Sitting at the kitchen table in his postman's hat, Harv unfolded the morning newspaper and read the main headline:
The story was familiar to Harv and anybody else who had grown up in St. Thomas. The newspaper ran an article about Jumbo every year. He skimmed the story:
On this day in 1885, our own St. Thomas, Ontario was the scene of one of the greatest tragedies ever to rock the circus world. Jumbo the elephant, the headline attraction of P.T. Barnum's circus, died of his injuries after being hit by a train. His keepers tried desperately to make Jumbo move off the tracks, but did not have enough time.
Jumbo was the biggest elephant ever to be kept in captivity. The circus' star attraction, Jumbo was purchased by Barnum from the London Zoological Gardens for $10,000. The elephant proved to be wildly popular with North American circus patrons.
To honour Jumbo, the town of St. Thomas erected a statue of the elephant, which stands on a hill next to the highway and welcomes visitors to the town...
Harv's wife, Coral, leaned over his shoulder and looked at the newspaper.
"Another story about Jumbo?" she asked, "The poor thing."
"Poor thing, nothing! He had it coming."
"Oh, Harv! How could you say such a thing?"
"That elephant was a star. You know how stars act. Everybody has to bow and scrape before them, do everything for them..."
"What's that got to do with the poor beast being hit by a train?"
"I bet he lingered on those train tracks just to get attention. He expected that train to stop and wait, while he took his sweet time getting out of the way." Harv began to talk in a slow, deep voice, trying to sound like an elephant, "`I'm Jumbo.' he said, `Look at me. I'm a bii-iiigg star. I'm bigger than everybody else. I'm bigger than life.'"
"Oh, Harv, don't be silly! I'm sure elephants don't think of themselves that way. Besides, I heard that Jumbo died while trying to save the life of a baby elephant."
"It was a midget elephant, not a baby, and there's no evidence that Jumbo tried to save its life," said Harv, "It says here the keepers warned him to get off the tracks. But Jumbo didn't want to be told what to do, see? He wouldn't budge, out of sheer stubbornness."
"But Jumbo ignored the keepers' advice. He was too full of himself. He was too full of hubris."
"Foolish pride. Jumbo had hubris, I tell you."
"Whatever you say, Harv. You're gonna be late."
"Hubris," said Harv, as he pushed through the screen door, "Remember that word."
"Have a good day, Harv," said Coral, "Stay out of trouble." She ambled into the living room, looking for the dictionary.
When Harv pulled into the parking lot of Post Office B, he found his usual spot taken by a delivery truck. Grumbling, he parked next to it. "Who would be stupid enough," he thought, "to park a delivery truck in my spot? And why would they paint it grey? Such a dull colour." He unrolled his window and stuck his head out for a better look.
The truck had no wheels. And it had an eye. An eye? And tusks!
"Yow!" shouted Harv, scrambling into the passenger seat. There was an elephant in his parking spot!
The elephant stared at Harv with its near eye, and reached through the unrolled window with its trunk. The horn sounded, and Harv jumped, startled. He climbed out the passenger door and retreated to a safe distance. The trunk emerged clutching his rear-view mirror decoration, a miniature tiger tail.
"Hey!" shouted Harv, "You put that back!"
The elephant stuffed the tiger tail into its mouth and began to chew. The eye twinkled; it seemed to smile at him. Fuming, Harv went inside, to find that there was a general meeting in the conference room. The place was crowded.
"Now that everybody is here," said Vernon, the station manager, looking pointedly from his watch to Harv, "I'm going to explain about the elephant.
"His name is Bobo. NOT Jumbo. He has been hired as a publicity measure, to deliver large packages on Main Street. We will need a man to work with him, and we have decided to give this honour to the letter carrier with the most seniority."
Harv winced. That was him! There was laughter, and somebody slapped him on the back.
"Bobo has been living at the Toronto Zoo," said Vernon, "But his keepers have noticed that he seems bored. They agreed to loan him to us in the hope that the experience will liven him up."
"The last thing I wanna see," grumbled Harv, "Is a lively elephant."
