Chapter 4

 

I set my cup down with a feeling of déjà vu, yesterday still fresh on my mind. It was only nine o’clock and I already had the jitters. Yesterday had been a madhouse and today wasn’t going to be any better, what with a postal inspector sitting across from me and doing what amounted to an inquisition of poor Abby. After she had told me about the thefts, I had taken a deep breath and called the postal inspectors first and the Boss second. 

Happy, he wasn’t. “Bronski! What the hell is going on down there?”

“Well, Boss, as you might remember, I just got here a couple of days ago!”

I heard a deep sucking noise on the other end, the cigar was being lit. I grinned. The Boss was going to get himself in trouble someday, smoking inside a postal facility.

I waited until I heard a long exhale and then continued with my tale.

“I imagine, what with all the other personnel problems, the thefts got pushed into the background.”

“Yeah, I should have known things weren’t right down there. The grievances started coming in late last spring. They can be ignored only so long before the crap hits the fan, but I guess you know that.” 

This was a shocker, coming from the Boss. Normally, he tended to ignore or dismiss grievances, preferring to let them be handled by the labor people. But yes, I knew exactly what he was talking about, having had a few come at me a couple of years ago.

“Who were the grievances against?” I asked.

“Oddly enough, it was the supervisor.”

“Really?” I responded. “I would have thought with his drinking problems, it would have been the O.I.C.”

There was another sucking noise, and I waited while the Boss coughed his lungs open.

“Nope.” He gagged. “Except for one or two, they were about the supervisor. I was never able to get to the bottom of it . . . not enough time. At first, I thought the union steward had it in for the supervisor, but the steward won most of them at step three. So they were legit, but some of them were a little nit-picky, if you ask me.”

“So who’s coming down?” he asked.

I gritted my teeth. “John Crouch.” 

The Boss laughed. “Your favorite postal inspector, eh . . . Leo?”

“Yeah, my favorite,” I had answered. And with that I’d rung off. Needless to say, Crouch was not a favorite person of mine. I had had a few run-ins with the s.o.b. Run-ins about rules I thought were in the gray area of postal regulations. 

* * *

“Someday I’m going to get you,” he had bragged. And now, here he sat, slim, trim, gray-headed, white shirt and all, putting the cold eye on a hapless Abby. She had practically melted down into a puddle. When Crouch put that blue-eyed stare on you, you knew you might as well kiss the kids goodbye. I had already learned Abby was a divorced woman with three school-age kids at home. She needed this job. 

This was a situation Crouch enjoyed, having a victim about to pee their pants.

“Tell me again, Abby, exactly how long these thefts have been going on.”

The asshole had only asked her three times. It occurred to me she was due some representation from the union since she was just acting as a supervisor. While John put the cold stare on Abby, I got up and went out the door. I doubted he even noticed my absence. 

I made a beeline for a sorting case where Martha sat, gently shoving letters into their respective slots. 

“Martha,” I said quietly, “I think you’d better come to the office.”

Her green eyes searched my face. “Why?”

I took a deep breath. I was going to catch hell for this.

“Abby is being questioned by a postal inspector.”

Her hand paused in mid-air, her eyes grew wide, and her mouth became a straight line. She uttered only one word. “Hell!”

“Give me a minute to get back in the office, and then knock, okay?”

She nodded. Every Postal Service employee is supposed to be accompanied by a union rep or a co-worker when hauled into the office. Management knows this, of course, but if the employee doesn’t say anything, the manager or whoever, often just forges ahead. John Crouch wouldn’t be happy with me, but I did it for management’s sake as much as for the employee. A lawyer would tear up the statements made by an intimidated employee faced by someone like John Crouch. 

I had barely sat down when a knock sounded at the door. Crouch gave me a look. I shrugged as I walked to the door. There she stood, drawn up to full height, which must have been just under six feet, ready to do battle. 

Martha strode past me, clipboard in hand.

“All right, what the hell is going on here? Abby, not another word, you understand?” 

Abby could only nod and swallow—I suspected her throat had probably turned to sandpaper.

Crouch gave me a dirty look, but I shook my head and put on what I hoped was a surprised, innocent look. He would get no help from me. In a perverse way, I was looking forward to this little encounter.

“I was simply asking a few preliminary questions about a problem here at the post office,” said Crouch.

By now the clipboard was beating a rhythm on Martha’s Levi’s.

“Crouch, you know better than that. Why wasn’t I notified?”

He rose to a standing position. “That’s Mr. Crouch to you!”

I remained seated. This was like a tennis match where your head swivels from side to side trying to keep track of the ball. Abby’s head and mine moved in synch from Martha to Crouch and then back again. 

A smile came to Martha’s face.

“Oh, is it then? John, you know I am equal to you in labor situations like this!”

There was a pause, as the two stood nose to nose. The only sound was the clipboard making an occasional slap on what I imagined to be a classy leg. That image set me to thinking about being a married man and needing to give my Jeanette a call that evening. 

Since there was a break in the battle, I decided to take a hand and stood up.

“Let’s sit down,” I said. “Shouting at one another isn’t going to fix anything.”

For a minute I thought they were going to stand there forever, but finally Crouch sat, followed slowly by Martha, as if she was afraid he was going to pull something weird. When it came to a man like John Crouch, well, you had to be on guard. He had a mean reputation in Alaska.

I kept on with my platitudes, hoping they would stop glaring at one another. Eventually, they settled back in their chairs and their faces relaxed . . . a little.

“Now, about the thefts,” I said.

Abby now looked at me with nothing short of adoration. I felt sorry for her. She was in way over her head in this matter. She had just had the job of temporary supervisor for a week and she probably didn’t really want the job to begin with. I suspected the Boss had appointed her solely because she had more seniority than most of the station’s employees. If only life were that simple when determining who was qualified to be a boss.

