter carrier—they love foisting sections of their route on me when they’re running behind, but hate it when I prove I can do it faster than them. They tell me to take my time, all buddy-buddy-like, secreting the same comfort they give to Mrs. So-and-So when she worries about all the new people who keep showing up in her neighborhood.
Slam the truck door. Begin the swing.
Benjamin Franklin was the first postmaster general. Not many people remember this. I’m not sure during which portion of his life he took on the role. Was it after he called upon the sky to electrocute him? Hope so. Only a man with lightning running through his veins would be crazy enough to love this job.
The sun burns the tan of my neck no matter how much sunscreen I put on.
First house: unlatch the gate one-handed, fold a catalog (bulk mail) around two letters (presorted standard). All shit mail, not a first classer in the bunch. Just wastes of paper. Could throw this bundle in the trash and no one would know or care.
Use my knuckles to lift the lid of the mailbox and drop the rolled-up pulp in. Like putting your grandpa to bed. Slam the box closed, the sound makes two dogs inside go nuts. Route 42 is a dog route. Lots of orange cards tucked in between the flats. DOG WARNING CARD, they read. I don’t pay attention to the dog warning cards because I know these dogs, and they respect me. Game sees game. I pause to hold my fist close to the window where the dogs’ mouths are, and their barking fogs the glass. Close my eyes and imagine the heat of their breath gracing my knuckles. If this glass wasn’t here, would they attack? Would they chew me up, snarling, growling, with teeth bared and eyes rolled back? Probably. Wouldn’t be surprised if it was one of God’s four-legged beasts that puts an end to me. In many ways, that seems ideal.
Do the next four houses in two minutes. Traverse the borders that separate people’s lawns — lawnmower lines that convey one neighbor’s industriousness and the other’s laziness. You don’t have to live here to get a sense of the politics of the neighborhood at work. Think of myself as a free agent, unbeholden by whatever HOA rules that keep these people subservient. I’m the unifying force.
Fresh grass clippings stick to my shoes, black sneakers that I bought at a discount shoe warehouse where they call their customers “shoe lovers.” The shoes are not regulation, but because I’m a transitional employee they don’t give me a uniform allowance. If I trip and break something, management will blame my shoes and I’ll lose my job, at which point I’ll walk into the Pacific ocean and never return.
Takes five minutes to do the rest of the swing. Not my fastest, but nothing to sneeze at.
Back in the truck, I unscrew the top to my hydro flask and drink plastic-flavored water. The bottle was clear when I bought it, but now it’s taken on a cloudy translucence.
The Long Life Vehicle roars to life when I turn the key. Most of the LLVs have been around since the Clinton Administration. Imagine: before Jane left me, before I even knew Jane, before everything went bad, before I even knew what LLVs and DPS and 3849s were, these very same vehicles were running.
Put the vehicle in gear, but hold my foot on the break. Briefly look out to the west and see the Pacific Ocean. Between, there are pawn shops, apartment complexes, pho restaurants, skyscrapers, houses, trailer parks and bars. All of them will get mail today. All of them.
***
Juan’s washing his hands in the restroom when I return to the station, lathering his arms up to the elbow. Letter-carrying is a dirty job. It turns you into a dirtbag. You come home at night with your skin sunburnt and your fingertips blackened and your armpits stiff from sweating and the crud of everybody’s homes trailing you.
I stand next to Juan and pull the soap dispenser until my hand’s overflowing with metallic pink.
“What route you do today?” Juan asks.
“Forty-two.”
“That’s good. Peanut route.”
“Elephants all over the place,” I say. Juan smiles at me in the mirror. I don’t know why they call the easy ones peanut routes.
The water’s scalding. Pull it up my arm, mixing it with the soap. Lather until the pink turns white. Feels like a hygienic baptism. Washing my arms like this doesn’t really stop the breakouts, but it helps. Ever since I took the job, I’ve been getting acne in weird places.
Juan finishes his scrub and pulls a wad of paper towels from the dispenser. Often wondered if Juan is the cleanest person I’ve ever known. He’s another transitional employee, and we sometimes use these moments to talk shit on the regs, but today we wash in silence. Juan might be my favorite letter carrier because he’s comfortable in silence.
He throws his massive ball of soggy paper towels away and stops halfway out of the door. “They’re sending me to Pacific Beach tomorrow,” he says. “Lots of hot chicks out there.”
“Aw, lucky,” I say, and then when that sounds too childish, I add, “Fuck yeah.”
“I used to deliver beer out there,” he says. Don’t think Juan is any older than me, but he’s told me about his distribution job before, and I still find it inconceivable that he’s already been successful in a different career in this lifetime. “Those white kids love to drink,” he says. “They love it.”
I make a sound that signifies I know exactly what he’s talking about.
“I’ll probably be back Monday,” he says.
“Su-weet.” I scour my brain for something to add. I almost ask him to give me a text if he’s bored on Sunday. Maybe we can get beers or something. But I say nothing. He probably has kids and likes to spend his day off with them, but what if he hates his kids and he’d actually relish the opportunity? Hate’s a strong word to use in this instance, I conclude, and then I realize that Juan is gone.