For the next three days, Harv underwent elephant training with Bobo's keepers. He grumbled continuously to Coral about "pachyderm duty," as he called it, but secretly he enjoyed it. The duties were very limited, and Bobo did all of the heavy lifting. And, darn it, it was FUN to ride an elephant!
The procedure was simple. Bobo would gently lift Harv onto his back, then Harv would direct the elephant to pick up the parcel. Using vocal commands and nudges with his feet, Harv would steer the elephant to his destination. After placing the package next to the door, Bobo would use his trunk to pass Harv's clipboard to the recipient, who would sign for the delivery.
Bobo's first day at work was a festive occasion. People lined Main Street and cheered as the elephant walked by, proudly carrying a large package on his tusks. The mayor came out onto the steps of city hall and accepted the first delivery. The scene was broadcast that night on the national news.
The gimmick was a rousing success. Bobo and Harv were able to deliver about thirty packages a day. People cheerfully joined a growing waiting list to send something "by Bobo." The costs were high, as the minimum package volume was fifty litres, but nobody seemed to mind.
People put ordinary letters into huge boxes, as an excuse for Bobo delivery. For a period of two weeks, a washing machine was sent from one end of Main Street to the other, and then back again the next day, between the houses of two attention-seeking brothers. Money, it seemed, was no object.
Receiving a damaged package, usually a problem with the post office, became a status symbol. Of course, the damage had to look like it was caused by an elephant. Tusk holes in the sides of boxes were popular, but an elephant footprint on a crushed box created an instant collector's item. "Look what Bobo did to my lamp," the joyful recipient would say, proudly placing the pulverized carton on the coffee table.
But nothing lasts forever. After a few weeks, the sight of Bobo lumbering along Main Street ceased to attract a crowd. Crushed packages reacquired their former unpopularity, and people were less inclined to pay extra for Bobo delivery.
The decline of his celebrity caused Harv no regrets, as he had cynically predicted it all along. But Bobo had grown accustomed to all of the attention, and reacted badly to its removal. When no throngs of laughing children came to pet him and ask for rides as he walked along Main Street, he would begin to trumpet unnecessarily, until passing motorists rolled down their windows and shouted at Harv, "Would you PLEASE shut that stupid elephant UP!"
Then, one morning, Bobo refused to pick up a package that he was supposed to deliver. Eventually, Harv had to pick up the package himself and place it across Bobo's tusks before climbing onto the elephant's back. From then on, Bobo refused to pick up any package by himself.
One day, Bobo was supposed to deliver a piano to the Arthur Murray Dance Studio. Instead, he threw the piano through the plate glass window. Dozens of elderly cha-cha students ran screaming for cover. Bobo threw the clipboard onto the roof and ran, trumpeting wildly, back to the post office. While sulking in the parking lot, he sat on Vernon's car.
The next morning, Harv was told not to begin his rounds. The station bigwigs were having a meeting about how to deal with Bobo's rebelliousness. Harv stood in the hallway, swigging decaf, and announced to several of his loitering coworkers that this was the beginning of the end for Bobo.
"After all," said Harv, "My first impression of that elephant was right all along. That elephant is nothing but a truck. A big, grey, stupid truck." He and the other postal employees laughed, and swaggered into the lunchroom.
Across the hall, standing behind a potted palm, Bobo had overheard everything that was said. He hung his head, and a tear fell from his eye. He bit off the top of the palm, and while he chewed it his expression changed from sadness to anger.
A few minutes later, Harv was putting on his uniform in the locker room when he heard the sound of shouts and running feet. He looked out the door, and saw Bobo charging at any person he saw who was wearing a postal uniform. When he caught someone he would gore them with his tusks or stamp them to the ground with one of his feet. He was trumpeting at an ear-splitting volume, and his ears flapped wildly.
Harv had seen enough. He quickly changed back into his street clothes, climbed out the window, and high-tailed it home.
