I was eleven, stoned out of my mind, crouched in the bushes at the edge of the local park with a few friends. We huddled close, passing a joint like it was some sacred secret, our laughter barely more than whispers. We thought we were invisible in the bushes, right up against the fence that surrounded the park, convinced we’d found the perfect hideout.
Then came the footsteps. Slow, deliberate, growing louder on the concrete path just beyond the fence. My heart began to pound, a heavy, irregular beat that filled my ears. I pushed aside a branch, just enough to peek through the leaves and there he was—a mailman in full uniform.
In my paranoid, 11-year-old mind, a postman held as much power to ruin my life as a cop. My blood ran cold. I was sure we were caught, that our little adventure was over, and that I’d be spending my life in jail.
We froze in the bushes, trying to disappear. But to my shock, the mailman stopped, looked around, and then unzipped his pants. Without a second thought, he pissed into the bushes above us, completely unaware we were just a few feet away, holding our breath.
This memory washed over me as I walked down 23rd Street toward the post office. All these years later, the feeling hadn’t changed—how close I was to disaster.
A UPS truck idled halfway up Dolores Street, obstructing one lane as cars whipped by in the other, barely slowing. The driver, in his brown uniform, slammed the rear gate shut with a sharp grunt, the sound ricocheting off the pavement. He moved with the precision of someone who had done this a thousand times before, his boots striking the ground with a steady rhythm. As he climbed into the cab, the truck shuddered, and the engine growled to life.
I tightened my grip on the envelope addressed to Texas, feeling it crumple slightly under my fingers as I crossed the street and stepped onto the curb. My gaze lingered on the scratched windows of the Wash and Dry laundromat. It looked as grimy as ever, the brown change dispenser still anchored in the corner like an artifact from a forgotten era. A tall vending machine stood near the back, offering coffee for a dollar, its presence as neglected as the rest—a relic from another time.
As I walked, I couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched. Security cameras perched on every house, their unblinking lenses tracking my every step. It was like living in a glass cage—each movement recorded, each breath archived on some homeowner’s hard drive, destined to be forgotten in a digital graveyard. What did they do with all that footage? Did they sit in front of screens, sifting through the dull rhythms of their neighbors’ lives? Or did it just gather virtual dust, a voyeur’s hoard of empty moments, capturing everything and nothing?
A litter further on, a sunburnt man huddled on the sidewalk, slumped against the brick wall of a school. He had carved out a small patch of concrete, surrounded by a mess of tattered blankets, dirty clothes, and cardboard boxes. It was a dark, sad heap—a monument to everything he’d managed to cling to in a world determined to take it all away.
“He won’t last long there,” I thought.
The city had no tolerance for people like him. It was a cruel irony—illegal to be homeless in a city full of empty apartments and luxury condos. Sooner or later, the cops would show up, summoned by the nearest homeowner, their faces stern, their eyes cold, ready to sweep him away like trash. The homeowner might throw in a few sympathetic words, maybe a feigned look of regret, but it was all for show—they were the ones paying the police to do their dirty work.
Then the DPW would descend—a convoy of roaring street cleaners, pickup trucks, and garbage trucks with their metal jaws. No questions asked, no warnings given. He’d stand there, helpless, as they scooped up his few possessions and dumped them into the mouth of the garbage truck.
The machine would shudder, and in seconds, the compactor’s jaws would crush everything he owned, grinding his life into debris bound for the landfill. All that would remain would be a damp, greasy patch on the pavement, the final trace of his futile attempt to carve out a space in a city that had no room for him.
I reached Guerrero Street and stood beside St. James Catholic Church, waiting for the traffic light to change. A white FedEx truck idled just south of the intersection, its yellow hazard lights blinking in a slow, deliberate rhythm—like a heartbeat trying to keep time in a city that had lost its pulse.
A driverless car glided by, its cameras spinning like vultures perched on the roof, silently watching, recording everything with cold, mechanical detachment. It swerved around the FedEx truck with precision, its movements as lifeless as the data it collected.
I crossed the street toward the corner store, where a flickering neon “Wine/Liquor” sign buzzed softly, offering the promise of a small escape from the day’s troubles. How could St. James compete?
Something caught my eye—a postal truck barreling up the street, fast.
The truck rumbled closer, its window rolled down. I recognized the familiar, battered shape—a dented, scratched, dimpled tin box on wheels. The broad side of the truck bore the faded red and blue stripes, the stylized eagle standing out against the grime. Below it, the slogan read, “We Deliver For You.”
“I’ll just hand the letter to him when he’s stuck at the light,” I thought.
