IN,LINE,AT,THE,POSTOFFICE I was less bored than everybody else because of my ipod. Then I heard something in between tracks, music that wasn’t coming from the headphones. I hit pause and listened and heard a man’s voice, deep, bellowing gospel from the mailroom, from behind the wall of silver p.o. box rectangles.
I looked around to see if anybody else was hearing this, to see if we would have the little moment strangers can share when something totally weird is going on. Nope. Everybody was bored and pissed off about standing in a line and staring grimly straight ahead, clutching envelopes and packages, pretending nothing was happening except their boring line they all hated so much.
He kept singing, it wasn’t just some guy humming under his breath for a moment, it was a big rich voice booming out some serious old-timey gospel, song after song. Grace and mercy, suffering, the real stuff. It was beautiful music and I scorned for the dull-asses who refused it. Then Ken from Phelp’s Engineering (he was wearing a shirt) met my eyes and smiled and we chatted and we had the moment, which was nice.
By the time it was my turn at the counter, the singing had stopped. The lady was not Mrs. Pitts. I don’t remember her name because she is a bitch. I don’t like talking to her but I wanted to know, so I asked, Was that Keith singing just now? Keith is the only man I know who works there, except for that shrimpy other creepy little guy who I doubt could carry that voice.
She said with disdain that no, that was not Keith, that old mess was the truck driver, not that anybody asked for a serenade.
Okay. So I figured I’d missed him, he would be long gone. Nope. I left with my armful of weird mail (this was the week of sweet anonymous postcards; thank you) and there was the truck driver, a stocky man standing in the street and banging a hammer on the truck ramp. This was Mr. Capers.
I asked him if he had been the singer and he immediately apologized. Sometimes I start up and I don’t even notice. He heads an a cappella group, he said, which does the circuit of local Baptist churches. Every time we go to a new one, we start out sitting in the pews, scattered, just in the middle of everybody else. Then the hymn starts and I stand up and they stand up and we get louder than everybody else and we walk up real slow to the front and then, well then we just kick all they asses.
...Then on the drive home I pulled up next to a bus driver practicing furious karate chops on his steering wheel. w tf??