Bobo's rampage spilled out onto Main Street. Charging up and down the street, he did his best to squish everyone in sight. Seeing red, Bobo was no longer on the lookout only for postal uniforms. He charged at his former customers, and when the citizens had all vacated the street, he crumpled the roof of every car he could find. At last, his fury spent, Bobo stood still in the middle of the destroyed Main Street, and listened to a growing, rumbling sound.
At the end of the street, far away, a tank rolled into view. Someone had called the town's army base, asking them to stop Bobo's rampage. One shot from that first tank whistled by Bobo's ear, and that was enough. Frightened, he turned and ran down a side street.
The only shot ever fired by the armed forces in the town's history, the shell lodged in a billboard that stood behind him. The advertisement on the billboard was for recruitment into the Canadian Armed Forces. The shell blasted a hole in the boot of a smiling officer in the picture.
Hours later, Bobo wandered through the woody areas on the outskirts of town, and listened to the sirens. They seemed to come from all directions. Still angry, but exhausted, Bobo tried not to think about what he had done. But then he emerged from a patch of trees onto a hill that loomed over the highway, and came upon the statue.
To Bobo, standing face to face with the statue of Jumbo was an almost religious experience. The statue was made of stone; it was not a real elephant, but to Bobo it seemed to call out to him, as if it had been waiting for him; as if it had something to say to him.
It will forever remain a mystery what Jumbo's spirit may have said to Bobo that day, but while standing there next to the statue, Bobo was somehow able to communicate across the years, to mesh minds with this great elephant of the past.
Bobo began to regret what he had done. He heard again the screams of his victims. He compared himself with Jumbo, who had brought joy to circus patrons all over the continent. Bobo was ashamed. He knew, then, what he had to do.
Bobo turned away from the statue and walked back through the woods to a park he had seen earlier. There was a train bridge there. He walked up its banks and, finding a place where the trees were thick and nobody would see him until it was too late, he stood on the tracks and waited.
Not far away, a train whistle blew, as if in challenge. Bobo softly trumpeted an answer; a song of resignation.
As he watched the train come around a curve in the tracks and trundle over the bridge, Bobo thought that this was a fitting end to his day, and was glad that he would never hurt anybody, ever again.
The engineer saw Bobo and flung on the brakes, but it was far too late. There was a sickening crunch on impact, and then Bobo was no more.
The army were sent home, with only the single shot having been fired. It took two months to clean up the damage on Main Street, and once everything was tallied up, the cost totalled one point two million dollars, almost as much as what it had cost to deploy the army that day.
Exactly one year after Bobo's rampage, Harv sat at the kitchen table in his postman's hat, unfolded the morning newspaper and read the main headline:
One year ago today, Bobo the postal elephant ran amok. In his binge of destruction on Main Street, he hospitalized one hundred and seventy-two people by attacking them with his tusks and feet. The elephant later wandered onto the train tracks and was killed by an express passenger train headed for Toronto. Seven train cars went off the tracks, four of which plunged fifty feet from the East Street Bridge and landed on the town's lacrosse field. Another seven hundred and thirty-nine people were injured in the train accident. Miraculously, the only death was that of Bobo himself...
Harv looked sourly at Coral, who was reading the article over his shoulder. He chucked the newspaper into the trash can, then said, "Vernon finally approved my application for a desk job."
"That's nice, Harv. What are your new duties?"
"Duties? Well...we never discussed that. That's not the point, is it?"
"I don't understand, Harv. Doesn't any new job usually have duties? A job has to have a job description, doesn't it?"
"Coral, you sound just like the guys at work. I am the senior letter carrier, you know. And I was Bobo's partner. I deserve a reward just for living through that fiasco."
"But you were the only postal employee who wasn't injured! You spent that entire afternoon at home, hiding under the bed!"
"Even so, Coral, I just don't fit in with the other guys anymore. None of them have ridden an elephant on the job. None of them have lost their partner."
Coral sighed, "Whatever you say, Harv. You're gonna be late."
"My experiences are unique," said Harv, as he pushed through the screen door. "This promotion is just the beginning. The sky's the limit, for me."
"Have a good day, Harv," said Coral, "Stay out of trouble." Then as she watched him climb into his car, she muttered something under her breath.