69 pages • 2 hours read
Post Office
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Important Quotes
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of substance use and suicidal ideation and/or self-harm and features cursing.
“It began as a mistake. It was Christmas season and I learned from the drunk up the hill, who did the trick every Christmas, that they would hire damned near anybody, and so I went and the next thing I knew I had this leather sack on my back and was hiking around at my leisure. What a job, I thought. Soft!”
(Part 1, Chapter 1, Page 13)
No stranger to working odd jobs, Hank takes a job at the post office almost accidentally, demonstrating both his desperation for money and his proclivity for always taking the easy way out while fighting an uphill battle the whole way. Looking back after a dozen years of soul-crushing work for the Postal Service, Hank’s narration takes on a sarcastic tone toward these early decisions that he made too lightly.
“I looked around and there was a German Shepherd, fully-grown, with his nose halfway up my ass. With one snap of his jaws he could rip off my balls. I decided that those people were not going to get their mail that day, and maybe never get any mail again. Man, I mean he worked his nose in there. SNUFF! SNUFF! SNUFF!”
(Part 1, Chapter 7, Page 19)
Not only is this passage emblematic of Bukowski’s hyperbolic and darkly comedic style, but it exemplifies the dangers and absurdities of Hank’s daily life as a substitute mailman. The situation with the German Shepherd is grotesque, but it shows the real dangers that Hank faces on the job, playing into the stereotypical rivalry between dogs and postal workers.
“I picked up the bottle of wine, had a good drag, left the letters on the robes, and walked back to the showers and toilets. I turned off the lights and took a shit in the dark and smoked a cigarette. I thought about taking a shower but I could see the headlines: MAILMAN CAUGHT DRINKING THE BLOOD OF GOD AND TAKING A SHOWER, NAKED IN ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH.”
(Part 1, Chapter 9, Page 22)
Absurd misadventures, roadblocks, and frustrations mark Hank’s daily life as a postal worker, leading Jonstone and other authority figures to repeatedly reprimand him. The episode in which Hank wanders around an empty church shows that he’s at least somewhat fearful of the consequences of his actions.
