Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do by Studs Terkel Read Free Book Online Page B

three—that’s when I get up. I stay up later so I’m tired. But the dark doesn’t bother me. I run into things sometimes, though. Somebody’s dog’ll come out and about give you a heart attack. There’s this one woman, she had two big German shepherds, great big old things, like three or four feet tall. One of ’em won’t bite you. He’ll just run up, charging, bark at you, and then he’ll go away. The other one, I didn’t know she had another one—when it bit me. This dog came around the bush. (Imitates barking.) When I turned around, he was at me. He bit me right there (indicates scar on leg). It was bleeding a little. I gave him a real dirty look.
    He ran over to the other neighbor’s lawn and tried to keep me from gettin’ in there. I walked up and delivered the paper. I was about ready to beat the thing’s head in or kill it. Or something with it. I was so mad. I called up that woman and she said the dog had all its shots and “I don’t believe he bit you.” I said, “Lady, he bit me.” Her daughter started giving me the third degree. “What color was the dog?” “How big was it?” “Are you sure it was our yard and our dog?” Then they saw the dogs weren’t in the pen.
    First they told me they didn’t think I needed any shots. Then they said they’d pay for the doctor. I never went to the doctor. It wasn’t bleeding a whole lot. But I told her if I ever see that dog again, she’s gonna have to get her papers from somebody else. Now they keep the dog penned up and it barks at me and everything. And I give it a dirty look.
    There’s a lot of dogs around here. I got this other dog, a little black one, it tried to bite me too. It lunged at me, ripped my pants, and missed me. (With the glee of W. C. Fields) I kicked it good. It still chases me. There are two black dogs. The other one I’ve kicked so many times that it just doesn’t bother me any more. I’ve kicked his face in once when he was biting my leg. Now he just stays under the bushes and growls at me. I don’t bother to give him a dirty look.
    There were these two other dogs. They’d always run out in the street and chase me. I kicked them. They’d come back and I’d kick ‘em again. I don’t have any problems with ’em any more, because they got hit chasin’ cars. They’re both dead.
    I don’t like many of my customers, ‘cause they’ll cuss me if they don’t get their papers just exactly in the right place. This one guy cussed me up and down for about fifteen minutes. I don’t want to repeat what he called me. All the words, just up and down. He told me he drives past all those blank drugstores on his blank way home and he could stop off at one of ’em and get a blank newspaper. And I’m just a blank convenience.
    I was so mad at him. I hated his guts. I felt like taking a lead pipe to him or something. But I kept my mouth shut, ’cause I didn’t know if the press guy’d get mad at me and I’d lose my route. You see, this guy could help me or he could hurt me. So I kept my mouth shut.
    A lot of customers are considerate but a lot of ‘em aren’t. Lot of ’em act like they’re doing you such a favor taking the paper from you. It costs the same dime at a drugstore. Every time they want you to do something they threaten you: (imitates nasty, nasal voice) “Or I’ll quit.”
    What I really can’t stand: you’ll be collecting and somebody’ll come out and start telling you all their problems. “I’m going to visit my daughter today, yes, I am. She’s twenty-two, you know.” “Look here, I got all my sons home, see the army uniforms?” They’ll stand for like half an hour. I got two or three like that, and they always got something to say to me. I’ll have like two hours wasted listening to these people blabbin’ before they pay me. Mmm, I don’t know. Maybe they’re lonely. But they’ve got a daughter and a son, why do they have to blab in my ear?
    A lot of the younger customers have had routes