Beware of Cat (3 page)

Most post offices have one-way mirrors. These aren’t for spying on customers. Around the perimeter of the workroom is a hidden walkway, or crawlspace. Every ten or twelve feet, a one-way piece of glass is situated to give the observer, often a postal inspector, an unobstructed view of letter carriers working at their cases. To my knowledge, these spy ports are seldom used, although I have no way of knowing that. They’re intended for a time when a station receives complaints regarding stolen mail, or pilfered letters like birthday cards, that may contain cash. An inspector can watch a suspected carrier casing mail to see if anything goes into a pocket.

I’ve heard of letter carriers getting fired for stealing, and these one-way mirrors probably play a role in proving guilt. But I’ve never worked with a letter carrier who exhibited anything less than complete respect for the mail. Besides, our jobs, benefits, and pensions are too important to risk. That’s why a dollar bill lying on the workroom floor will still be there days later. No one wants to be seen putting cash in his or her pocket. You never know who may be watching.

The number of college-educated letter carriers I work with is amazing. Steve has a degree in English literature, while Tim was an economics major and earned a master’s degree in philosophy. Jeff taught elementary school his first year out of college. After realizing that teaching wasn’t the career for him, he followed his father into the letter-carrying profession.

“I had no intention of staying here for thirty years,” Jeff confided one morning as we cased mail, our easy rhythm of throwing letters providing Jeff a platform for storytelling. “I’d grown up listening to my dad’s horror stories about the job. He grumbled all the time about working Saturdays, and he hated getting up so early. Hell, I hate it, too,” he added with a self-mocking shake of the head. “My dad came home every night stiff and sore from trudging through the snow. I should have known better. Besides, I really didn’t want to work with my dad, or hang around with his old work buddies. I was still young, I had a college education, and I thought I should be doing more.”

I waited for him to continue, and when he didn’t, I had to prod him. “But here you are. What made you decide to stay?”

“I don’t think I ever consciously made that decision,” Jeff said. “It was meant to be a temporary stopover, a way to make an income until I figured out what I wanted to do. There were college loans to pay. I needed a job.”

That made sense. I know many carriers who started out planning to stay only a couple of years. Before long, they got enough seniority to bid on their own route and developed a comfortable routine. Life itself has a way of making some of these decisions for us. There’s marriage, and children. Soon you can’t afford to try something different, or you simply lose your nerve.

“I had a good friend back in those days,” he continued. “We’d been roommates in college. We talked about my dilemma for hours on end. He helped me realize that I wasn’t really wasting my college education. A good education is never wasted, because it becomes a part of who you are. But even more important, I came to understand that blue-collar work could be as satisfying as any job. It’s what you bring to it, and the effort you put out, that’s important.”

Before I could comment, Jeff added, “It’s like my friend explained to me one time; if you’re going to be a mailman, then be the best damn mailman you can be.”

After thinking about that for a minute, I asked, “Where’s your friend now? He seems like a pretty wise fellow—what does he think of your thirty-year career?”

“He passed away several years ago,” Jeff replied. “It was really hard. You know how it is; he was young, it was unexpected, and he left behind a wife and son.”

“I’m really sorry,” I said.

“Well, I kept in touch with his family, you know, in case I could do something for them. He’d been such an important friend to me. In a way, I hoped that maybe I could honor his friendship by helping his family.”

“And how did that go?” I asked.

A wry grin appeared on Jeff’s face. Then he chuckled. “I watched his son grow up. Like I said, I dropped in on them from time to time. We’d play some catch in the yard, or just sit around talking. About the time he entered high school, I noticed that he began losing direction in his life, and I thought, ‘Okay, this is where I can do something to repay my friend’s kindness.’”

I picked up another tub of flats, but Jeff’s story had tweaked my interest. Replacing the bucket, I stepped over to his case, and asked, “So what did you do? Play one of those big-brother roles? Were you able to help him?”

He set a bundle of letters aside and looked at me. “You have to remember, I was trained as a teacher. You’d think I would know something about motivating a kid.” He shook his head, laughing at the memory. “I had nothing. God, it was frustrating. It nagged at me constantly.” He thrust his arms out. “Here was my chance to repay my old friend, and I had absolutely nothing. It seemed that whenever I spent time with the kid, he slid further away.”

“I’m sure you did everything you could,” I said.

Jeff hung his head. “He took up playing the guitar. Eventually, he dropped out of school. Don’t get me wrong, he was a good kid. We had some great discussions. He just didn’t have any direction. At least, not any direction that I could relate to.”

“He probably just wasn’t ready to hear you,” I suggested. After a moment, I asked, “Whatever happened to him?”

Jeff picked up the stack of letters. He threw an embarrassed grin over his shoulder before turning away to resume casing.
“I guess it all worked out in the end,” he said. “No thanks to me. The kid started a little rock-and-roll band called Soul Asylum. Ever heard of them?”

