Post Office

En 1969 Charles Bukowski aceptó la oferta del editor John Martin de Black Sparrow Press y dejó su trabajo en el correo para dedicarse a escribir a tiempo completo. Tenía 49 años. Menos de un mes después había finalizado su primera novela, Post Office.

A continuación algunos párrafos de Post Office. Como siempre hay que leer, medir el contenido y recién decidir si es bueno o malo. Personalmente estos párrafos no me gustaron. Sí es interesante el uso del idioma, que Bukowski transfiere a la escritura de forma simple, con toda su ordinaria boca sucia, todos los insultos.

En vocabulario encontramos shackjob.

 

Párrafos

… It began as a mistake.

But I couldn't help thinking, god, all these mailmen do is drop in letters and get laid. This is the job for me, oh yes yes yes.

I didn't even have a uniform, just a cap. I wore my regular clothes. The way my shackjob Betty and I drank there was hardly money for clothes.

"MR. JONSTONE IS A FINE MAN!"

"Don't be silly, he's an obvious sadist," I said.

"How long have you been in the Post Office?"

"Three weeks."

"MR. JONSTONE HAS BEEN WITH THE POST OFFICE FOR 30 YEARS!"

"What does that have to do with it?"

"I said, MR. JONSTONE IS A FINE MAN!"

I believe the poor fellow actually wanted to kill me.

..."All right," I said, "Jonstone is a fine man. Forget the whole... thing." Then I walked out and took the next day off. Without pay, of course.

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 A ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. ... I found out later that mail for the church was delivered to the parish house around the corner. But now, or course, I knew where to... shower when I'm down and out.

It was the poor part of town—small houses and courts with mailboxes full of spiders, mailboxes hanging by one nail, old women inside rolling cigarettes and chewing tobacco and humming to their canaries and watching you, an idiot lost in the rain.

"Any damn fool can beg up some kind of job; it takes a wise man to make it without working."

"They wouldn't fire me. Even the salesmen liked me. They were robbing the boss out the back door but I didn't say anything. That was their little game. It didn't interest me. I wasn't much of a petty thief. I wanted the whole world or nothing."

"Wouldn't you like to come in and have a cup of tea and dry off?"

"Lady, don't you realize that we don't even have time to pull up our shorts?"

"Pull up your shorts?"

"YES, PULL UP OUR SHORTS!" I screamed at her and walked off into the wall of water. “WHAT'S WRONG WITH ASSHOLES, BABY? YOU'VE GOT AN ASSHOLE, I'VE GOT AN ASSHOLE! YOU GO TO THE STORE AND BUY A PORTERHOUSE STEAK, THAT HAD AN ASSHOLE! ASSHOLES COVER THE EARTH! IN A WAY TREES HAVE ASSHOLES BUT YOU CAN'T FIND THEM, THEY JUST DROP THEIR LEAVES. YOUR ASSHOLE, MY ASSHOLE, THE WORLD IS FULL OF BILLIONS OF ASSHOLES. THE PRESIDENT HAS AN ASSHOLE, THE CARWASH BOY HAS AN ASSHOLE, THE JUDGE AND THE MURDERER HAVE ASSHOLES. . . EVEN THE PURPLE STICKINPIN HAS AN ASSHOLE!”

“Look, you're small-town. I've had over 50 jobs, maybe a hundred. I've never stayed anywhere long. What I am trying to say is, there is a certain game played in offices all over America. The people are bored, they don't know what to do, so they play the office-romance game. Most of the time it means nothing but the passing of time. Sometimes they do manage to work off a screw or two on the side. But even then, it is just an offhand pasttime, like bowling or t.v. or a New Year's Eve party. You've got to understand that it doesn't mean anything and then you won't get hurt. Do you understand what I mean?"

"Fay had a spot of blood on the left side of her mouth and I took a wet cloth and wiped it off. Women were meant to suffer; no wonder they asked for constant declarations of love.”… (Quotations from Post Office, Charles Bukowski.)

Mail carrier

Para saber

En Los Ángeles, California, Henry Chinaski deja su trabajo por un tiempo y vive de lo que gana en las carreras. Chinaski viaja de un lado a otro, sobreviviendo al alcohol y a las mujeres, con su ácido sentido del humor.

La novela es un relato auto-biográfico de los años de Bukowski trabajando como cartero en el servicio postal norteamericano. La novela es dedicada a… “nadie”.

El gran amor de Bukowski, Jane Cooney Baker ("Betty" en Post Office), era una alcohólica viuda, 11 años mayor con una inmensa barriga cervecera.

 

Vocabulario

Shackjob: concubina, mujer sexualmente activa.

A mistress, concubine, prostitute, whore.

 

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Recursos

Post Office, plot

Charles Bukowski Uncensored

 

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