The Paperboy

When I was about 12 years old I moved from Brooklyn to Staten Island for some reason. I was totally heartbroken - I lost all my friends, and access to good pizza. Soon enough though, I got accustomed to this new life in Staten Island, this life in "suburbia". I made new friends. One of these new friends offered me a job helping him with a paper route. My first job ever. Huzzah.

Initially I only helped him on Sundays. The Sunday edition would be thrown from the back of a moving truck either directly at us while we stood there waiting, or at some immovable object somewhere in the neighborhood. Every Sunday we would go looking for this secret stash of newspapers if we missed the delivery.

The giant stacks of papers were never in the same spot. One day they would be gently stacked against a particular tree. Another day they would be hurled halfway to the shoreline or positioned strategically in the middle of mud puddles for some reason. Where ever they were, it was our job at 5am every Sunday morning to find them, haul them back to the garage, put them together, and deliver them to the loyal Staten Island Advance subscribers on our route.

Somehow my buddy commandeered a shopping cart to aid us in this endeavour. I still, to this day, have no idea where or how he got this thing,  he refuses to tell me even after almost twenty years later. I have no idea why he is so secretive about the origin of this shopping cart. Did he pry it from the cold, dead fingers of some vagrant he found decomposing in the marsh? Did he trade his virginity to the local supermarket manager in exchange for a shiny new shopping cart?! Frankly, after so long, I'm growing bored of this mystery.

Anyway, hauling these gigantic stacks of newspapers back to our garage was a chore in and of itself even with the shopping cart. Those bitches were heavy as hell, and usually covered in plastic, which was inturn covered in one or more of the following: mud, water, dog/animal urine, unidentified liquids.

We had about 200 houses on our route, all within the confines of the Captain's Quarter's townhome community. We'd finish around 10am, after which he would hand me a twenty dollar bill, and we would immediately ride our bikes to the shopping center, and spend all our money on comics and chicken parm heros.

Eventually my buddy, who was two years older than me, got a real job and I took over the route alone. Now I had to deliver papers 7 days a week. On days I couldn't deliver the papers, one of the other kids in the neighborhood would do it for ten bucks a day.

I never really made any money after my friend gave me the route. I'm not sure how he made money doing this. Most people would "tip" at the end of the week when I would come around to collect their subscription payments. The tip would often be words of encouragement or warnings to keep the newspaper out of the rain. Rarely would it actually be money. Cheap bastards. I think I made two dollars one week.

Finally I had enough, and one day I just stopped delivering the papers. I didn't call the regional manager to let him know. I left huge piles of newspapers to rot on the street corners for weeks. I remember watching the piles grow as I commuted to school. 

No, really.

I never heard anything about it, never got a call. I have no idea what happened to all of those papers or who took over the route and after literally a few days, I forgot I ever had this job in the first place.