I’d done it before—called out, walked up, asked the postman to take the envelope, waited for the nod, handed it over, and then jumped back onto the sidewalk before the light changed. I knew the drill, and that’s exactly what I planned to do. Too much could go wrong at a mailbox; it was safer to put the envelope directly into a postman’s hands, especially for an envelope like this.
I readied myself, poised to flag him down, my eyes darting between the truck and the traffic light at the intersection. But the light stayed stubbornly green, as if defying the natural order of things. The truck barreled up 23rd Street, moving faster than seemed possible.
“The light never stays green this long,” I thought, my pulse quickening. “It should’ve changed by now.” I stood stranded on the curb, letter in hand, as if caught in some slow-motion film where time stretched to an unbearable length.
I caught a glimpse of the driver—a thin, elderly Chinese man in a blue postman’s uniform, hunched over the steering wheel with grim determination. His foot pressed hard on the gas as the light flicked to yellow. The truck pushed forward, cutting through the intersection with a force that seemed impossible for such a scrawny, beaten-up relic—more suited to a circus than a city street. But somehow, he had gunned the light and made it.
“They never rush anywhere,” I thought, incredulous. “They crawl like snails on wheels.”
But not this time. This one was a NASCAR racer of a postman. For a fleeting second, I considered chasing after him, but it was hopeless. I watched the truck bounce up 23rd Street, heading toward—and then past—my apartment. It disappeared over the hill as quickly as it had appeared, leaving me with nothing but the crumpled envelope in my hand.
I collected myself and continued along Guerrero. The sidewalk was narrow, squeezed by a line of trees whose roots had buckled the concrete. Bike racks and loose boards from stoops crowded the path even more, with a solid row of parked cars along the curb.
I passed the back of “U-Save Plumbing and Hardware.” The rear service gate was open, and a stack of copper pipes caught the sunlight, gleaming like treasure. Nearby, at the Social Security office, a line of people stretched out the front door, down the marble steps, and along the trash-strewn sidewalk. Their faces, etched with anger and worry, stared ahead, enduring the heat and the wait.
Farther ahead, a familiar blue mailbox caught my eye. Out of habit, I checked the label—next pick-up, 9:30 a.m., Monday through Saturday. I’d missed the deadline. The next pick-up wasn’t for another 22 hours. Twenty-two hours—too much time for anything to go wrong. I tightened my grip on the envelope. It was safer to hand it off to a postman. I’d seen too many mailboxes like this one turn into trash cans, metal toilets, or worse—set on fire by the end of a day like this.
I kept moving and reached Capp Street—the hooker street. A sea of cop cars clogged the narrow intersection, their flashing lights cutting sharp shadows across the worn-out houses and graffiti-tagged walls. Reds and blues bled into everything, while yellow police tape flapped in the breeze.
The Post Office was just ahead, but the tape blocked the way. As I neared the barrier, I caught fragments of conversation, low murmurs from cops huddled in small groups, their words tangled with the static-laden squelch of radios. The usual street noise—the hum of traffic, distant shouts, the occasional blast of music—had faded, smothered by the relentless buzz of police chatter.
An ambulance idled nearby, its back doors open, ready to swallow the latest casualty. I couldn’t tell if it was a homicide—another life extinguished in the name of law and order, the latest headline of a police killing. I didn’t need the details to know this was the same old story—one that had played out too many times on these streets.
I stopped, the envelope suddenly heavy in my hand. A cop stood just beyond the police tape. He had that cold blooded look—cops get it after too many years on the job—blank, hollowed out, a deadening, like a shark.
“Excuse me,” I called out, “Is the post office still open? Could you drop this off with a clerk for me? I’ll wait.”
He looked at me, his eyes hidden behind mirrored sunglasses that caught the light, reflecting my own distorted image back at me. For a moment, he stood still, like he was memorizing my face. Then, without a word, he turned and walked away, leaving me there, the envelope still in my hand.
I retraced my steps along Guerrero, then cut up 23rd, heading to the next closest post office, the one on 24th Street above the row of tired coffee shops. I’d drop the envelope off there, maybe with some weary-eyed clerk, and finally let it fend for itself in the San Francisco Sorting Facility, battling its way to Texas.
Just a little ways up, a lineup of delivery trucks had taken over the street. A UPS truck was in front, its emergency lights blinking in slow, deliberate pulses, followed by an Amazon van and a FedEx truck, all wedged into the narrow lane, forcing westbound traffic to a standstill. I glanced back toward Ames Street, where another UPS truck sat idling, driver nowhere in sight.
As I crossed Fair Oaks, something caught my eye. At the far end of the block, down on 22nd Street, I saw it—a white van with blue and red stripes, and that big, angular blue eagle on the side. A postal truck, just a block away.
