After the End

4 JUNEAU

WELCOME TO WEEK TWO OF MY OWN PRIVATE hell.

As I push the mail cart through the swinging double doors, I move from fragranced air and mood music into the mail room’s sweat/glue combo stench and bad-eighties-hair rock.

“Hey, Junior,” says Steve, a fortysomething burnout with a ponytail. “What’s up with the uniform?”

I look down at the regulation company yellow short-sleeved shirt that I’m wearing over a pair of jeans and shrug.

“I gave you blue slacks,” he says. “You’re supposed to wear them.”

“Yeah, but you see, Steve, there’s this thing called a washing machine. And sometimes you’re supposed to put your clothes in there so you don’t smell bad. Since you only gave me one pair of ‘slacks’”—I can’t even say that word without flinching—“I don’t have a spare.”

“Dude, that’s what weekends are for. I wear my uniform during the week, and then wash it on the weekend.”

From the permanent sweat marks under his pits, I have my doubts as to the frequency of his laundry habits. But I just stand there and stare at him, unblinking, until he looks away and starts fiddling with the radio dial. “Your dad said I’m supposed to treat you like everyone else,” he says, not looking at me, “and that means wearing your uniform.”

“Yes, sir,” I say, avoiding sarcasm in my tone but meaning it with all my heart.

I should be in school getting ready for graduation. Partying my ass off like the rest of my classmates. If it weren’t for Ms. Cochran, I would be coasting through the last six weeks of high school and easily into my spot at Yale.

And if it weren’t for my dad, I’d be at home watching Comedy Central. “Working in the mail room, you’ll be getting to know the business from the ground up,” he said. “Prove you’re responsible and I’ll make sure they let you into Yale for second semester. But until then, you work forty hours a week, minimum wage, no screwing around.”

His motivation is as transparent as glass. He wants me to see what life will look like if I don’t “shape up.” That, unless I change, I will be doomed to become Steve, spending my days sorting envelopes and wallowing in self-importance from bossing around lowly mail-room staff.

There’s got to be another way to prove myself to Dad instead of being stuck here for the next nine months. Even a few more weeks in this hellhole and my brain will explode. Or I’ll kill Steve. I imagine wrapping his hair around his neck and pulling hard. Death by ponytail. It could happen.