SOUVENIR by Nick

  At night, the university post office is deserted for the pool hall,
the twenty-four-hour coffee shop, and the in-town bars.  The rows of
dull-copper boxes, the walls of combination locks and tiny windows, suck in
the light.  The service windows are locked, the televisions bolted into the
ceiling corners are dead.  At night, the post office is like a library.
  I spun the lock on my box and opened the small copper door.  I had
been away for a week--the box was stuffed with announcements and credit-card
offers.  At the center of the post office, on the island of counter space, I
methodically opened and destroyed my junk mail.  There was no personal mail.
I hadn't received a letter from a friend in two months.  I hadn't sent a
personal letter in years.
  Down the counter and across from me, another guy was reading a
letter.  His pile of shredded paper was smaller than mine.  He held the
letter in one hand, and a bright-color envelope in the other.  The envelope
looked hand-colored with swirls, loops, and text.  I said:
  --That's a hell of an envelope.
  The guy looked at me, not smiling, not frowning, and then looked
down at the envelope.  He turned it over and tossed it onto the counter.  He
said:
  --Yeah.  But the letter's bad.
  --Sad.
  --No, I mean bad.  Not good.
  --Right, but I mean it's sad that a beautiful envelope brought you a
bad letter.
  --Jesus.  Okay, thanks, I guess.
  --What's bad about the letter?
  --It's got a bad poem in it.
  He was smiling a little.  I felt like we were reciting a vaudeville
act without expecting laughter.
  --Why's the poem bad?
  --Because it's got my name in it.
  He dropped the letter on top of it's envelope.  He said:
  --You ever date a writer?
  --No.
  --Good.  Don't do it.  It's not worth the end, if the end comes.
  --So I can date one as long as we never break up?
  --Sure.  And if you can tell that you'll never break up, then more
fucking power to ya, buddy.
  --We're just talking here.
  --Yeah, I'm sorry.  I'm always a little irritated these days.
  He shuffled his stack of junk-mail pieces, then tapped the letter
and the pretty envelope.
  --I dated this writer, okay?  And it didn't work out.  It didn't
work out because writers are shitty.  They'll remember everything you say
so they can write it down later, and they'll say whatever it takes to keep
you talking, but they don't fucking listen, they don't pay attention to
what you're actually telling them.  They can't communicate when they talk
to you.  They're writing dialogue, poetry and shit, when they talk.
They're going for the most interesting thing to say, not the right thing
to say.  They want things intense and interesting and hard to interpret so
they can write it down and don't have to make shit up.  They'll say
ridiculous things to you just to get your response, so they can put it in
a goddam poem later.  And then--
  He snatched the letter up from the counter.
  --You get your goddam name in a poem and the last goddam thing you
said to the bitch is in the fucking poem with your name after it and you
never wanted anyone else to know what you said!
  His voice echoed in the aisles of postal boxes.  He slapped the
letter against the counter.  The motion puffed the envelope across the
counter until it fell to the floor.
  --Short stories in magazines that you subscribed to when she got
published.  Drafts she asks you to read, and tells you to keep that copy.
I've got a fucking notebook of her revisions to stories she never bothered
to finish!
  He tore the letter in half.
  --But she can finish a fucking poem with my name in it!
  He tore the pieces in half.
  --She can write how we fucked it up, she can write why we're not
together--
  He tore the pieces into smaller pieces.
  --And she sent it to me so that I could fucking keep it!  I don't
need the poem, I lived it!  I was there, I said it, I know why I said it.
She wants it to be a fucking plot point in a dramatic story.  She wants
everything to reside in something someone said, and she doesn't even know
how to talk without making some allusion or metaphor or fucking cryptic
reference to something I can't even remember saying, from before I even knew
her name.
  He dropped the letter's pieces onto the counter.  The bits twirled
like confetti.  He leaned against the counter, looking down.  He said:
  --I apologize for yelling.
  --It's okay.  I guess you needed to get it out.
  --Thanks.
  He stirred the pile of letter bits with his finger, then looked back
up to me.  He said:
  --You got any tape?

  --30--