I made a sharp turn onto the street, picking up my pace, breaking into a jog as I passed the other side of the school and a row of apartments.
“Why’s that van even parked there?” I wondered, but I quickly brushed it off.
“Who cares?” I thought. Maybe—just maybe—this was my chance to finally place my envelope in safe hands.
I thought I saw the van move. “Please, no,” I thought, “Don’t let him drive away now.”
I held my breath, straining to catch any sign of movement. No growl of an engine, no lurch of the van pulling away. Just my heart pounding in my chest and the sound of my shoes slapping against the concrete as I jogged closer. There was still a chance.
When I reached 22nd Street, I crossed over and hurried straight to the van, circling around to the passenger side window, bracing myself to see the postman behind the wheel, ready to leave.
But the seats were empty.
My eyes darted around, taking in the scene. The van was parked beneath a sprawling tree, its branches casting a patchwork of shadows across the pavement. Across the street, a laundromat buzzed with the low hum of dryers. No relay mailbox in sight, no sign of the postman. Just a fire hydrant that the van was blocking, and the faint, rhythmic clicks of the engine cooling down.
“Maybe he’s just making a quick delivery,” I thought, still catching my breath. “He’ll be back any second.”
I hesitated, trying to steady myself. My eyes stayed on the van, but the present slipped away for a moment. I thought about the effort it took to prepare this envelope—the deadline that loomed, the flicker of hope that kept me going, the hours that slipped away like sand. I held the envelope tight, feeling the paper crease under my grip. A sudden urge to burn it flared up—a brief, wild thought, tempting me to watch it curl into ash, to let the smoke carry away everything it meant.
For a second, that was all there was—the impulse to strike a match, to erase the weight of this envelope, this task. It wasn’t just paper in my hand; it was a weight, a symbol of the grip that had kept me in line, kept me obedient. The urge to destroy it was a way out, a fleeting chance to break free from the hold it had on me.
The rustling of leaves overhead pulled me out of my thoughts and back to reality. A man with a chihuahua strolled by, the dog lifting its leg to mark a spot across the street. The faint chemical scent of dryer sheets drifted from the laundromat, mixing with the warm, dusty smell of asphalt.
My eyes returned to the van, tracing the outline of the angular blue eagle, the bold promise, “We Deliver for You.” I read it again, and again, until my gaze dropped to the thick, black tires. How hard would it be to slash them? I’d never actually done it, but the thought had crossed my mind more than once. I’d heard it was easy—a quick jab to the sidewall, lean into the blade, and let the air hiss out. The real trick was avoiding the cameras.
“Where is the postman?” I muttered under my breath.
As I studied the tire, weighing the thought, a big white FedEx truck rumbled up 22nd and turned onto Fair Oaks, right where I’d just been. Its blinkers flashed as it slowed to a stop. I heard the muffled sounds of the driver shifting things around in the back. Moments later, he emerged, package in hand, and hurried up the steps of a nearby apartment.
No sooner had the first FedEx driver disappeared up the steps than another FedEx truck lumbered up 22nd, aiming for the same left onto Fair Oaks. But this one wasn’t as fortunate—it stalled behind the first, caught in the snarl.
Then, inevitably, a driverless car glided into the scene. Its roof bristled with cameras that swiveled like the eyes of an insect, cold and calculating. The car’s silent, smooth motion was a stark contrast to the noisy tangle of trucks. It hesitated as it approached the intersection, the flicker of its lights suggesting confusion in its algorithms, as if unsure how to navigate the chaos. Then it stalled, frozen in the middle of the intersection, its sensors overwhelmed by the disorder of the real world.
As if on cue, a long yellow school bus signaled left, only to find its path blocked by the jam of FedEx trucks and the stalled, driverless car.
Cars stacked up behind the bus, and the first horn blared—a sharp, impatient sound that sliced through the air. It wasn’t long before others to join in, a rising chorus of frustration rising from the gridlock. Angry shouts broke out from the tangled mess of vehicles, voices growing louder. A woman leaned out of her car window, her face red with anger. She screamed something that got swallowed by the noise as she pounded her fist against the door.
“Not my problem,” I muttered, gripping my envelope tighter, refocusing on the USPS van.
And then it hit me—the postman might not have gone anywhere at all. He could be inside the van, maybe dozing off, oblivious to the chaos outside, stealing a few minutes of rest in the middle of everything.
“That’s what I’d do,” I thought, picturing him stretched out among the mailbags, eyes shut, letting the world blur into the background.
“Should I knock?” I wondered, weighing the risks. “What if it annoys him, and he ‘accidentally’ loses my letter? Maybe crumples it up, lets it slip into some forgotten corner of the van where it’ll rot with burger wrappers, old flyers, and junk mail. Or worse, what if he just tosses it in with the rest, indifferent, like my letter was just another piece of trash in the endless pile?”
