Going to the Post Office (the P.O. we say—I’m going down to the P.O.) next to Don’s Liquors. Jan’s behind the counter and I buy Rainier Ale, one large family size, to share with dinner. Zucchini parmesan again, only it’s cheddar and the last of whatever scraggly tomatoes grow in what’s left of the garden out back in the fog of early summer.

Another time, we plunk down outside the P.O. with our card table or ironing board, our homemade signs and petitions, to stump for some cause or candidate we support or that we want to go away. Passionate discussions ensue with postal patrons, as they come and go, having made their stop at the People’s Store, at Don’s Liquors, or to check the surf from the Terrace Avenue overlook. Surfers, farmers, newly rich, old-timers who resent the newly rich—everyone has to go to the P.O.

Inside, Barbara stands in front of the boxes, in her wild earrings of oranges draped across her head, basket weaver with herself the basket. Smoking one cigarette after the other, talking maybe to herself.

Off her meds, says Big Carl.

The social hub of the Universe, the stop on the way to fresh fish off the pier, pink salmon caught only an hour ago, crab in season, dogs on the beach, a stop at Smiley’s, maybe a game of pool with the usual 5 o’clock crowd.

Now Barbara is gone, we hope to the Midwest family that always swooped in to rescue before she burned herself out, or burned down the town. And Big Carl, also gone, and where are the post mistresses of old? Annie who sang the Star Spangled Banner every year from the deck on the second floor of Smiley’s Schooner Saloon. Sharon, who I see on Facebook, gardens and has cats and seems happy in her new life.

No one ever “went postal” at this P.O. The mail was usually on time, unless the bridge was flooded out like it was in 1982. But today, it’s gone. There’s no P.O. here. Gone in the fire that gutted the building, that made people homeless, that destroyed the realty office and the hardware store. Months later, a sign at the edge of town reads: “___ Days without a Post Office.” The blank’s number changes every day. Last I looked, on July Fourth, 123 and counting.

Now the locals must drive to Olema or to Stinson Beach or fight for coveted home delivery. No one meets in front of the P.O. anymore, a ghost of itself, the whole building a graveyard, still shrouded, waiting for a developer or one of the rich turned benefactor, to buy out what’s left of the old property and gentrify it. Only Don’s Liquors survives, a lonely sentinel in the very corner of the building; still selling elixir to all to ease the pain.

Dotty LeMieux

is the author of four chapbooks, most recently Viruses, Guns and War (Main Street Rag, 2023) and Henceforth I Ask Not Good Fortune (Finishing Line Press, 2021). Her writing has appeared in numerous print and online journals such as Rise Up Review, Gyroscope, Writers Resist, Poets Reading the News, The Poeming Pigeon, and MacQueen’s Quinterly, among others. She is the former editor of the Turkey Buzzard Review in Bolinas, California. Now living in Northern California with her husband and two aging dogs, Dotty practices environmental law and helps elect progressive candidates to office.

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ On the Day the Supreme Court Hears Arguments on the Case That Might Overturn Roe v. Wade in MacQueen’s Quinterly (Issue 12, March 2022); nominated for the inaugural Touchstone Award for Individual Haibun, 2022

⚡ I Remember: Me and Glenn in MacQueen’s Quinterly (Issue 12, March 2022)