Postal

Herbie Joyner hated his job. Sure, it took his uncle over a month of negotiation with the regional director, and transferring to the Hayvenhurst branch to open up a spot for him, but Herbie hated his job nonetheless. He wouldn’t call himself “ungrateful” about the whole thing, though. People would, especially the people who’d been queuing up to recommend a sister or a cousin or some good friend for the rare job opening that Herbie somehow snoozed his way into, only to immediately regard it with disdain.

“What you want me to say? It sucks here. Every day it’s the same crap customers in the same crap moods running their same crap complaints up the crappy corporate ladder and still nonstop lugging the same crap packages to ship out to their distant crap relatives while they cry crap tears about the high as crap prices for postage! Jesus, Jacqueline, I’m just sick of this crap and my stupid uncle swears he did me this major solid scoring me this crap gig! Well, Uncle Ray can stick it up his crap hole! When’s lunch? I’m starving…”

Jacqueline shook her head and waited for the steam to clear, then waited a beat longer and smacked Herbie across the shoulder with a dense wad of stuffed long envelopes. “Boy, if you don’t shut up with all that ‘crap’ talk, sounding like a sixth-grader whining about leaving the store without a new toy instead of a grown man cashing a steady paycheck, with benefits, sitting your fat tail on that cushy seat all day where the air conditioner hits you just right, knowing it’s 100 degrees outside. Shoot, even the mail truck backs up to the loading dock so you ain’t even gotta barely get out of your seat but three times a day, and two of them is to piss! Pass me that bin and sort your routes in silence for once. Matter fact, you know it’s a drought, why don’t you take that mess outside and cry me a river to water my lawn? It’s dry as hell with the water conservation back on now. I oughta slap your uncle Ray for switching spots to set me here with your emotionally stunted self every damn day. Why don’t you just quit then, you don’t like taking this government pay? I know I got to know at least two or three people who could happily fill your plush ergonomic seat the day you punch out for the last time. I swear… Crybaby.” She couldn’t help but laugh at his tantrums.

Herbie stared blankly and slumped further down into his chair, shuffling through a bin recently inundated with a new dump off of parcels marked OVERNIGHT while pouting. “Wouldn’t be any problem if it wasn’t for these Saturday hours on top of the crap week I’ve been having anyway,” he muttered under his breath to no one in particular. Sorting his bin by zip code and continuing his grumbling background score of sighs and frustrated groans, he noticed a small box neatly wrapped in plain brown paper and tied off with twine knotted together on top into a small bow.

There, in large uniform letters hand scripted in Sharpie appeared his own name “HERBIE JOYNER” and the words “OPEN ME” squarely written across one side. His first thought was that this was a prank; a setup to make him look foolish. He glanced around the sorting room and cast a sideways glance toward Jacqueline who was busily humming a soft and sweet tune to herself as she binned various items for the distribution hub’s forward shipment area down the hallway. Stephen Thompson and Maribel Esparza were in their respective corners logging shipment directives into the database wearing headphones seemingly oblivious to the din that constantly permeated the facility in which they toiled. Shifting his chair's wheels to the right side of his sorting table out of sight behind his bin, Herbie set the brown paper-clad box down and spun it slowly inspecting its dimensions and curiously tracing the letters of his own name penned in an unknown hand.

“Joyner!” The shout from Mr. Breckinridge over his shoulder startled him and he lit up out of his chair with a small yip. “Those bins ain’t gonna sort themselves now, what do you think you’re doing, taking a catnap?!”

Herbie shuffled nervously side to side as he spoke in unnecessarily rushed tones. “Um, no, sir. I was just, uh, I gotta use the toilet, so I was just getting ready to go do that and I thought maybe I’d just take my lunch while I was at it since it’s probably gonna be… um, you know, I might be a while, so if it’s okay, I’ll just do that on my break.”

Mr. Breckinridge shook his head, “You sure are a strange sort, Joyner. And how your uncle got your butt in that seat, I’ll never know. Go ahead, back in a half, don’t mosey about, and then get to the bottom of them bins. Day’s halfway gone and looks like you’re behind. Jacqueline’s almost done!”

“But she got here before me, sir,” Herbie said timidly in his own defense.

“Don’t matter, son. I’m sure she’d be ahead anyway even if your shifts was switched,” barked Mr. Breckinridge in reply. “Just go. Jeez.”

Herbie turned and opened the desk drawer where his backpack was stored and placed it on the table next to the twine-bowed box. Casually scanning the room, he unzipped his Jansport and took out his lunch bag, then stuffed the brown box quickly in its place. “Later Jackie,” he said as he shuffled past her to the back room toward the toilets with uncharacteristic hurry.

“When you gotta go…” Jacqueline sighed, shaking her head as Herbie skipped through the rear doorway. “Strange kid…”

Herbie locked himself in a bathroom stall and hung his Jansport on the door’s hook. Unzipping his bag, he lifted the brown paper box out and sat down on the toilet. Pulling the little loose end of the twine bow, he began to open the parcel mysteriously addressed to him with eager anticipation and curiosity. He couldn’t recall being more invigorated on a lunch break. Stuffing the twine back into his Jansport, he pulled up on the underside of the wrapping where a single strip of tape easily gave way and proceeded to remove the plain brown paper covering… “Huh,” he mused. “Albertson’s grocery bag.” He chuckled. Balling up the wrapping and also stuffing it into his bag, he held a light brown cubic foot of thin cardboard with a lid the depth of its entire dimensions. Herbie took a deep breath and then took off the deep lid and gaped down at a test tube with a rubber stopper centered in a block of foam with a printed note taped beneath it.

“US OR THEM” was all it said. All caps.

Herbie caught his breath and realized he’d stopped breathing a while ago. Now he was beginning to pant. “What the hell… What the… What?” Herbie stood up and set the box down on the edge of the toilet. Lifting the vial carefully from its foam cushioning, he held it to the light and shook it lightly, rattling its white powdery contents loosely.

While a million thoughts ran through his mind, the biggest question he kept repeating wasn’t “what” anymore but rather “who?” “I’ve got to call Uncle Ray and tell him about this, ask him what I should do. Who sent it?”

He fished his phone from his pants pocket and called Uncle Ray. The line rang a few times before Uncle Ray picked up.

“Herbie?” Uncle Ray answered.

Herbie sighed in relief. “Hey, Uncle Ray, yeah, it’s me. I don’t know if this is gonna make any sense or not, but I’m at work and I just found—”

“Did you open it yet?” Uncle Ray cut him short, interrupting not only Herbie’s words, but his whole paradigm.

Herbie took the phone away from his ear and looked at the screen. “Wait, Uncle Ray, how do you know—”

“Listen, I’ll explain later,” Uncle Ray said emphatically. “Right now, I just need you to listen. This is what’s going to happen, and I need you to understand that I didn’t have any choice, but it’s important that you follow these instructions to the letter. Now take a breath. Are you someplace private?”

“I’m in the toilet,” Herbie said apprehensively.

Uncle Ray laughed. “Perfect! Oh, my boy, that’s almost too good. You might want to take down your pants and cop a squat because if not you might soil them drawers. Now pay attention…”

Herbie gulped and thought to himself, “Man, this job sucks so hard… And I freakin’ hate being in this stupid crap family. You gotta be kiddin’ me with this crap! Every freakin’ time! Ugh…”

“You there, Herbie?” Uncle Ray asked.

Herbie sighed resignedly. “Yes. What do I have to do this time, Uncle Ray?”