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I recall the night of December 23/24, 1983.
At 9:30 PM, reporting to the St Paul Post Office, I was assigned to the White Bear (55110) case, sorting zip-coded letters to specific carriers. We had a ton of mail for Christmas Eve delivery, and were making efficient if inadequate progress, when we broke off for lunch at 1 AM.
I was back at 1:30, flipping letters, when the woman working next to me, Bobbi Sullivan, returned a few minutes late, and in her haste plowed into her letter case, nearly knocking it over - Bobbi was a big girl - and burst into tragic laughter.
"What's wrong, Bobbi?" one of the five of us exclaimed.
"I went out for lunch with the Beast," she replied, unable to stifle her amusement, "and drank a fifth of vodka."
Bobbi sat down for five minutes, threw a few letters, and announced that she wasn't feeling very well. Then she stumbled off.
When I cleared my ledge, I scooped up Bobbi's letters and brought them over, quickly discovering that she'd spat out a wad of chewing gum that had fouled something like fifty envelopes.
"Anybody got nail polish remover?" I screamed. More than 100 other clerks, at least 20 of them women, heard me. I got no response. There were no mechanics on the floor. I took a five minute time-out to go downstairs for a roll of paper towels and a bottle of solvent.
On my way out of the White Bear case I ran into the Beast - Dennis Vogt, all 6 foot and 150 pounds of him - not more than 2/3rd Bobbi's weight, but a confirmed practitioner.
"You sonofabitch," I scolded him. "What the fuck is the matter with you?"
"I beg your pardon."
"Getting Bobbi Sullivan drunk. She's drunk on her ass."
"I didn't get her drunk," the Beast replied, placidly. "However much she drank, that was her choice. Maybe she was just trying to keep up. I myself had a quart."
I was furious beyond speech. I pulled out a cigarette and lit a match, glaring at Dennis before I lit up. He pursed his lips as if offering me a kiss and, gently exhaling on the lit match, caused it to flare.
This story has a dire epilogue. Bobbi Sullivan didn't return to her case that night, but showed up the day after Christmas with two black eyes that wouldn't heal. Toward the end of January she was diagnosed with diabetes. Dennis the Beast worked another year before he suffered a ruptured disk, and in the attempt to drink away the pain, did his spine irreparable damage and before the age of 40 was limping on a cane.
....
I used to buy clothing from a haberdasher a few years younger than me - late 20's, perhaps - named Matt. Bright enough but pedestrian in taste, as am I, he had matriculated to Princeton University a decade earlier, not with the athletic scholarship I would have imagined for him - he appeared to be a big, sturdy guy - but rather with juvenile leukemia in remission, a Triumph roadster as a high school school graduation gift, and a legacy admission. His paternal grandfather was on the Princeton Board of Governors.
Matt frittered away the first term of his freshman year, pursuing town girls in his hot little sports car, experimenting with drugs, and attending classes only as a last resort. After all, having spent the better part of his 16th year in a hospital bed, taking chemo, he had some making up to do. He was informed of his dismissal from Princeton very promptly, when, come December, he failed to submit a term paper or two.
Then came the family Christmas. He had done what little he could to sugarcoat his disgrace. When his Grandfather strode across the living room with a wide smile and offered Matt a hearty handshake, the younger man was deeply moved.
"Well, Matthew," Grandfather proposed, the smile at closer range less benign: "Isn't this a Merry fucking Christmas?"
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