Cowboy

There are dozens of wonderful dogs living on my route. Some of them bark like demons at everyone else but whimper and whine impatiently as I approach their yards. Lady, a big black lab, sits at the window each day waiting for my truck to pull up at the corner. Then she runs to get her owner to let her out so she can greet me at the gate. There’s an old, gray-faced beagle that bays with delight when he sees me, and a miniature collie that dances in circles with excitement. On any given day, I probably meet and talk to more dogs than people.

I’ve heard all the jokes about the antagonistic relationship between letter carriers and dogs. In fact, I know two or three that would eat me if they got the chance. But by rattling a gate, or watching closely before entering their yard, I have avoided serious conflicts. Staying alert helps—a person down the block jingling car keys, sounding like the collar and tags of an attacking dog, will set off a surge of adrenaline.

At one house, a painted black-and-white sheet-metal placard is nailed to the wall next to the
“NO SOLICITORS
” sign. Silhouetted in profile is a doberman pincher, and the words, “I can get to the gate in 1.3 seconds. Can you?”

Even the bad dogs, once they get used to seeing me every day, usually mellow out. The fact that I carry dog biscuits doesn’t hurt, either. I dole out biscuits like protection money, a small fee to ensure safe passage.

For example, I’ve known a certain pit bull since he was a puppy. The first time I saw him chained next to the house, I decided I had better make friends before he grew up. After two years we’re good pals, and he waits quietly every day for me to come around with his biscuit. One day his owner was in the yard, and I asked, “If your dog ever got loose, do you think he’d bite me?”

“Man, don’t ever go near him,” he replied with a sneer. “That dog even scares me most days.”

“Oh, yeah? Watch this,” I said, walking over to the dog straining at the end of his logging chain.

The owner protested, “Don’t do that, man!”

I knelt beside the dog, and he shoved his big square head against my chest. I wrapped an arm around him and patted his thick shoulder. It was a silly thing to do, but the stunned look on the owner’s face made it worthwhile.

When I got up, the man persisted, “You’re lucky he didn’t take your arm off. Nobody pets that dog!”

“Well, maybe you should,” I replied. “I’ve been doing it for two years now. He likes it.”

There was another dog on my route, a rottweiler, that really scared me. He was tied with a flimsy rope that stretched to within a few feet of the mailbox on the porch. I had talked to the owners about that, and they promised to shorten the rope, but it never happened. This dog had me completely intimidated. He was massive, and every day he let me know how much he hated me. He had a deep-throated, growling bark and a nasty habit of snarling and gnashing his teeth while lunging at me. My dog biscuit offerings were ignored; this maniac wanted fresh meat.

I watched the rope deteriorating in the elements, and I knew that it was only a matter of time before something bad happened. But as much as I dreaded delivering mail to their house, it was the attitude of the young men who lived there that really angered me. I got madder by the day. When one of the owners stood in the doorway, watching the dog bark and lunge at me, the sound of snapping teeth finally pushed me over the edge. I yelled, “If that dog ever gets loose and attacks me, I’ll kill him.”

The young man stepped outside, affecting a look of surprise. I threw his mail on the steps and said, “When that rope snaps and it comes down to him or me, believe me, buddy, I won’t lose.”

He snickered and opened the door to call to his roommate. “Hey, the mailman is going to kill our dog.”

I was infuriated. The only thing I could do was get away from there. The problem resolved itself in a few weeks, however, when the police raided the house for drugs. I never saw the owners, or the dog, again.

BUT COWBOY WAS DIFFERENT.
He was a big, mixed-breed dog with the dull yellow color of a lab and the longer, feathered fur of a retriever. In contrast with his lackluster yellow fur, he wore a bright red bandana tied around his collar. Cowboy didn’t have a mean bone in his body. One of his best friends was a neighbor’s old orange tabby cat that liked to snuggle up with him in the sun for a nap.

The house where Cowboy lived was set well back from the street. His owner was a handyman carpenter who had built a beautiful cedar fence around the yard to keep Cowboy at home. It probably wasn’t necessary, however, as the few times I saw him out of the yard, Cowboy just sat near the gate watching the world go by. When he spotted me, he accompanied me around the block.

His doghouse was out back by the alley. When he heard me come through the gate, he tore around the corner of the house and across the front yard to greet me. If he didn’t happen to hear me, I gave a short whistle just to watch him come running. I always took a minute to sit on the steps and scratch his ears.

Cowboy was one of those rare dogs whose expressions showed on his face. His mouth always seemed to turn up in a smile when I arrived; but then, I only saw him for these few brief moments each day, so maybe that was just the shape of his mouth. He used his whole body to wag his tail when greeting me.