I tapped lightly on the sliding van door, trying to sound friendly. “Hello?” I called, maybe my voice a bit too eager. “Hello?”
Nothing. Not even a rustle from inside.
“That’s what I’d do,” I thought. “Just stay quiet and wait for them to give up and go away.”
I pounded on the van door, harder this time. “Hello!” I called out, alternating fists, the envelope crumpling in my grip as I knocked.
The horns blared louder, and the shouting from the cars rose to a fever pitch. A guy popped his trunk and pulled out a crowbar. Nearby, a man in a suit, dark beard bristling with anger, exploded out of his BMW, door left wide open, fists already clenched, ready for a fight before he even knew who it was with. His eyes locked onto the second FedEx driver, who had just stepped out of his truck, phone in hand, his gaze darting nervously between the advancing bearded man and the chaos boiling around him.
“Is anyone in there?!” I shouted, slamming my fist against the van door. The blue eagle stared back at me, indifferent, as I kept pounding until my knuckles throbbed.
The bearded guy shoved the FedEx driver, sending the phone skittering across the pavement. The driver, cornered and desperate, shoved back. Then came the crack of the crowbar smashing into the windshield of the autonomous car, glass shattering like a muted shot, pieces of camera tumbling onto the street.
I wished I had a knife —I’d slash those tires and be done with it. I need a knife. I’d slash his tires and leave my envelope on the windshield like a love letter.
“You want to die?” “You want to die?” The words tore out of me as I kicked the van with everything I had. “I’m going to slash your fucking tires!”
But the van just absorbed my yells, the metal walls dulling the sound until my shouts felt empty, useless. Out of breath, I spit on the van’s side, watching the spit trail down in a crooked line, mocking my efforts.
Nothing. The silence inside the van was unyielding, thick as a vault door. I lifted my fists to pound on it again, but they hung in the air, hesitation creeping in. A wave of fear broke over me.
What if the postman was in there, sitting in the darkness, quietly calling the cops? Or worse—what if he was loading a gun, preparing to defend himself against a criminal banging on his door?
“If I were a postman,” I thought, “I’d carry a gun. Yeah, I’d definitely have a loaded gun.”
The idea rooted itself in my mind, growing darker by the second. He could probably use it too—claim self-defense; that he felt threatened. I imagined the scenario playing out, the cold inevitability of it. My mind flicked back to that day when I was 11, the postman pissing on us like it was nothing, that memory rising up like a ghost from the past.
The memories swirled—I remembered the icy cop with mirrored sunglasses by the Mission post office, the homeless guy, the ambulance, St. James Church, the Social Security Office, U-Save Plumbing—blurring together like red and blue police lights spinning across asphalt.
My eyes locked on the big, angular blue eagle on the side of the van.
“We. Deliver. For. You.”
“We. Deliver. For. You.”
“We. Deliver. For. You.”
The noise swelled around me—shouting, honking—a distant, muffled cacophony as I stood there, gripping the stamped envelope. It was addressed to Texas, but it felt impossibly heavy, like it was weighted with fuel, ready to ignite, like it would explode if I let it go.
Then came the sirens, growing louder, closer, until they filled the air. Cop cars swarmed in, screeching to a halt, choking the street. Doors flung open, shouts cutting through the chaos. The same cop with the mirrored sunglasses wove in on his motorcycle, slicing through the snarled vehicles like a snake.
The guy with the crowbar didn’t hesitate—he dropped it and melted into the crowd. A woman, maybe his girlfriend, slipped behind the wheel of his car. The bearded guy was gone, but the FedEx driver lay on the sidewalk, blood smeared across his face, staring up at the sky in a daze. Bits of shattered plastic and glass from the driverless car lay scattered across the intersection, like worthless, fake diamonds.
The cop with the mirrored sunglasses locked eyes with me. He spoke into his walkie-talkie, the words lost in the noise, but his actions were clear. He dismounted, hand instinctively going to his gun holster, the buckle coming undone in a smooth, practiced motion. He called another cop over, who did the same, their eyes narrowing as they focused on me.
My heart pounded against my ribs, each beat hammering out a warning as the world around me warped into a blur of noise and motion. The cop’s gaze darted to the envelope in my hand, his face tightening, darkening, as if he’d uncovered something lethal in the flimsy paper in my hand.
Before I could register what was happening, his gun was out, the barrel leveled at me. The movement was swift, too quick for me to react. I stared into the cold, black void of the gun’s muzzle, my mind scrambling to make sense of it. I tried to raise my arms, to signal I wasn’t a threat, but my body was frozen in place, the envelope still clutched in my hand.