***
There are a few letter carriers hanging around the timeclock, waiting for the numbers to hit 1800. These are the few lucky enough to have been approved for overtime. They rub their hands together and talk about overtime like it was God’s personal gift. It’s an honor to work until 1800 for them, and their eyes whir like slot machines, cha-chinging with time-and-a-half pay. I don’t know much about the economy, but it feels like a perversion of the American Dream getting these folks excited to work for two extra hours.
I deliver until 1800 every day. Transitional employees, we are usually the last ones out on the street. If all the mail isn’t delivered by 1800, it’s our asses. Management can let us go with the snap of a finger, kick us back to the gutters from which we crawled out. Yes, we get our time and a half pay, but working six days a week gives you no time to spend it. The majority of my life is spent at the post office.
Sheryl, one of the regs, asks what route I did today. This is a common topic of discussion. That and sports, but I don’t know sports, so people have stopped asking me about it.
“Forty-two,” I say.
“Oh, that’s a nice one. Lot of dogs, though.”
“Yeah.” I don’t tell her that I ran Route 42 to dust. Sheryl’s nice, but her loyalty is with the regs, and if word got around that I was running routes, there would be trouble.
“Have any plans for the weekend?” Sheryl asks. Feel my shoulders involuntarily slump. I wonder if this job has numbed her to the body language of someone who doesn’t want to engage with small talk. I would guess Sheryl’s age is 55, and she can’t weigh more than 100 pounds. She’s a letter-carrying scarecrow who always looks afraid, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t find that vulnerability kind of attractive.
“I have to work tomorrow,” I say.
“I’m taking my dog to the vet tomorrow,” she says, unprompted. She brings out her phone and shows me a blurry picture of a standard-issue brown dog. “He keeps crapping on the carpet.” I laugh at the word crap and then say sorry. “I just want to know if it’s medical or behavioral.”
“Dogs can be assholes,” I say. “Cats, too.”
Sheryl laughs in a way that sounds forced and it makes me uncomfortable. Feel bad for swearing in front of Sheryl. Oh, sweet Sheryl. Even if I did offend her, she’d never say anything. I give her a once over, but not, like, in a sexual way. Years of delivering mail in the San Diego sun has given her a permanent tan. Imagine cowboys in the Wild West sucking on pieces of Sheryl’s salty, dry skin to stave off their thirst. How can her frame support the weight of mail? Pretty sure all letter carriers are supposed to be able to lift 40 pounds, but I’ve never actually read the employee manual. Still, 40 pounds would be one third of her. That Sheryl manages to carry mail at all seems like a triumph of the human mind, body, and spirit.
The hours on the timeclock are divided into hundreds, a metric system of time. At 1790, slide my timecard out from the filthy plastic pouch hanging by a lanyard around my neck. It also holds my ID badge.
Supervisor Greg strolls up and down the cases, inspecting them for any undelivered mail. The regs give him a wide berth when he gets close. Would never tell him this, but I’ve had a lot of nightmares about Greg.
He passes by and I clench everything. It’s the feeling of standing too close to wild buffalo. He’s a mountain of a man, probably ex-Marine. Smooth and bald as a terrible baby, yet carries with him the scent of old-man aftershave even though he’s not yet old enough to smell like an old man. His eyes bulge from the intensity of his life experiences. Avert mine when he gets close. Pretty sure I’m his project, a little smear that he can infuse with old-fashioned values of hard work. Guess it’s worked in a way: if he hadn’t scared me so much in those first few days, perhaps I wouldn’t be as good as I am now.
We make eye-contact for a second and he tells me that I’m going to the Point Loma station tomorrow, and I say okay. I try to gauge the amount of respect that he’s showing me at that moment, and I conclude that it’s a fair amount.
The timeclock hits 1800 and the post office fills with the sound of letter carriers sliding their cards through the slot. We’re released by the rhythm of electrical beeps, and I immediately forget that I have a job. This is the best part of carrying letters. At the end of the day, it’s like I wake from a soft hypnosis. Supervisor Greg loses his power over me; station manager Old-As-Hell Bob loses his power over me. I reacquaint myself with the world where dogs are dogs and mail is junk.
The sun is still out when I step out of the station, but it won’t be for long. When the time changes, we deliver in the dark. I push anxious thoughts about Daylight Savings down, down. There will be enough time to worry about that later.
I hear other letter carriers say goodbye to each other before scrambling to their respective vehicles, and it gives me worker-bee vibes. Detached from the hive, we’re so innocuous. A car peels out close behind me. I turn and it’s Juan in his Bronco. He gives me the finger and then waves. Feels strange to not have a cool-guy hand gesture in response to his middle finger. Someone should really come up with that. Ben Franklin should’ve invented that.
Unlock my new Toyota Corolla by pressing a button on the key. I’ve never had a new car in my life, and this one is as good as they get. She’s a stick shift and it feels like I’m driving a racecar when we’re cruising and yes I’ve started using female pronouns to refer to cars because that’s the kind of person this job has turned me into.
The San Diego highways are clogged on a Friday afternoon. Everyone’s trying to get home or go on a date or get to a show or meet up with friends or find somewhere nice to watch the sun go down, and for a minute I feel like I’m one of them, someone with somewhere to go.
Ryan Bradford is a former USPS letter carrier, writer, and educator living in San Diego. His writing has appeared in San Diego Union Tribune, San Diego Magazine, Little Engines, Vice, Monkeybicycle, New Dead Families, and Hobart. He also writes the newsletter awkwardsd.substack.com. He is the author of the novel Horror Business.