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GONE POSTAL

Driving the Brooklyn route
Benson, King, Shoo Street in
the village
Amidon, Mortensen, the county roads.

In the Fall the yellow maples
at the Jug Prairie Cemetery
gleam and overwhelm,
driving through a mad golden tunnel

In Winter a five am snowfall
leaves the roadsides indistinct
and chill, strangely welcoming
I ski the old mail truck carefully
down Smith Road,
the first one through, before the plows,
steep plunges into narrow valleys
sharp climbs up ridges of driftless
berms, through deep woods, a pine forest,
hunting addresses.

I once drove an aging 80’s postal van
45 mph down a highway
then pulled into a driveway.
Backing out, five miles per hour,
the axle broke
A terrifying noisome clang
I thought I’d backed into something!
The front end slumped like a lame ox,
Every postal worker’s nightmare.

Engine fires. Horns that don’t function
then function but won’t stop
then don’t function
Wipers that don’t wipe
Rendering a sightless smear,
(The window spray mechanism
hasn’t worked since the mid 90’s);
Signals that don’t signal
then signal
then don’t signal.
Back gates frozen shut.
A fizzy little fan the only relief
from a tin box hot summer.
Heater huffing a pitiable breath
in minus five weather.

As I walk up to a door
Plastic sealed spur in hand
I try to guess the contents.
‘WE DELIVER GODDAMNED SOCKS!’
Shouted a flustered annex director one late afternoon
But it could be a ten thousand dollar check
A bottle of nitroglycerine
lady’s underclothes
a child’s bauble.
Once, a table saw.
Come Spring, boy’s bicycles.
Hot Pots at Christmas
Candies in February.
The vast amazonian array.

I called it my Deathmobile,
this tin lizzy four banger
built on a Ford 150 chassis.
You drive sitting on the right side, the more
easily to deliver mail to a mailbox (not allowed
for us Sunday peons; we hand delivered to front doors)

The little wheels sit inches inside of the body,
the turning radius ridiculously small.
This for maneuvering in driveways
but
driving at 50 miles per hour
requires your full attention.

One windy five below zero Winter day
huge snowstorm only a day or two earlier
I’m heading up Hwy 104
into Brooklyn
Running on fumes, headed for the only gas
for miles around.
The bottom of the hill turned to black ice
I hit it maybe a degree skewed
What followed was the ole Countersteering Polka
Little desperate corrections becoming
heart-stopping bigger reactions.

I spin out of control,
watching the world go by
Giving myself up to the hopelessness
of it all.
A sweet 360, then a deep dive off the road into a snowbank
the van flipped on its right side.

Pretty cool, actually. Try to undo the seatbelt.
The opposite door is frozen shut, this I knew.
The interior of my vehicle does not look familiar.
It is a section of a space station
Nothing makes sense. Packages flung everywhere.
The back gate, locked, had tweaked open six inches
as a result of the torquing of the vehicle.
I was able to pry it open and step out.

Instantly six pick up trucks appear out of nowhere.
Guys bored on a Sunday afternoon, its cold and
nothing to do.
Hey, we can pull that baby upright, drag her out!

No, its a government van, and their ardor cools.
A pretty Madison cop on her way into town
gives me a lift to a buddy who lives four miles away.
He gives me a steaming mug of coffee
and listens to my tale.

Pretty much the end of my work day.