Cowboy’s living situation was unusual. His owners were divorced. The woman lived in the house, but I seldom saw her. The handyman husband kept an apartment nearby, but I talked to him at the house all the time. He mowed the lawn and did all the upkeep around the place. And, of course, he built that beautiful fence. I commented one time on their living arrangements. His reply was simple and straightforward.

“I still love her,” he said. “I guess we can’t live together, but I want her in my life. Besides, there’s Cowboy to think about. My apartment doesn’t allow dogs, so I come over every day to visit him.”

Whenever we stood around talking, Cowboy would lie in the grass nearby watching us. He looked like he thought it was just the greatest thing in the world to be hanging around with his two best buddies.

Then, one hot summer day, they met me at the gate. “My wife passed away last night in her sleep,” the handyman said, choking on the words.

I was stunned. “I didn’t even know she was sick,” I stammered. But it explained why he was always working around the house, and why I rarely saw her.

They held the funeral service the next Saturday at a neighborhood church. Family and friends from all over the country attended. By noon, the street in front of Cowboy’s house was lined with cars. The yard was full of well-dressed people, and friends of the family had two long tables of food set up along the fence.

The handyman met me at the gate when I came by on my rounds. I had never seen him in a suit before, but even the finest clothes couldn’t hide his sorrow. I offered my condolences. We searched for things to say, commenting on the large turnout of people and how the weather was perfect for an outdoor gathering.

He said, “Her mail is being forwarded out west to her sister’s house.”

“Yeah, I know.” I had processed the change of address forms that morning.

“They’re going to sell the house.”

“What about Cowboy?” I asked.

“He’s going out west, too. I’m driving him out to Montana myself.”

We stood for a moment in awkward silence while I searched for words of comfort. The voices of the guests became a soft drone in the background. He must have thought I was still worrying about Cowboy, because he said, “He’ll be living out in the country, and he’ll have lots of room to run. I’ll stay with him for a while to make sure he’s okay.”

I nodded. Looking around the yard, I saw women in black dresses and high heels, men in sport coats and western boots, but no dog. “Where is Cowboy?” I asked.

“I think he finally figured out what happened,” he said. “He’s taking it pretty hard. Maybe he’s worried about what will happen now.” Looking around the yard, he added, “I suppose he’s sulking out back in his doghouse.”

I stalled for a few moments, scanning the crowd for a colorful bandana. It seemed unlikely that Cowboy was fretting over his future, but I found myself worrying for him. It didn’t seem right to just walk away. Finally, on a whim, I asked, “Do you mind if I go in and say good-bye to him?”

“That would be wonderful,” he said, smiling and opening the gate for me. “I’m sure he’d like that.”

I began the long walk across the front yard to the house. Guests turned to look at me, eyeing my uniform and satchel full of mail. Near the steps a woman in a long black dress approached. The family resemblance was obvious.

“If you have anything for my sister, I can take it,” she said. “I’m having her mail forwarded to me.”

“I know. I already sent it on.” Looking toward the side of the house, I added, “Actually, I was hoping to see Cowboy. We’ve been good friends, and I wanted to say good-bye.”

She looked around. “I haven’t seen him lately. Maybe he’s inside.”

“He might be out back,” I said, giving my short whistle. From the reactions of people standing near the side of the house, I knew I was right. Faces turned to watch as the big dog tore around the house, clumps of sod flying when he made the turn. He almost knocked me down.

We took up our customary seats on the front steps. I had never seen him so animated, and I laughed when he licked my chin. He snuggled so close he almost climbed inside my satchel.

“I know, I know, Cowboy. I’m going to miss you, too.” When I scratched his ears, it seemed as if the corners of his mouth turned up again. Sitting tight against him, I could feel the big dog calming down. He leaned over and licked my face again, and I had to wipe my chin on my sleeve.

Someone muttered, “Look, the mailman is saying good-bye to Cowboy.”

“You’re going to have a real nice place to live,” I told him. “I bet there will be lots of places to run and explore.” I assured him that everything would be okay.

We sat together for several minutes until I became aware of the surrounding silence. When I looked up, the whole yard full of people was watching us.

Standing up, I leaned over to give him one last pat on the head. “You be a good dog, Cowboy. Everything’s going to be just fine.”

He made no attempt to follow when I walked away. Guests shuffled aside as I crossed the yard. Even the food servers stopped what they were doing to look at the big yellow dog. Many eyes were moist, and I saw a large man wearing a Stetson hat pull out his handkerchief.

At the gate, the handyman shook my hand. “Thanks,” he said.

We turned to look at Cowboy still perched on the steps. The sister was petting him, and a few of the other guests began fussing over him, too. Cowboy enjoyed the attention, his tongue lolling out of his mouth in time to his panting.

Setting off on my route again, I knew I was going to miss him. But I was glad I had said good-bye, if for no other reason than to see the smile return to Cowboy’s face.