“Tell me, Abby,” I asked gently, “how did you happen to notice the articles were missing?”

“I was doing paperwork when some totals didn’t add up. You know, incoming and outgoing.” She was relaxed now; her hands had stopped their wringing.

“Good going,” I said, and gave her a smile. 

Crouch rolled his eyes, while Martha kept hers steely, ready to pounce.

I continued quietly with the questioning. I made it plain that Abby was not responsible and indeed deserved praise for coming forward with the problem. Her face radiated even more adoration, which embarrassed me no end. I ended the session with some thoughts on how we were going to catch the thief, if there truly was one. This left Crouch somewhat unhappy, as he wanted a scapegoat. Now he would have to go back to Anchorage empty-handed. Well, too . . . bad. 

He left immediately, with an admonition to get the situation in hand, or fur would fly, meaning, I suspected, that everyone in the station would get the third degree, overhead lamp and all. I gave him my best cheesy grin as I walked him out the door and told him that, of course, we would give it the highest priority. Which was a lie on my part and he probably knew it. But it would go into his report and his rear would be covered.

As I walked back across the main floor thinking about my next move, Martha sidled up to me with her hand held out. “Well, Mr. Postmaster, you just made points with the Union,” she said with a smile. 

I assured her it was nothing, just doing my job. 

She nodded and released my hand. “Uh huh, you don’t like Crouch either, do you?”

She had me there. I didn’t, but I decided not to say as much. Such things can come back to haunt you, so I hemmed and hawed, much to her amusement. She left me standing there in the middle of the floor watching as she made her way back to her case. I sighed. Her Levi’s were really tight. 

My next action was to ask Abby to turn the place upside down, if necessary, to find a certain Mr. Grosse’s package. She assured me she would, and I headed back to the office thinking I couldn’t wait to get back to Western Alaska and sweet Jeanette.

The rest of the day went fairly well, thank God. We were even able to give Mr. Grosse his package that he so desperately needed. Abby had found it behind a storage locker on the main floor, along with another package that had been missing. How they got there was anybody’s guess. My gut said there was some foul play involved. Why anybody would want Grosse’s part for a motor was beyond me. It was in an old cardboard box that had been mailed many times. It was impossible to tell whether it had been tampered with.

It was a mistake on my part, though, to think that once George Grosse had his part, everything would be peaches and cream. After Abby called him and had the part delivered to his door, he still was not satisfied. He came bursting into my office that afternoon still mad.

“I’m telling yuh, Mr. Postmaster, or whatever you are, this kind of crap keeps on, there’s gonna be an investigation, cause I’m calling the senator, and you know what that means!” 

I kept a straight face, but yeah, I knew that particular senator would have a member of his staff give me a call. The senator was a very senior member of the U.S. Senate. He had been around so long he probably had shaken every hand in the state, and the Postal Service was one of his charges that he watched closely. 

“Of course that’s your privilege,” I said civilly. I was determined not to throw any embers on the fire. Let him have his rant.

“Damn right it is,” he said, giving me the hard eye. 

I waited. Finally, seeing I wasn’t going to start a war, he grumbled about the newspapers and left. I wiped beads of sweat from my forehead. Why in hell had I taken this job? Well, no use crying, I was here now. I went back to doing paperwork, which meant punching on the computer.

* * *

Come evening, I went back to the motel and called Jeanette. I needed someone to lay my problems on. In our marriage we had learned, maybe unconsciously, to let the person with the most problems speak first. This night I won, if you want to call it that— hands down. So I proceeded to tell her of the day’s events, how Martha, the polished union steward, handled John Crouch, whom Jeanette knew, to Mr. George Grosse and his tirade when we returned his lost package. 

“I’m not sure what I’m doing here, Jeanette. The village is so peaceful and quiet. I need a place that doesn’t add to my soul’s baggage,” I said.

I could almost see her nodding.

“Oh, yes, you are. You remember what Father Markoff said, don’t you? How this is to be a test, to check on how you’re doing as a human. You were getting lazy here. Maybe God wants you to grow and . . . ” She paused here, as if afraid to go on. 

I jumped into her thoughts. 

“You mean, to cure myself?” 

Her answer came; so quiet I could barely hear her.

“Yes.”

“Then, I probably have a ways to go,” I said, wanting a little pity.

“Um . . . perhaps. But whether you go sideways or up, you will grow, Leo Bronski.”

I wasn’t so sure about that, but I loved her for her faith in me. My heart swelled.

“You know what, babe? Right now I’d love to get you on your naked tummy and rub baby oil all over your back.”

There was a moment’s pause. “Oh, Leo . . . ” Another pause and a deep breath. “You are a rascal, but I love you. You remember that. Please be careful. Watch out for . . . for human nature.”

She didn’t have to say anything more. I knew what she was talking about. And that was parties, booze, and women. Married man or not, I was prone to look at the opposite sex in ways I should not. Out in the small Western Alaskan town of Howes Bluff, I had gotten away from all that, substituting instead the village, church, and family activities. Now, I was away from the encircling love and tradition. And so, with heartfelt emotion, I said, “I will, Jeanette, I will.” 

After a few more endearments, we hung up leaving me thinking about the reality of life and how we have to cope with it, no matter what our personal afflictions might be. Here I was on the far side of fifty and I still had to fight my personal wars. Wars that I didn’t need. Wars that should have been solved a long time ago. But maybe that showed how gullible and naive I really was.

After dinner in the motel restaurant, I went to bed maybe a little proud of myself for staying away from a pre-dinner drink. My gut told me I was crowing a little too soon. Then the dreams came of Vietnam and what I did and didn’t do over there. Why couldn’t they go away and leave me in peace? “Jeanette,” I whispered to the dark, pretending she was there, “I need you here.”